Using Google Analytics to Examine Use Patterns for a Collection of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

This poster presents an examination of use patterns for a dSpace collection of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) using Google Analytics. During the one-year study period: (1) in-state patrons used university Web sources and search engines to find the overall collection, then used internal navigation to find individual bibliographic information (metadata) pages; (2) out-of-state patrons used search engines and scholarly databases to go directly to the bibliographic information pages; (3) over 95% of page views for the ETDs themselves (not just bibliographic information pages) were from out-of-state users.