Educating the Measurers – the UBC Web Analytics course

I just finished the fourth and final module of the University of British Colombia Web Analytics course, loftily called an “Award of Achievement” and thought I would impart my thoughts on the program.

About the course

This fully online course is offered by the University of British Colombia in association with the Web Analytics Association and is comprised of four modules:

Introduction to Web Analytics

This module does exactly what it says on the tin by introducing the student to the concepts of web analysis, KPIs, SEO, campaigns etc.  This unit is a pre-requisite for the other three, but may be skipped on successful completion of a prior learning assessment.  I, however, thoroughly enjoyed it (my tutor, Jeff Young, was tremendously engaged and helpful throughout) and it led me to some interesting investigations into cookie perceptions – you can see the blog posts here and here.  While I was already familiar with the concepts, there were some very interesting case studies in the course material and discussions with students with varying levels of experience were quite enlightening.

Web Analytics for Site Optimization

Persona models, character diamonds and masks were introduced in this module – all of which were relatively new to me in this form.  We looked at visitor behaviour and activity and the assignments behind these led me to some deep-in-thought-on-the-bus-to-a-point-where-I-missed-my-stop introspection regarding the limitations of tracking in the face of miscreant visitors (leading me to ask What happens when sheep behave like people?).

At this point, you might wonder if the course is simply blog fodder, but press on, there’s more!

Measuring Marketing Campaigns Online

I found this module quite challenging in terms of the material offered (see The Cons), but fascinating in terms of the assignments, which really allowed the creative (I know, fantastic pun) side some breathing room.  We looked at the various methods of campaigning and explored the effectiveness of online and offline efforts, focussing on areas like: landing pages bereft of relevance to related paid search campaigns (a personal pet peeve – one of a legion, to be fair).

Creating and Managing the Analytical Business Culture

This was probably the most demanding of the four modules in terms of the fact that it deals with the intangible topic of driving change in a business through web analytics.  Topics in this unit covered the characteristics of a web analytics manager, models of data collection and fashioning a data-driven culture. All of this was from more of a management perspective and forced us to look at everything we’d learned from a new angle.

The Pros

I very much enjoyed doing this course.  I found myself reading some amazing books and blogs that I might previously have missed had I not been researching for assignments.  I was involved in some great discussions and my eyes were opened on a couple of topics I’d only viewed from one perspective.  Some of the assignments were downright fun and overall the resources provided in the online “Moodle” environment were great.

As an incentive to do well, if one were needed, each year the student with the highest grade across all four modules is awarded the Jim Novo Award of Academic Excellence. Who wouldn’t want that?

The Cons

The course materials provided definitely need refreshing.  Most of the lectures appeared to be from 2006.  In some modules, like the introductory one, this did not matter too much, but in Module 3, Measuring Marketing Campaigns online, it was especially frustrating.  Sentences like “Flash tracking may take off, we’ll have to wait and see” (I’m paraphrasing) made some of the information seem desperately dated.

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