Journal Article

Google analytics of a pilot study to characterize the visitor website statistics and implicate for enrollment strategies in Medical University

Tsao, Thomas Chang-Yao, Tsai, Yafang, Chen, Szu-Chieh, Lue, Ko-Huang

2020

Overview

Background Taiwan’s colleges and universities are struggling to maintain their student enrollment rates owing to the declining fertility rate. Focusing on students in higher education programs, this study aims to analyze online behavioral patterns for university departmental websites and accordingly, suggests response strategies to increase the rate of enrollment. Methods We use Google Analytics to examine the websites of two departments in a medical university between February 1 and July 30, 2018. We study website patterns during the study periods for three college admission routes: STARS program, personal applications, and admission through examination and placement. Results Most website visitors during the three visiting date ranges for the two departments are 18–24 years. The visitor groups are mainly freshmen at the university and their parents. The homepage and Subject Credits, Course Planning, Teacher Lineup, and Certificate of Subjects were the most visited webpages. The overall number of daily page views varied by academic event. Conclusions University departments should enhance the presentation of featured courses on their webpage or distinguish course characteristics from those of competing departments in the curriculum to ensure clear market segmentation. In addition, departments should consider examining online data to identify suitable high schools that can be visited to attract potential students and to improve students’ willingness to choose their university.

• Publisher: BioMed Central,BioMed Central Ltd,Springer Nature B.V,BMC
• Subject: Academic Ability / Academic Libraries / Admission Criteria / Birth Rate / College Admission / College attendance / College Students / Colleges & universities / Communities of Practice / Comparative Analysis / Curriculum / Curriculum development / Departments / Education / Educational Environment / Educational Status / Educational Technology / Electronic Learning / Enrollment / Enrollment Rate / Enrollments / Forecasts and trends / Google analytics / High School Students / Higher Education / Humans / Institutional Research / Institutional research (IR) / Law Libraries / Marketing / Medical colleges / Medical Education / Methods Research / Pilot Projects / Quotas / Recruiting / Research Article / School Libraries / Students / Theory of Medicine/Bioethics / Universities / Usability / User statistics / Web analytics / Web performance / Web sites / Websites