As part of the JISC funded ‘SPIRE’ project we ran a survey to try to discover which online services people were using and in what manner. We were interested to find out which services were popular and if they were being used for work, for study or socially / for fun. The SPIRE project was originally looking into the possibility of using peer-to-peer technologies in UK HE and FE for informal sharing but switched to a more Web 2.0 focus as it became clear that these types of services were already having an impact on the tertiary education sector. They also appear to be where most of the informal sharing and collaboration is currently taking place online.
The survey was advertised to the Department for Continuing Education’s online students and on the online courses marketing pages. We received circa 1400 responses which left us with a lot of data to analyse. I have processed this data in to a number of colorful charts which are in the PDF below.
I have already drawn a number of conclusions from these charts but have not included these thoughts in the PDF as I would be interested to know what others think the data might mean.
Results of the survey undertaken by the JISC funded SPIRE project (PDF)
For the full analysis of this data please download the final report here:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/digitalrepositories/spiresurvey.pdf
Emma March 21, 2007
I’ve just had a quick look at your results – some things I’ve found interesting (such as the fact that post-docs were the most likely to be using Wikipedia!)
I do have a few questions – in particular about services that you’ve not listed. For example, you’d got YouTube but not Google Video (I’ve personally found that the educational range at Google is better, or at least easier to find), you’ve also got MySpace but not Live Journal (or Elgg).
Did you give people the option to add extra systems – either for the categories you had (Social networking) or for others (e.g. Gliffy for creating diagrams?)
It’s useful to have this data though, as I’ve found that I have to get most of the data about what people are using from Pew Internet & that’s US based.
Adolfo Estalella March 22, 2007
They are very interesting data, Dave. It would be really interesting to show the aggregated data for every service not filtered by age, because I think that this data point to a profile of very intensive Internet user that ran across all ranges of ages. In some way, you take the orientation of respondent towards technology when you mention in the report that “the majority of respondents probably had some interest in leaning online to have initially discovered the page.”
And a second question, would it be possible to elaborate data on how many people use one, two, three, etc of these services?
Really good work. Thank you for sharing
Jerry Bakewell March 22, 2007
Useless questions = useless answers, or nothing we couldn’t have predicted about present and future usage patterns through the age groups. Many different spellings of “calendar” suggest the authors were in such a rush to get this to press, they couldn’t be bothered with spell-checking or proof-reading. B-, must try harder.
Marcus Wigan March 23, 2007
Interesting- I note that my age group is left out of the anaylses (65+), and in my experience such pre-boomers are very high users of web2 and the intenet as a whole..and the younger ggrouops *40-65) less so.. at least the latetr seesm to show up!
Sam Tilston March 27, 2007
Thanks for this survey, it was very insightful. The growth of social networking over such a short period of time is really phenominal. I wonder when web 3.0 will start…
morganusvitus April 6, 2007
The site looks great ! Thanks for all your help ( past, present and future !)
barbie oyunları April 28, 2007
report is available for download at Some real data on Web 2.0 use as a PDF […]
Damien Jorgensen May 17, 2007
I dunno if Interesting is the right word!
Freelance Website Design June 15, 2007
Good report. @ Damien… certinaly interesting 🙂
Wesley Atkins July 16, 2007
This survey has proved to be very useful. Thanks for making it available.
Bharath Reddy November 19, 2007
Thanks for the survey…!! It’s quite interesting..
JET April 22, 2008
I’ve been experimenting with various collaboration & document sharing tools and have discovered an excellent site. It is a very user friendly, web-based application that is well worth taking the time to explore. Take a few minutes and look at Projjex.com. The tutorials are excellent & you don’t need to be a Rocket Scientist to figure out how to use it. It even offers a free version so you can try it on for size.
lesley beasant June 18, 2008
I would be really interested in seeing a copy of the final report but the link provided does not work. Please could you send me a copy as it may well support my dissertation.
Steve Harold - Hypnosis Courses July 4, 2008
It’s very useful to see some actual data around Web 2.o use as opposed to the hype the web marketing circles uses
Dave White July 4, 2008
Link to the final report has been updated and now works.
Mira March 30, 2009
nteresting- I note that my age group is left out of the anaylses (65+), and in my experience such pre-boomers are very high users of web2 and the intenet as a whole..and the younger ggrouops *40-65) less so.. at least the latetr seesm to show up!