Whiteboard Reader Survey Complete Results
Whiteboard Report is an e-mail newsletter with items of interest to the NSDL Community.  It is sent once every two weeks to 900 members of the “NSDL-all” e-mail listserv and 715 members of the “Whiteboard Subscribers” list. It is also posted on the following lists: “Friends of Whiteboard,” “Pathways PIs”, and “Core Integration-all” within the NSDL system; and  “CU Libe-all” and “K-12 STEM Coordinators” at Cornell University. Because many members probably belong to more than one list, it would be difficult to determine the precise number of Whiteboard subscribers. However, it is probably in excess of 2,000.

In September 2007, 55 readers of Whiteboard Report answered an 11-question online survey. The first question asked for the respondent’s primary professional activity. Responses ranged widely, including:
* digital library developer and NSDL Project PI (9 responses each);
* K-12 educator, college educator, and librarian (7 responses each);
* Pathways PI or community member (6 responses); and,
* education and outreach specialist (2 responses).
Seven other occupations received one response each, including scientist/education outreach; district library media coordinator; staff research associate in higher education; NASA educational materials developer; project manager; curriculum developer K-12; and digital archivist. Eight respondents skipped this question.

Question two asked what kind of science, technology, engineering and mathematics education news was most useful, on a scale of 1 (not important) to 9 (very important). Grant opportunities scored highest, with an average ranking of 7.21, followed by:
* Features about effective STEM resources, tools, and services (7.17);
* Features on effective educators and education strategies (6.92);
* Stories about classroom use of technology in education (6.86);
* Features about digital library development and issues (6.76);
* Features about NSDL services, Pathway partners, and other NSDL partners (6.70);
* Conferences, events, and workshops (6.62);
* National policy re: STEM (6.61); and,
* Professional development opportunities (6.06).
* Eleven respondents said that “other” kinds of news was most important, but they did not elaborate.

In other responses:
* (Question 3) 26 respondents said that they read Whiteboard immediately upon receiving it and 27 said they save it to read later;
* (Q. 4) 49 respondents said the news provided in Whiteboard was helpful to them, five said it was not helpful, and one skipped the question;
* (7) Respondents were asked to rank various methods of distribution from 1( most preferred) to 5 (least preferred). E-mail was the runaway favorite with an average ranking of 1.54, followed by a web page (2.71), RSS feed (2.73), Expert Voices blog (3.63) and Podcast (4.28).
* (8) 28 said they would prefer to continue receiving Whiteboard once every two weeks, 20 said they would prefer it monthly, and three would prefer it weekly. Five respondents had other preferences, ranging from occasional special issues to “when the news warrants it.” One respondent said that they would prefer a continuous RSS feed as well as a biweekly e-mail.
* (9) Only 7 respondents said they had visited the Whiteboard Talkback blog at NSDL’s ExpertVoices blog page. Twenty-six said they did not visit it, and 21 said they had not heard of it before.
* (10) David Bigwood, a librarian at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas, was randomly selected to receive a $100 gift certificate to Amazon.com for answering the survey.

Question eleven was open-ended request for additional comments; of the seven received, five were general positive comments . The other two concerned Whiteboard Talkback:
* “I was unaware of Whiteboard Talkback, although I see now that it is listed prominently in both the Email version of the report and in the header for this survey. However, I just visited it and it appears that it is both well designed and potentially useful. I guess the problem that I have with receiving the report currently by email is that emails that don’t require immediate attention normally don’t get read promptly (which is why this survey is so late). However, I do read most things that come through my RSS aggregator because when I’m looking over those stories, I am more likely to be interested in a wide range of material that isn’t immediately relevant to my job. While it is likely necessary for you to retain email and push technology, having a feed so that individual stories from the report could be published would mean that I would likely read it more often and more promptly. However, I am likely not the representative reader, so take all of this with a grain of salt.”
* “Whiteboard Talkback: doesn’t seem to have gotten much action thus far - I think people either aren’t aware or don’t have time/energy to blog about articles! Also, I noticed this when adding the Talkback RSS feed to my Google homepage: I get an “Information is temporarily unavailable” message (sent email to Elly re: problem). I think that WB is grappling with the same problem NSDL has always had to deal with: serving multiple audiences. Audience categories (educators vs. library developers; k-12 vs higher ed) are possibilities, but the trouble there is having enough content to populate a variety of audience focused news sections. Maybe once-a-month publication would better facilitate that. The trouble with trying to serve all interests is that we may end up not serving any audience really well. What if we focus more tightly on educator and education interests alone, and leave the developer announcements as occasional featured pieces, when warranted? Just tossing out ideas here.”

Question five asked, “What is most useful to you about Whiteboard?” Forty-two responses were received:
∑ a wide range of digital library educational technology news and developments;
∑ Announcements about community events and deadlines, such as Send Brochures to NSDL By Sept. 30 and NSTA/NSDL Seminar #2: Everything Igneous, have proved the most useful to me;
∑ links to other classroom resources;
∑ Ideas about resources for teachers, use of technology;
∑ Sustainability stories;
∑ Informs me of digital library applications and resources I was not aware of;
∑ I regard the NSDL Whiteboard Report as an exceptional professional development venue that I can read at my leisure. I always find an outstanding resource, interesting project. NSDL rocks!
∑ Up-to-date information;
∑ Information about webcast and other NSDL activities;
∑ News about conferences, grant opportunities, opportunities to publicize my project;
∑ To have somebody watch out for news that is relevant to me and gather it into one document. I don’t always have time to do this myself;
∑ highlights and innovations within both NSDL projects and outside projects;
∑ The Bookmarks, and Inspiration sections are very useful resources!
∑ Headlines keep me abreast of the NSDL universe;
∑ I feel like it keeps me up to date on resources that are available;
∑ Features about STEM tools and resources;
∑ All the new information;
∑ keeps me in touch with NSDL news;
∑ Information about NSDL Meetings and other official activities;
∑ new resources;
∑ I like the information on upcoming projects or meetings;
∑ Keeping up to date with new resources;
∑ Up coming events;
∑ some of the articles deal with issues that I am familiar with;
∑ current happenings/events;
∑ Features that indicate the inter-relatedness of NSDL partnerships: Pathways doings, interactions - more variety would be good National STEM agenda tie-ins, opportunities, reports Grant RFPs;
∑ Teaching strategies incorporating online resources;
∑ Resources;
∑ Keep up with the project;
∑ Keeping up with what’s going on in NSDL among the partners - and major education issues;
∑ Information about other NSDL projects and CI;
∑ specific resources and information about workshops;
∑ Hearing about grant opportunities, and keeping up with other NSDL partner organizations and what they are up to between annual meetings;
∑ Conference announcements, project news and updates, being able to read it via e-mail;
∑ I like the project updates/news;
∑ Funding opportunities and new project announcements (both NSDL and non-NSDL);
∑ Timeliness;
∑ Brief descriptions and links to relevant articles, tools, resources, examples, conferences, reports, cfps, rfps;
∑ Keeping up with what NSDL is doing; and,
∑ want to know what other NSDL funded projects are doing so I can piggyback on their efforts.

Question six asked, “What is least useful to you about Whiteboard?” Thirty-three responses were received, but eight of these indicated nothing was least useful. Here are the other 25:
∑ news;
∑ The side news stories sometimes seem like a stretch for relevance to me, such as Virginia Requires Internet Safety Instruction, but it could be that I am not representative of your target reader;
∑ reports relating to policy issues;
∑ Product information;
∑ K-12 information;
∑ I don’t have much time to read it. I sometimes scan the major headings to see if there is something important enough;
∑ Conferences out of my region;
∑ Project specific news;
∑ 90% of what’s there isn’t of direct importance to me;
∑ Stories about classroom use of technology;
∑ The format seems crowded;
∑ must read the whole thing to get benefit. shorter descriptions up front might take me to the articles i’m really interested in;
∑ National policy discussions;
∑ Technical discussions;
∑ Being in a private school a lot of the issues I face are different than public school.;
∑ Occasionally seems to reach for content - maybe once a month publication better?
∑ information related to initiatives that come and go with the political wind;
∑ marketing;
∑ Too broad, covers topics and disciplines that I am not interested on;
∑ It can be a bit parochial;
∑ the format is clunky;
∑ The articles themselves are more useful and informative than the links to projects and other websites;
∑ its format…sometimes there’s more html linking than text;
∑ project updates; and,
∑ show and tell articles.

Analysis
It is impossible to know whether these respondents are a representative sample of Whiteboard readers. However, the survey does suggest that:
* Whiteboard readers are satisfied with the usefulness and editorial focus of the publication.
* Most are also satisfied to receive it twice a month via e-mail, although several respondents said they would prefer to have having delivered individually via an RSS connection as soon as they are completed. Another significant minority (36 percent) would be satisfied to receive Whiteboard via e-mail once a month.
* A weak link exists between Expert Voices and Whiteboard, but so far the “Whiteboard talkback” blog has not proven popular.
* Respondents mentioned two obstacles to greater use of Whiteboard use that are commonly found in NSDL surveys. Some said they are too busy, while others said that their specific interests are not often reflected in the broad range of NSDL materials mentioned.