YGM 2004 Survey Results

What follows is an analysis of the results obtained from a survey circulated by SGD staff at the recent 2004 Yeast Genetics and Molecular Biology Meeting in Seattle. A total of 481 surveys were collected at the meeting. The results were collated and the analysis is presented below.

Options included: Every day, A few times a week, A few times a month, On rare occasions, Never, What is SGD? and users were asked to circle one.

The pie chart is based on a total of 478 responses collected for this question with results presented as a percentage of the total.

Since many of our users picked more than one usage category the results were scored to include all possible combinations. The final percentages are based on a total of 479 responses.

Of the 477 researchers that responded to this question, many users ranked only some of the categories. To plot the graph the individual desirability (1 = most, 7 = least) scores for each category were summed and used to plot the distribution of scores for each. The average score for each was calculated by totaling the combined desirability and dividing by the number of responses received for that category.

Note: Those parts of the locus page considered to be the most useful will have correspondingly lower desirability ratings and averages, as a one was used to indicate the most important category while a seven reflects that of least importance. Therefore, the most useful part of the locus page was protein information. It should be noted that based on the relative position of protein information versus that in question 3 (see other) and question 5, it is possible researchers interpreted the term to mean something other than the protein information page (linked off of the Locus page) as was intended. In addition, based on an analysis of scoring patterns, some researchers appeared to have scored the categories relative to one another, rather than independently, as intended.

Of the users that entered a desirability score in the "other" category, some went on to enter specific examples of what they considered most useful. Common responses were quantitated and are listed in order below. The number of times they were entered is included after the category, followed by the percentage based on the total of users that entered a score in the other category (64 total).

Interactions (10) (15.6%)
Localization (8) (12.5%)
Expression (5) (7.8%)
Sequence, sequence retrieval, sequence tools (4) (6.3%)
Maps (4) (6.3%)
Links (2) (3.1)

A total of 391 users entered one or more responses for this question. Results were categorized and quantitated. The totals for the top 15 resources or tools were then divided by the total number of respondes (487) to generate a percentage. These top 15 resources and tools were plotted based on this percentage.

Of the 450 researchers that responded to this question, many users ranked only some of the categories. To plot the graph the individual desirability (1 = most, 7 = least) scores for each category were summed and used to plot the distribution of scores for each. In addition, the scores were averaged by totaling the combined desirability scores and dividing by the number of responses received for that category. The averaged scores are indicated in the legend next to the category. The lower the average score the more interested users were in having the new information or tool added. In other words, users generally were most interested in having regulatory motif information included at SGD.

It should be noted that based on the the wording of the question and the responses received that a small number of researchers appeared to have scored the categories relative to one another, rather than independently, as intended.

Of the total of 431 responses received for his question, it is clear that a large percentage of our users have either not read the newsletter, or have not received it. We feel that this is primarily because users had to select "is contact = yes" when they filled out their colleague information, indicating that it was okay for us to contact them for this or related purposes. The original intention of setting up such a contact system was to ensure that members of our community did not feel like they were being spammed by SGD. Of the users that responded "yes" or "not very often" the majority, 84.3% thought that the information was useful whereas only 12.9% did not, while the remaining 2.9% did not express an opinion.

The data are plotted two ways. First, as a percentage of total responses (often multiple responses). Second, based on single versus multiple reasons for contacting SGD.

Both pie charts were plotted based on the percentage of users that have contacted SGD. Of the 432 responses, 283 people have contacted SGD (65.5 %) while 149 have not (34.5 %). Results were plotted in two ways as many users had contacted SGD for multiple reasons. For the first graph, percentages were calculated based on the total number of times a specific response was chosen divided by the total responses received (ignoring the fact that many users contacted us for multiple reasons). For the second graph, multiple responses were scored as such, so the total number is a more accurate reflection of the number of users that have contacted SGD, but the breakdown of why they contacted SGD was not scored. So although the second is a more accurate reflection of the number of respondents, some information is lost.

Tell us a little about yourself:

Calculated based on a total of 453 responses.

Other responses included:

College (small, liberal arts, undergraduate) (13)
Government (included NIH and N.Y. Dept. of Health) (5)
Molecular Science Institute (1)

Calculated based on a total of 447 responses.

Other responses included:

Undergraduate (11)
Research Scientist (2)
Laboratory Head (1)
Curator (1)
Unspecified (1)

Calculated based on a total of 457 responses.

Calculated based on a total of 372 responses.

Other responses included:

Opera (4)
HTML (1) St. Jude website (1)
Galeon (1)
Camino (Chimera) (1)
Any (1)
Google (1)
Konquerer (1)

Examples included: MIPS, PubMed etc.

A total of 435 users responded. The top 10 results were graphed as a percent of the total respondents that use other internet resource.