Reports, Conferences, and Publications
Sharing is Comparing (Ecsite 2024)
Using data from three large-scale research initiatives (spanning cities and nations), this session shared insights to help the sector respond to and expand the use of visitor-related data. Spanning the U.S.A, U.K., and Germany, findings were shared from three projects, each of which seek to enhance ...
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Better understanding visitors through data
This session presented visitor data and shared experiences from participation in the Collaboration for Ongoing Visitor Experience Studies (COVES), a national project designed to unite museums in systematically collecting audience-level data, with a focus on institutional and field-wide improvement.
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Why can’t we be (data) friends?
Alex Lussenhop (COVES/Museum of Science, Boston), Rebecca Nall (Mayborn Museum Complex), and Alex Olivares (The Mint Museum) presented together on how visitor data collection and data use look different across their three very different museums. No matter what type of museum you’re at or where...
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Sense-making in real time: Responding to visitor data during COVID
Extraordinary times call for extraordinary data! Join museums and science centers participating in a national data collection effort to learn about using visitor experience data during the pandemic to respond quickly to visitors' changing expectations. Members of the project's research team also sha...
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Using visitor data with 2020 vision
In this session, we shared how different science museums were using visitor data in new ways to respond to the challenges of 2020. This also included new data collected at science museums about the visitor experience during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Session presented at the 2020 Annual Visitor S...
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Xs and Os: Connecting visitor experience data and operational data to drive institutional change
interdepartmental conversation and prompt change across an organization. In this session, seven examples will be presented of how museums have benchmarked themselves, collaborated with others, and made informed decisions by layering multiple sources of data.
Session presented at the 2019 Associatio...
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Shared measures for evaluating common outcomes of informal education experiences
There has been a recent increase in the development and use of shared measures to evaluate common outcomes in informal STEM education. The presenters discussed technical qualities of shared measures, benefits and concerns around their use, and went into detail of three shared measure initiatives.
C...
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With great data comes great responsibility: Using visitor data wisely in dynamic environments
As science centers, we recognize the value of data—especially visitor data. But the data doesn’t matter if not used. Panelists from institutions involved in a collaborative visitor data collection effort (COVES, Collaboration for Ongoing Visitor Experience Studies) will discuss concrete ...
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Sharing is c(omp)aring: The value of cross-institutional data (ASTC 2017)
This session included a presentation of findings from the first year from COVES, an ongoing collaborative study. A panel of museum leaders from some of the participating institutions discussed the value they see in comparative data, followed by a moderated discussion of how they have begun to use an...
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Sharing is c(omp)aring: The value of cross-institutional data (VSA 2017)
This session centers on initial findings from approximately one year of data collection from the Collaboration for Ongoing Visitor Experience Studies (COVES) project. During the session, three COVES members described the project, presented an overview of key findings from the first year of the study...
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