STEM topics and recruiting

There has been a significant effort over many years to get more students into STEM (Science, technology, engineering, and math) majors. There has been a lot of money thrown at it.

Honestly, most of the STEM proposals that I’ve seen are totally boring – and if I'm bored (a person who likes STEM subjects), I can only imagine what potential students think. Many proposals aimed at STEM recruiting, focus on recruiting students into STEM majors. However, what about developing STEM courses with that appeal to non-STEM students?

I did this with a keyword advertising course where the student utilized a search engine advertising technology (Google Adwords) to manage an online advertising campaign for local firms, while competing with other students in the Google Online Marketing Challenge. The Google Online Marketing Challenge (the Challenge) is an educational innovation for students to learn the complexities associated with online marketing while simultaneously helping students develop insights about working with real business clients. In the inaugural 2008 competition, over 8,000 students in 1,620 teams from 47 countries across six continents competed.

In Spring 2008, I attempted to recruit 5 students for one team to compete in the 2008 Challenge and to run the course as an independent study. Via just viral marketing among students, I had 25 students enroll, and this was for a course that never was listed on the university course schedule. Also, the make-up of the student was about half and half from my college (technology) and half from the business college, with one student from the advertising (communications).

For Spring 2009, I offered the course again. When registration opened, the course quickly filled up (actually overfilled) with 50 students from 5 colleges (IST – 22; Business – 8, Communications – 18, Liberal Arts – 1; DUS – 1).

In both semesters, it was amazing that a technology-based course was so attractive to supposedly non-technology students. Search engine marketing is very technology focused (e.g., online auctions, geo-targeting, traffic estimation, cost-benefit analysis, etc.). However, although the course was technology-based, the students did not view the course as such because the STEM aspects were imbued within the overall domain of online marketing.

As outlined in Driving Change through Diversity and Globalization, Transformative Leadership in the Academy by John Anderson (2004), a foundational assumption of incorporating diversity into the college classroom is that positive intellectual and social outcomes will occur. The key outcome that we in academia aim for is intellectual diversity. Therefore, courses like one here offer significant progress for increasing enrollments and also diverse enrollments in the STEM area.

I am really thinking that STEM topics integrated with other non-STEM topics is way to go address the shortfall of STEM expertise in the current student population.

Visit to SEM - IMPAQT

I recently had the opportunity to visit and give a research talk at IMPAQT, a Pittsburgh-based search engine marketing and search engine optimization firm. I was really impressed!

Founded in 1997, IMPAQT now services mainly Fortune 1000 companies in the SEM and SEO areas. The headquarters on the 7th floor has a wonderful view of the countryside surrounding Pittsburgh. The offices are really interesting and a unique feature is that the conference rooms are all named after defunct search engines (ARCHIE, Wanderer, etc.). A nice touch to keep everyone on their toes and a constant reminder on how the dynamic Web environment changes.

I was there on pizza day! So, during lunch, gave my presentation on research that I have conducted on sponsored links, online branding, and micro-blogging for branding. Also talked about the Google Online Marketing Challenge, including highlighting that the Penn State was one of the winning teams in the Challenge.

Prior to and after the presentation, had some great discussions with members of the IMPAQT team.

Really impressive lineup of talent at this company! I learned a lot.

Web Log Analysis: Diversity Of Research Methodologies

Transaction log analysis is a growing and expanding field, with an increasing variety of approaches.

In the concluding chapter to a book that I co-edited, we review and discus the variety of methods. Really interesting, insightful, and varied approaches.

See the book chapter a review of methods in presented in the handbook of weblog analysis

Using Action-Object Pairs as a Conceptual Framework for Transaction Log Analysis

One issue with employing transaction and search log analysis is that there is so much data that one can sometimes get lost in the trees and miss the forest. This is especially true when one is trying to leverage log analysis to improve or modify system design.

I co-wrote a book chapter concerning the action-object pair approach as a conceptual framework for conducting transaction log analysis. This approach focuses log analysis on system design.

In this paradigm, there are two basic components in the interaction between the user and the system recorded in a transaction log, which are action and object. An action is a specific expression of the user. An object is a self-contained information object, the recipient of the action. These two components form one interaction set or an action-object pair. A series of action-object pairs represents the interaction session.

The action-object pair approach provides a conceptual framework for the collection, analysis, and understanding of data from transaction logs in a way that can benefit system design by providing the organizing principle for implicit feedback and other interactions concerning the user.

See the book chapters on using action-object pairs as a conceptual framework for transaction log analysis

Surveys as a Complementary Method for Web Log Analysis

Every research methodology for data collection has both strengths and limitations, and this is certainly true for transaction log analysis. Therefore, researchers often need to use other data collection methods in conjunction with transaction logs.

I co-authored a chapter with Lee Raine, Director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. In our chapter, we discuss surveys as a companion data collection method for transaction log analysis.

In the chapter, we present a brief review of survey research literature, with a focus on the use of surveys for Web-related research. We identify the steps in implementing survey research and designing a survey instrument.

We conclude with a case study of a large electronic survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project to illustrate what benefits surveys in conjunction with transaction logs can bring to a research study.

See the book chapters on surveys as a complementary method to Web log analysis

Economic Downturn May Be Good for Sponsored Search

Interesting article by Erik Qualman of Search Engine Watch that the economic ‘downturn’ (if this is not a depression, what in the heck is?) will not negatively effect search but may actually be a positive (see economic downturn good for sponsored search).

I believe that Erik makes some good points. In ‘fat’ times, folks get lacks on accountability. In ‘lean’ times, folks get tough with the bottom line. The accountability of online advertising, especially sponsored search, is really unparalleled in the advertising arena.

So, perhaps surprisingly, the economic bad times may be good for the search engines and search engine marketing firms, speeding the transition from offline to the online market.