Prove Your Point 24 th Feb 2016 Bexhill Museum Emily Leach Kate Pontin

This workshop will; Examine why we need to collect data Examine what we mean by visitor data Examine any legal issues we should know about Result in learning through sharing and exploring issues important to you Start or continue your own individual plans for collecting and using evidence

Why collect data? Develop your own way forward based on knowledge not guess work! Accreditation Applying to funders Making your point to trustees or councillors who do not know you very well Informing everyone about how well you are doing A snapshot of yourself Provides evidence of need Success stories and why you need more support Motivators and customer care

The iterative process Plan Consult Implement Evaluate

What is Data? Another word for evidence Our users Numbers; 35, 000 visitors Percentages; 50 % of users arrived in a car An list for newsletter purposes Number of likes on a Facebook page Tracking visitors ‘ no one looked at the display case’ Our non users Comments ‘We would come if there was a café…’ 50 % of teachers in the local school didn’t know there was a museum. We consulted 8 community groups Results of a pilot – ‘6 new schools booked the session’

Evidence comes in different shapes and sizes. Depending on what you want to know and who it is for… Resources available Time to collect the information People to do the work

Quantative Numbers Post code analysis Questionnaires Feedback forms Tick which display you liked best?

Qualitative Interviews Focus groups Photographs/film Letters The things people make or produce; e.g. poems

A word about Data Protection The Act regulates the use of “personal data”. Whether computerised or part of a filing system where an individual can be recognised. There is stronger legal protection for sensitive areas e.g. ethnicity It is the main piece of legislation that governs the protection and processing of personal data on identifiable living people in the UK It defines eight data protection principles. It requires companies and individuals to keep personal information to themselves and not share it with other organisations. Data must be adequate and not excessive. Individuals of appropriate age and capacity must consent to organisations holding their data.

How evidence collection works in practice; Hastings; how feedback changed the museum Tun Wells; what social media has done for them. Bexhill on simple data collection from non users.

Round table exercise. Collecting data for ; Your Accreditation return Applying to HLF for an award of £50k or £8k Annual return to Museum Development Writing an Annual report to trustees A staff ‘forward to victory’ talk Which collection methods will you use? Exit questionaire Focus group feedback Visitor book Postcode analysis visitor numbers

What makes a good data collection plan?

Methods of Presenting Data It is a good idea to think about how you will present the data when planning your data collection! Think about how you are going to analyse or summarise the data in the planning stage too. Choose approaches that you are confident you or someone in the team have the time and skills to analyse and present Think about who you want to communicate with

Quantitative Data Example 1 Table and Pi chart of school data Table 2.1 Total school visits

Quantitative Data Example 2 Ethnicity shown in a bar chart As you can see it shows clearly that Most were white British white (25) A small number were white but international tourists (6) A small number were of other ethnicity but lived in UK (Asian 2, mixed race 2, Black 1)

Quantitative Data Example 3 Quantitative data can also be developed from closed questions about a visit to a museum – here for responses to a scale of how good their visit was.

Qualitative Data Example 1 Presenting Qualitative data is more difficult! One can do a simple table showing the basic trends you can see in the data. Here the things that people liked and those they wanted improving! The quotes have been chosen to illustrate the key themes

Qualitative Data Example 2 Grouping information from comments cards The comments people made have been put into a framework – the Generic Learning Outcomes but others can be appropriate depending on the project objectives.

Qualitative Data Example 3 Using exhibition objectives

Qualitative data presentation: other approaches A selection of quotes in a box or side column A vignette or story blending information into a “typical” visit or experience Web link to a performance or other activity Use photos to show the range of experience and outputs Photos of feedback from sessions such as focus groups – e.g. of a post-it board

Reporting to others!  Look at these reports What works well? What doesn’t? And why? Check who the data is for!  How might you present the data from the comments book?

Key to success…. Understand what you want to find out…. Understand why you want to know about it…. Are you talking to users or non users, stakeholders…. Where can you find them. What is their best method of communication

What to do with the data…. Not just a tick box exercise! Evidence of your work and your success Feed back to staff Feed back to trustees Use to make press releases and publicity material Use to influence donors Use to make funding bids.

Further Information content/uploads/2014/08/ShareSE_Evaltoolkit.pdf content/uploads/2014/08/ShareSE_Evaltoolkit.pdf evaluation/why-listen-visitor.htm evaluation/why-listen-visitor.htm