Measuring the performance of social media marketing in the charitable domain

Social media services offer a new avenue for non-profit organizations (NPOs) to initiate viral and word-of- mouth marketing. Due to the widespread adoption of these sites, there is the potential for this type of marketing to reach a large audience. The emergence of social media as a new marketing platform leads to fresh challenges in that the online nature of it creates difficulties in attributing actions of intent on social media to real, meaningful action that can help NPOs. This paper provides an interdisciplinary approach to discovering the relationship between actions on social media and the performance of NPOs’ social media marketing campaign. A framework is proposed which distinguishes, tracks and measures different stages of social media marketing activity in order to determine its success. The framework provides a number of metrics - taking into account the disciplines of computer science and management - that can be used to assess performance of NPO campaigns, and is tested on two sample charities. Future research directions for this project are then discussed

Taking the relationship to the next level: a comparison of how supporters converse with charities on Facebook and Twitter

Social media provide a unique opportunity for charities to reach a large audience with whom they can engage in productive two-way conversations. This abstract reports findings from a study that seeks to determine the extent to which these conversations occur, and whether they differ between Facebook and Twitter. Differences arise showing that Facebook receives more conversations in response to the charities' own posts. However, on Twitter more comments are made per each engaged supporter, which could represent more unsolicited discussion that provides an alternative type of value

Designing and Delivering a Curriculum for Data Science Education across Europe

Data is currently being produced at an incredible rate globally, fuelled by the increasing ubiquity of the Web, and stoked by social media, sensors, and mobile devices. However, as the amount of available data continues to increase, so does the demand for professionals who have the necessary skills to manage and manipulate this data. This paper presents the European Data Science Academy (EDSA), an initiative for bridging the data science skills gap across Europe and training a new generation of world-leading data scientists. The EDSA project has established a rigorous process and a set of best practices for the production and delivery of curricula for data science. Additionally, the project’s efforts are dedicated to linking the demand for data science skills with the supply of learning resources that offer these skills

Wikidatians are Born: Paths to Full Participation in a Collaborative Structured Knowledge Base

We investigated how participation evolves in Wikidata as its editors become established members of the community. Originally conceived to support Wikipedia, Wikidata is a collaborative structured knowledge base, created and maintained by a large number of volunteers, whose data can be freely reused in other contexts. Just like in any other online social environment, understanding its contributors\u27 pathways to full participation helps Wikidata improve user experience and retention. \ \ We analysed how participation changes in time under the frameworks of legitimate peripheral participation and activity theory. We found out that as they engage more with the project, ``Wikidatians\u27\u27 acquire a higher sense of responsibility for their work, interact more with the community, take on more advanced tasks, and use a wider range of tools. Previous activity in Wikipedia has varied effects. As Wikidata is a young community, future work should focus on volunteers with little or no experience in similar projects and specify means to improve critical aspects such as engagement and data quality

The role of data science in web science

Web science relies on an interdisciplinary approach that seeks to go beyond what any one subject can say about the World Wide Web. By incorporating numerous disciplinary perspectives and relying heavily on domain knowledge and expertise, data science has emerged as an important new area that integrates statistics with computational knowledge, data collection, cleaning and processing, analysis methods, and visualization to produce actionable insights from big data. As a discipline to use within Web science research, data science offers significant opportunities for uncovering trends in large Web-based datasets. A Web science observatory exemplifies this relationship by offering an online platform of tools for carrying out Web science research, allowing users to carry out data science techniques to produce insights into Web science issues such as community development, online behavior, and information propagation. The authors outline the similarities and differences of these two growing subject areas to demonstrate the important relationship developing between them.<br/

The European Data Science Academy: Bridging the Data Science Skills Gap with Open Courseware

As a global society, we are producing data at an incredible rate, fuelled by the increasing ubiquity of the Web, and stoked by social media, sensors, and mobile devices. However, as the amount of produced data continues to increase, so does the demand for practitioners who have the necessary skills to manage and manipulate this data. The European Data Science Academy (EDSA) is looking to bridge the data science skills gap by developing multimodal open courseware tailored to the real needs of data practitioners. The EDSA courseware is implemented as a combination of living learning materials and activities (eBook, online courses, webinars, face-to-face training), produced via a rigorous process and validated by the data science community through continuous feedback

Automated analysis of charities’ communication styles on Twitter

This extended abstract presents an overview of a technology demonstration that would consist of a novel piece of software for automatically analysing charitable organisations’ posts on the micro-blogging service Twitter. The main contribution is an inbuilt taxonomy of communication styles, which is used to classify each charity based on the results of the analysis undertaken. The demonstration will showcase this automated process, as well as explaining the restrictive properties for each category, and why certain charities are classified into certain styles

Measuring the megaphone: how are charities using social media for marketing?

The Web has disrupted charitable marketing by providing new opportunities for word-of-mouth marketing on an unprecedented scale. This paper describes the transformation in marketing that the Web – and social media in particular – has brought about by providing customers with more power, before highlighting the need for a broad investigation into how charities are now using these services so that its impact upon modern society can be realized. A framework is identified in the literature that will be used to categorize charities’ interactions on these sites and show how the Web has transformed marketing activities. Interviews will determine whether UK-based charities’ aims for social media marketing are likely to be met given their current usage as identified using the framework. These findings will provide a foundation on which to build a system of measurement, as part of a wider research agenda to analyze charitable marketing performance for which a previously constructed framework will be further developed to help determine the success of such marketing campaigns

A technology toolkit to support accessibility of formative e-assessment for disabled students

This paper illustrates how problems with accessibility and ease of use of electronic formative assessment tools can be overcome by the judicious use of assistive technologies and presentation modes to enhance teaching and learning for disabled students and those with specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia. Where formative assessments are used to enhance teaching and learning to meet the needs of students, it is important to work in an inclusive environment to support diverse personal preferences and skills. Positive responses to e-assessment can only be achieved if a toolkit of support and guidance is available to both students and developers