Leveraging User Data to Drive a Website Redesign

Background: One of the most challenging aspects of redesigning an organization\u27s website is balancing the needs of existing users while optimizing the experience for future users. This balance is especially crucial in academia where new users arrive every semester and may remain for anywhere from a year to a decade or more. When faced with the task of redesigning its website, GW\u27s Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library conducted extensive user research in an attempt to design a site that preserved the positive aspects of the experience of existing users while improving their experience and reducing the learning curve for new users. Methods: In the late fall 2012, Himmelfarb made enhancements to its existing Google Analytics setup to provide more in-depth information regarding how users interact with its website. The library distributed a 16 question survey asking faculty and students in the Schools of Medicine & Health Sciences, Public Health & Health Services, and Nursing to critique the library\u27s website. Himmelfarb staff administered in-person usability tests of the new website with students and faculty. Results: The raw data provided by Google Analytics was useful in allowing Himmelfarb Library to determine the most and least used portions of its website and also provided insight into the navigation paths of users. Results of the survey, completed by 150 users, provided additional information that mere numbers could not. Among other things, the survey allowed Himmelfarb to differentiate between portions of the website that were not used because they were hard to find and those found not useful by users, and also to identify content that users desired to be added to the website. Finally, in-person usability tests ensured that existing users still found the website useful and that their positive user experience remained intact and in many cases improved with the new site. Conclusion: Himmelfarb launched its new website January 2, 2014 so feedback has been sparse but generally positive. Use of key information resources has increased up to 80% since the launch of the new website when compared to the old website over the same length of time. Overall, it seems that library was able to preserve the positive user experience for existing patrons. Further assessment is planned for the fall 2014 semester when a large group of new users will be available

Democracy and Deference: Or, Why Democracy Needs People Who Know How to Shut Up and Listen

The charge for this conference asked us to consider the future of liberal democracy given the challenges it presently faces. Two challenges in particular give me pause: First, the issues that are most in need of governance are now happening at the transnational level. We face the possibility of an altered climate due to increased carbon emissions; increased political turbulence due to increased migration flows, including a resurgence of refugees and, of course, increased resistance to refugee admissions; and increasingly complex international processes for both the production of goods and the movement of capital. None of these issues can be solved at a local level; all require the will to engage in politics across differences in global institutions and forums. Second, the default tool for political governance—liberal democracy, or some version of it—is increasingly under assault. Even in stable democracies such as the United States, trust in government is near historic lows. Fewer people are willing to engage in politics across differences in favor of some version of authoritarian populism. Even when authoritarianism has not taken hold, there is a rise in secessionism, whether literal or the more nuanced sort of separatism that insists that one’s political adversaries are traitors or fools… In this Article, I will discuss three possible spaces: education, especially higher education; political activism and the modes in which it might be done; and journalism. I must say, though, that I am not confident that any of these sites will actually be able to do the job. It is not clear that the problems of liberal democracy are soluble, whether through these means or any others. Nevertheless, I would like for us to try. If we are to abandon liberal democracy, it should only be after we have tried our best to be the sort of people for whom liberal democracy was possible. Epistocracy if necessary; but, emphatically, not necessarily epistocracy. In the next section of the Article, I will describe three forms of deference that seem necessary for the just and efficient administration of liberal democracy. In the following section, I will describe the three sites at which we might try to build these habits of deference. I will conclude with some brief thoughts about whether or not such efforts are likely to succeed

Near-Infrared Spectroscopy of the Bright Kuiper Belt Object 2000 EB173

We have obtained a near-infrared spectrum of the bright Kuiper Belt object 2000 EB173; the spectrum appears featureless. The spectrum has a sufficient signal-to-noise ratio to rule out the 1.5 and 2.0 μm absorption from water ice even at the low level seen in the Centaur Chariklo. In addition, we can rule out a 2.3 μm absorption at the level seen in the Centaur Pholus

Impact of Home Field Advantage: Analyzed Across Three Professional Sports

We examined the impact of home-field advantage in the NFL, NBA, and MLB. We defined home-field advantage as winning more than 50% of the home games. Additionally, we took into consideration how season length could act as a moderator and influence the impact of home-field advantage. We collected data from the 2015 NBA and MLB seasons and the 2015 and 2016 NFL seasons to determine statistical significance. In total, we got data from 4,141 games to analyze. We found that there is statistical significance that the home team has a better chance of winning than the away team across the NFL, NBA, and MLB. We also found that season length has a significant impact on home team winning percentage

Kagel at the Almeida

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The Discriminating Shopper

This argument proceeds in two parts. Part I attempts to show that there is something special about discriminatory shopping, such that we ought to understand it prior to deriving an overall theory of employment discrimination. Part II then proceeds to analyze the political morality of discriminatory shopping and offers an account of when and how liberalism morally prohibits such discrimination. Part III concludes that such private discrimination is not always contrary to the egalitarian guarantees of liberalism; while there are some cases in which such practices run counter to liberalism\u27s egalitarian guarantees, not all cases of discriminatory shopping have this quality