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MINUTES Page 1/16 TITLE / REFERENCE TERENA Task Force TF-CPR Notes on TF-CPR meeting in Rome, Italy Tuesday 24 September – Wednesday 25 September 2013
Author: Cora Van den Bossche, TERENA Communications officer
Overview This meeting was hosted by GARR.
List of participants
Present Person Organisation Country
1 Ana Afonso FCCN Portugal
2 Lajos Balint NIIF/Hungarnet Hungary
3 Virginie Blanquart RENATER France
4 Nino Cosic CARNet Croatia
5 Diana Cresti GARR Italy
6 Laura Durnford TERENA N/A
7 Cora Van den Bossche TERENA N/A
8 Roland Eugster SWITCH Switzerland
9 Audrey Gerber via VC IUCC Israel
10 Damjan Harisch ARNES Slovenia
11 Jakub Havel CESNET Czech Republic
12 Gitte Kudsk DeIC Denmark
13 Laetitia Lagneau Belnet Belgium
14 Tiina Leiponen CSC-FUNET Finland
15 Cristina Lorenzo RedIRIS/Red.es Spain
16 Nathalie McKenzie DANTE N/A
17 Jasmina Mešić ARNES Slovenia
18 Karl Meyer DANTE N/A
19 Marta Mieli GARR Italy
20 Kristiana Muze-
Feldberga
SigmaNet Latvia
21 Melanie Pankhurst DANTE N/A
22 Maria Ristkok via VC EENet/HITSA Estonia
23 Goran Skvarc via VC CARNet Croatia
24 Jennie Stewart via VC Janet UK
25 Federica Tanlongo GARR Italy
26 Domenico Vicinanza DANTE N/A
27 Carlo Volpe GARR Italy
28 Lonneke Walk SURFnet Netherlands
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Apologised
1 Anne Balic RESTENA Foundation Luxembourg
2 Fi Coyle HEAnet Ireland
3 Christine Dworak ACOnet Austria
4 Lars Fuglevaag UNINETT Norway
5 Cynthia Wagner RESTENA Foundation Luxembourg
Agenda TUESDAY 24 SEPTEMBER Welcome: Introductions and agenda Gitte Kudsk (DeIC - Chair) & Laura Durnford (TERENA - Secretary)
13:40-04:00 - GARR: Presentation company overview Enzi Valente, Director (GARR)
(Presentation slides - PDF)
14:00-14:20 – GARR communications-PR overview of team and activities Federica Tanlongo (GARR)
(Presentation slides – PDF)
14:20 – 14:25 – News Terms of Reference reminder and status Laura Durnford (TERENA)
14:25-15:00 - 10 years of TF-CPR – memories and benefits Ex members and mailing list only participants are invited to join via VC to say how their role /
organisation has changed since their involvement with TF-CPR / their views on its value and future. They
are also welcome to stay available during the coffee break to chat with any participants on a more 1-to-1
basis. We will be hearing from Elise Roders, Sandra Passchier, Russell Nelson Carol de Groot and Marta
Moreira Dias, among others.
(Slides with messages (PDF)
15:30-15:40 - Lightning update from Global PR Network (TBC) - a recent new development Melanie Pankhurst (DANTE)
16:00-17:30 - NREN Anniversaries and Lightning Updates Virginie Blanquart (RENATER) (slides PDF), Ana Afonso (FCCN) (slides PDF), Roland Eugster (SWITCH)
(slides PDF), Damjan Harisch (ARNES) (slides PDF), Laetitia Lagneau (Belnet) (slides PDF), Tiina Leiponen
(CSC-Funet) (slides PDF).
WEDNESDAY 25 SEPTEMBER 9:30-10:30 - Preparation of new work items: videos and best practices One group will identify videos that could be re-used, another group will identify / start work on 'how
to…' documents / best practices from recent topics.
TIME?? – PRACE Project Tiina Leiponen (FUNET-CSC)
Presentation slides? 3:45 - 15:15 - Session 2: CONTEXTS - 'Measuring & Monitoring' theme day, including breakouts
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Agree contexts for 3 groups to discuss (60 minutes), review and visually
summarise on flipchart (15 minutes)
Session 2 Objectives: fill in the wiki table, identify questions / issues
related to these contexts, research answers and exchange experience, identify individual actions for own
work, prepare to give feedback in session 3.
15:45 - 17:15 - Session 3: FEEDBACK, KPIs AND DISCUSSION - 'Measuring & Monitoring' theme day Hear summaries from session 2 and discuss KPIs, individual-level outcomes, discuss and summarise
outcomes at task-force-level
Session 4 Objectives: fill in the wiki table, identify individual actions for own work, identify task-force
actions for future work e.g. training / further discussions, summarise the day.
17:15 - 17:30 - Meeting summary, thoughts for next meetings, AOB
Welcome: Introductions and agenda Gitte Kudsk (DeIC - Chair) & Laura Durnford (TERENA - Secretary)
Round-table introduction.
GARR is thanked for hosting TF-CPR.
GARR: Presentation company overview Enzo Valente, Director (GARR)
Consortium GARR (Gruppo per l'Armonizzazione delle Reti della Ricerca) has existed for more than 20
years. It is not funded by the government but receives funding from non-profit organisations. The four
founding members are responsible for the budget. GARR’s activities comprise network communications
as well as infrastructure based on storage and computing. It currently has a staff of 45 and, while looking
to grow, does not intend to go beyond 70. GARR is a shareholder of DANTE.
14:00-14:20 – GARR communications-PR overview of team and activities Federica Tanlongo (GARR)
Communications targets
The user: this includes user organisations; institutional contacts (management, administrative point of
contact) user communities, schools, individual users (although it is more difficult to reach them).
Institutions: This includes the European Commission, government ministries (despite no direct funding
from the government, GARR also works on projects with specific ministries Health, Education & Research,
Cultural Heritage), local public administrations.
Other main communications targets include news agencies, journalists and the general public. These
targets are important to get to the users through another route.
GARR activities
Events: These are the most important activities as well as most time consuming. There is normally one
annual technical workshop. User conferences for specific communities/projects/services, e.g. identity
federation, are also organised. GARR also participates in external events.
Publications: both printed and online. Printed publications are found to be increasingly important, the
GARR magazine being the most followed one. Published in Italian, more than 6000 copies of this
magazine are printed. These are mainly shipped to institutional contacts but there are also an increasing
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number of subscribers. In 2013, an online version was created and GARR is
currently experimenting with new media content to complement written
articles. All interviews and videos are produced in-house as these are easy
to produce. Animations are harder to produce and therefore need to be outsourced. In case of an
animation, GARR produces a storyboard and concepts, the rest is then outsourced. GARR is also
experimenting with open access and metadata research to make information more searchable. Selected
papers from conferences and workshops are produced in-house and only the printing is outsourced. The
annual report (bi-lingual) is the most complete source of published information; the English version
online needs to be updated with more pages. GARR also produces thematic booklets for specific
activities and events e.g. 20-years of the network.
Web: over 100,000 visits and 75,000 unique visitors in 2012. There are 10 satellite websites/portals:
services or portals for specific community projects. When producing the new issue of the magazine,
discussions also focus on what can be produced for online.
Press relations: GARR has more than 500 press contacts: news agencies, printed press, online press, ITC
blogs and websites. GARR is currently strengthening relations with user communications/press offices. It
is easy to approach bloggers and ICT websites. What is more difficult is approaching news agencies if
GARR does not have a case study to back up their news.
Does GARR work with edubloggers? SURFnet does this, organising a seminar for them twice a year so
that fellow edubloggers can meet in person and discuss specific topics. This works very well as when a
blogger knows you they are likely to follow your work. It is good to strengthen collaboration with the
press as they are opinion leaders and this also makes them more likely to attend SURFnet events. GARR
sometimes invites bloggers to events.
What does GARR count as a presence? This depends very much on the media e.g. press clippings, radio
interviews, videos. With online distribution sometimes people just post your press release, in which case
this does not count as press presence, or just once. Only when changes are made does it count.
Info and promotion: GARR focuses more on information rather than promotion. Their leaflets are not
very flashy but mostly intended for distribution when meeting users, institutions, work meetings.
However, more promotional materials are currently being planning. GARR also produces case studies,
either alone or within the framework of other projects. Real use cases generally tend to generate better
understanding.
Other: social media communications is not very developed due to a lack of interest by the management
in developing a social strategy. However, the communications department is pushing for this as they
tend to find that this medium can be complementary at times.
10 years of TF-CPR – memories and benefits Current and ex-members called in through Skype. Laura read out several messages from Russell Nelson,
Carrie Solomon, Marta Moreira Dias. Ex-members Carol de Groot, Elise Roders, Sandra Passchier joined by
Skype. Laura read out messages sent in by former members who could not attend the meeting.
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Elise Roders said: “Being a member of TF-PR and TF-CPR was always a
great pleasure, meeting everyone and sharing information.” Even today
Sandra still uses knowledge obtained during these meetings: when she needs information she will ask
others, but always make sure that she also shared her knowledge. Always sharing is something she
learned at TF-CPR.
Sandra said that she was proud that TF-CPR still exists, congratulating everyone. The task force helped
her in her early years when she began working in communications at SURFnet. She was then looking for
colleagues to share experiences and ideas. She now works as an account advisor at SURFnet for all
healthcare institutes connected to SURFnet.
Carol, the first and longest running secretary of TF-PR and TF-CPR explained that when the task force was
first set, everyone thought it would not succeed. TERENA’s technical staff thought it irrelevant. At the
time, they were not allowed to link the task force from the TERENA website’s task force page, instead
linking from the ‘About’ page. This has now changed, and so the task force did succeed. On the 10th
anniversary of the task force it is nice to be able to consider ourselves task force equals.
Laura noted that she had written an article about the task force anniversary for the next issue of
CONNECT magazine. A news item would also appear in the PeaR newsletter and would include whether
the TERENA Executive Committee approved the new Terms of Reference for another two-year mandate
for the task force. Laura also thanked all those who completed the anniversary survey: around 80% of
active participants filled it in. The overall responses are very positive, reflecting a general feeling that the
task force is useful , while there were also suggestions on how to improve it.
Lightning update from Global PR Network (TBC) - a recent new development Melanie Pankhurst (DANTE)
The Global PR network idea is to have representatives from different continents/regional network
communities to participate and share knowledge, similar to TF-CPR and GEANT-PR. The aim is also to
promote the idea of a global community and create the feeling of being part of a group. Laura pointed
out that the Global-PR would only have value if it did not just replicated the work of TF-CPR (a point
which the task force agreed upon in a previous meeting).
ACTION: Melanie will circulate meetings notes from past meetings about Global PR
Global-PR meeting at TN2013: A BoF was organised to discuss the benefits of having a Global-PR
network, which would support the other idea of a Global NREN. The notes and actions from this meeting
were circulated on the Global-PR and TF-CPR mailing list. Actions from that meeting include appointing
a Steering Group or Chair, with only one person volunteering so far. Tom Friar is currently coordinating a
case study. Another action is to develop a positioning text: Melanie has sent round a draft for which she
received comments. Other actions include drafting a boilerplate text and determining the economic
benefits of the network to the community. Domen also suggested that Comms and PR-related topics be
included in the TNC2014 programme. Laura mentioned this to Gyongyi Horvath, TNC conference
organiser at TERENA. The advice is to see what the programme opportunities are and fit something
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around it.
Current status of Global-PR: there are still on-going discussions about
what the Global PR network should be. Helga and Melanie are currently putting together a proposal for
the Global Forum. They will share this document for comments with the Global-PR mailing lists once
they are happy with it. There are no Terms of reference yet, as it is first important to focus on what the
Global-PR network wants to achieve. There is also an issue of funding. Chris Hancock seemed very
supportive of the role of PR and comms towards a Global NREN.
Anyone who does not know about the Global-PR network can join the mailing list individually, however,
for those who do not want to join as an individual, a new item for TF-CPR is to act as a liaison.
What are the next steps? Putting together a Global-PR proposal together with the hopes that the CEO
Forum will discuss it. However, the aim is not to obtain their blessing for a Global-PR network. Is this
proposal an informative piece? Or is aimed at obtaining funding from them for a coordinator for the
Global-PR group?
16:00-17:30 - NREN Anniversaries and Lightning Updates Virginie Blanquart (RENATER), Ana Afonso (FCCN), Roland Eugster (SWITCH), Damjan Harisch (ARNES),
Laetitia Lagneau (Belnet), Tiina Leiponen (CSC-Funet)
Virginie (RENATER): RENATER celebrated its 20th anniversary this year, celebrating this milestone in
various ways. In 2013, the RENATER logo was redesigned, as well as its website (although there are no
plans to redesign the website again due to the emergence of new services). The whole community uses
the RENATER website to join new services. RENATER also began using social media (Facebook, twitter
and LinkedIn) and Virginie is currently learning how to use these. A big event, attended by 200 people,
was organised in February at the IRCAM in Paris. A book narrating the history of RENATER was published.
A movie was produced with a school and an agency, with RENATER initially finding it difficult to explain
what they wanted.
Ana (FCCN): Ana joined FCCN just three months ago. FCCN is still a private/non-profit institution but
changes are taking place. There are currently 78 connected entities. Services include YouTube for
knowledge, video production for teachers. The website was launched in 2011 and there are satellite sites
for each service. FCCN is developing a newsletter that has received positive feedback.
Portugal is facing a big economic crisis so the government is trying to reduce the number of
foundations. FCCN merged with FCT following a governmental decision. The FCCN President resigned
and a new one was urgently appointed. FCT is a big bank for scholarships and the main funder of FCCN.
FCCN will official integrate with FCT on 1 October 2013. Operationally FCCN will remain the same. The
immediate goals are to adjust the FCCN’s image with that of FCT. An upcoming project is an annual 3-
day event for 200 people where all services are showcased. The online library service will also be
celebrating its 10-year anniversary and an event needs to be organised for this. As Ana has little
experience in the event-organising field, she welcomes all advice from the TF-CPR group. The 30-year
anniversary of FCCN will be in a couple of years.
Roland (SWITCH): In 2012, SWITCH celebrated its 25-year anniversary. The organisation wanted to
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celebrate this jubilee by highlighting SWITCH’s new mission and strategy
‘embrace the knowledge space’. Two events were organised: an
anniversary event and another one for friends and family. A movie was
produced with a university of art class. SWITCH provided a detailed briefing and the class produced the
film. A spaceship was created for the event, using a tent owned by SWITCH. Inside this spaceship,
participants could watch 180 degrees projection of the film, accompanied by voice and piano. The movie
tells the story of a girl exploring the knowledge space, exploring the different subjects of higher
education. SWITCH organised a professional event management agency for this event. An online history
of SWITCH was distributed via social media, included in SWITCH magazine articles, while the press was
invited to see this.
The SWITCH website was re-launched. There are plans to introduce an online magazine, putting all
storied in the printed magazine into an online page. The magazine will continue to be printed but the
main focus will move to the online platform. The online magazine was built using an open CMS, as is the
entire website. Open CMS also have a module that work for blogs.
SWITCH needs to get rid of 600,000 customers. It needs to get rid of its registrar business because it is not
what the market needs today. 70 registrars have been built which is a big enough number for them to
make the market themselves.
SWITCH is focusing on improving communications in regards to the malware process where SWITCH
takes down a website with suspicion it has malware. The people affected by this decision often do not
understand. A similar problem is encountered by ARNES who began a campaign to educate website
owners about their website: a booklet was produced alongside an online campaign.). ARNES organised a
meeting inviting all registrar owners to teach them, but only the big ones attended (Still representing
70% of all registrars). In Portugal, traffic is also cut to website in case of malware and has put in a place a
phone line for website owners to call to ask questions. The main issue in Switzerland is that there are so
many stakeholders involved. SWITCH’s key measure is to have a web platform so that stakeholders can
see at what stage the malware is operating.
SWITCH will start looking into crisis communication. It will also launch a private cloud for the SWITCH
university community. GARR is currently piloting this.
ACTION: Karl suggested to coordinate material that can be used to educate those concerned e.g. a
common leaflet ‘we took down your site because…’ This would also include information about malware
while each country would have its own leaflet.
ACTION: Nino suggested that if this is something that will end up happening in all EU countries that it
would be useful to include in the next TF-CPR agenda.
ACTION: Many TF-CPR participants will be looking at crisis communication in the near future, so this
could be added to future meeting agendas.
Are all NREN events organised with sponsors? In Spain, RedIris always works with sponsors: the benefit
for the sponsors depends on how much they pay. They also have an opportunity to speak and present
their products.
Damian (ARNES): In 2012, ARNES celebrated its 20-year anniversary. They wanted to tell people that they
had been there for a long time and achieved good results, that ARNES is a pioneer in its field, and thank
all those who contributed to their success. Celebrations focused on users, ministries, partners and ARNES
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staff. Challenges included funding (recession), everyone having different
expectations, logistics. ‘20’ was added to the ARNES logo. A brochure was
produced including a 20-year timeline, founding members. An event was
organised, a combination of conference for users and celebration in the afternoon. A minister attended
the event, plaques were given to partners and a LOLA project concert took place. The LOLA event can be
found on YouTube. Old articles written by ARNES staff or about ARNES were exhibited. Two Slovenian
comedians, used for the ARNES promotional video, coordinated the event.
Laeticia (Belnet): Belnet is celebrating its 20-year anniversary this year. In 2012, time was spent on
brainstorming about why Belnet should celebrate this anniversary. One objective is to raise the attention
of funders and society in general to Belnet. Belnet also wanted to focus on, and thank, the customer as
without them the NREN would not exist. Another objective is to raise team spirit, bring staff together and
recall their objectives at Belnet. As it would have been difficult to have a one-time event to celebrate all
of these objectives a decision was made to organise various activities throughout the year.
Internal communications: This was the first focus of the celebrations. It focused on what Belnet was 20
years ago and what it is trying to achieve now. Cupcakes were baked with the Belnet logo. This was
informal but a fun and first reminder of the anniversary.
External communications: The focus was on achieving presence in the press and in the news, as this
usually does not happen. Journalists were invited so that they would better know Belnet. A total of five
news articles appeared in the press. In the customer monthly newsletter an article would appear about
the anniversary, each with a different focus, to ensure customers remembered this event. Belnet also
tried to publish articles in specialised magazines, such as CONNECT or university magazine. A logo
designed specially for this event was put on the Belnet website and a 3D exemplar was placed at the
Belnet reception.
Events: A party was organised for all employees (former and current) and their families in a car museum.
A VIP event will take place in November, which will be attended by ministers (with the intention of
showing to them what Belnet is achieving useful results with funding – current economic crisis means
funding cuts). A dedicated networking event will take place in December.
Other actions: A virtual wish tree was produced which will either be printed or projected on a wall during
the networking event. A video will be produced: it will focus on the customer and memories of Belnet.
Older Belnet staff is asked about projects from 20-years ago, and the video will end focusing on projects
today. An internal contest was launched where Belnet staff is asked to use their mobile to film a celebrity
wishing Belnet a happy birthday. The videos are submitted and the winner will win a prize.
Overall conclusions: anniversary celebrations are time and energy consuming. Partial results till now are
rather positive so they are happy with the efforts.
Tiina (CSC-FUNET): FUNET and CSC are jointly working together. Between 6-12 organisations have been
contacted in 1.5-year time. The FUNET technical days are the most important gathering of customers. An
annual meeting takes place early June where a majority of organisations are represented. FUNET has 80
customer organisations and 350,000 end users. IT days: event where all universities and higher education
institutions IT directors meet. At this event, FUNET is in the programme committee or asked to deliver a
presentation. FUNET is also doing a lot of training in IpV6 activities. The FUNET portal is in finish.
Customers can access their personal information and modify it. A test space portal is trying to collect all
CSC services. Currently negotiating BOX. In Finland, customers are keen on knowing where data is
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stored. Two major university customers would guarantee that the BOX
service is used.
Preparation of new work items: videos and best practices One of the new works items for TF-CPR is to start finding ways to identify videos that can be shared, re-
used, repurposed, and agree on a way of noting this information e.g. wiki space, notes. Another work
item is to identify topics where we want to start pulling together best practice documents/how-to-
sheets/cookbooks/check-lists of things to think about when organising an event. A wiki space can be
created with a table to include this information.
Group 1 - Videos: List videos that are of interest either for re-use or to get ideas. FUNET uses a video
about FileSender. The video is based on an original video by AARNET for the CloudStore service (similar
to FileSender). Tiina contacted AARNET directly about possibly using the video. She then wrote a script in
finish for the voiceover to replace the original script. She used the original English text which she had a
in a Word Document and re-wrote it Finish ensuring that the timing was correct. The FUNET logo and
FileSender name were used. The overall costs were less than 2000 euros. The video is now embedded in
the FUNET service area of the website.
Belnet uses Vimeo to share videos, while ARNES uses both Vimeo and YouTube. YouTube has more
sharable functions and social aspects. As an administrator, it is possible to see view how people reached
your video using YouTube insights. Even if you do not use YouTube, it is best to create an account
anyway in order to ‘reserve’ your name. Belnet has adapted the eduroam video for national purposes. It
has also produced a federation video (in French and Flemish) to explain this concept rather than
promote it. It could easily be re-used.
The JISC video on federation was adapted by GARR who simply changed the voice-over.
The eduGAIN video was produced to explain what federations are, their benefits and why we need them,
rather than promote eduGAIN itself. It currently has only 130 views on YouTube, which is not enough,
especially when considering the costs of producing the video. A plan is needed to promote the video.
According to ARNES, the video is also too long (4mins) and could be shortened. People often think that
because it is a video you can put more information but in real-life, people do not watch 4 minutes
videos.
However, sometimes a video is not about sharing it on the Internet and getting the most views, but to
use during presentations. There are two categories of videos: promotional and explanatory. Some videos
target end-users and other videos are aimed at institutions that want to federate (JISC v. eduGAIN video).
When producing videos about ‘boring’ topics it is important to think about how to make more
‘appetising’ so that people actually watch it.
ACTION: GEANT would like to create a YouTube playlist with partner videos. TF-CPR members should
therefore upload their videos so that GEANT can include it in their YouTube list and help spread them.
ACTION: Suggestions by Frederica to map portfolios to identify common areas to produce videos
together.
ACTION: Contact Damian – the video task-leader – to inform about wiki page with table of videos.
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https://confluence.terena.org/display/tfcpr/Video+sharing+work+item
Group 2 – Best practice: Roland has agreed to be the task-leader. In this
group, discussions focused on topics that were felt to be of mutual benefits to everyone. Two items:
crisis communication and malware communication. The idea is to find out who is doing what, and if
someone needs information from another NREN, a space will be set up where to find out who to contact
for assistance. A table has been created in the wiki:
https://confluence.terena.org/display/tfcpr/Best+Practices+Work+Item
ACTION: Once you are logged into the TF-CPR wiki, configure ‘watch this space’ (in TOOLS) for each page
for which you want to receive a notification every time it is updated.
ACTION: TF-CPR participants should fill in the wiki table with information about best practice documents.
PRACE Project Tiina Leiponen (FUNET-CSC)
Tiina began working on the PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe) project one year
ago. The European Commission’s goal here was to educate all students about what HPC is. Tiina began
from scratch with no videos available destined for their target audience (children/students). The project
management was initially sceptical about making videos. Tiina began with team building as well as brain
storming about the theme. The current PRACE website was not suitable for 15-year olds (boring).
Another problem Tiina face is a lack of background information about the target groups: she therefore
collected EU documents on people behaviours. Another issue is that to contact children you first need to
contact schools, teachers and parents. Parents want to know what kind of information their children is
given access to. The website language also needed to be very simple, as ‘smart’ text does not work with
children/teenagers.
A website has now been created with a game element prominent on the homepage:
www.daretothinktheimpossible.com. Tiina is now looking for advice on how to best promote this
website as the money for the project has now run out. An association was contacted in Finland and an
article was posted in their portal. A competition was also done in Finland. A suggestion was made to
contact the EC members responsible for the COMENIUS programme. Tiina is also thinking of contacting
the finish broadcast company and is hoping to even get through into the BBC. Suggestion to contact
Euronews, Cordis. Lonneke noted that in the Netherlands the government really pushes kids into the ITC
field. The ministries of education in countries across the EU should therefore be informed about this
project.
Session 1 - 'Measuring & Monitoring' theme day Introductions by Laura Durnford (TERENA), 'Basics & KPIs' by Lajos Balint (NIIF-Hungarnet) , ‘Websites’ by Gitte
Kudsk (DeIC), Google Analytics by Cora Van den Bossche (TERENA), Lajos Balint (NIIF-Hungarnet), and social
media by Karl Meyer (DANTE). With group discussion led by Gitte Kudsk (DeIC).
Question about how to measure the success of our work across different contexts has come up during
different several discussions. During a VC about social media organised earlier this year, the initial
discussion about strategy derived to how to measure success.
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Lajos: One and half years ago, Lajos presented about surveying, discussing
the work of TF-MSP. The basic questions for KPI are:
why?when?how?who?Why should we collect this data? There is considerable costs spent on achieving
these results, how are these costs related to benefits? Some may collect information but now know why
and how to analyse this. Other may not collect the relevant data. Measurement helps us collect relevant
and accurate information. Measurements need to be made in regards to an overall performance, not a
snap shot. Monitoring should be related to basic question: activity, service, and product. If this
information is interesting, then this is a performance indicator. KPIs will help us achieve our final goals to
improve, have positive influences.
Why KPIs for research networking? Why are we interested in KPIs as far as our CPR activities? Who are our
audiences as they determine our goals that together determine KPIs. How to manage the collection of
this information? How to progress? What do KPIs say to developers, users, policy-makers? Is there - and if
there is, what kind - of feedbacks from KPIs? Basic aspects to consider (see presentations).
Conclusion: conscious and careful exploitation of the data to KPI framework by applying measurement-
based monitoring. This can help improve research networking operations as well as CPR operations.
Karl noted that we talk a lot about KPIs while what we do not necessarily discuss is what the relevant of
KPIs are. A KPI also needs to be smart. It is pointless to have a KPI on the number of hits on a page, the
number of a document downloaded, if people accessing the page or document are not the right people
or if the information in the document is not the right document. We need to ensure we are measuring
the right thing. Once we have defined what is expected from our output then we can define smart KPIs,
and only then can we define how to measure these KPIs.
What is a KPI for us? An example: currently 50% of a campus is using the eduroam video and we want to
increase this to 60%. How to achieve this goal is the KPI. Frederica only half agrees with Karl’s example.
GARR conducted a promotional campaign for IpV6. There was a lot of subscription from tutors. However,
the GARR director complained that this has all been a lot effort because not many organisations
switched to IpV6. However, the point is that they trained the people, and that the decision to switch to
Ipv6 is often a political one that they have no influence over. GARR provided the skills for converting to
IpV6 but a campaign at the political level would also have been needed. Karl noted that a KPI needs to
be identified until the point where your influence ends. Where are the KPIs within your organisation or
department? The majority of the work is to work with the flow of the organisation: where does my
responsibility start and end, then define your KPI and find the right tool.
Gitte: measuring and monitoring websites. Who are the visitors? Are they the right people? When and
why do they visit e.g. impact of a newsletter: do visitors come when the newsletter goes out? If so, do
they come only to read the news or visit other pages? Did the visitor find what they were looking for? Did
I put the right information there?
Cora: Google Analytics installed on the TERENA website however there is so much information that it is
difficult to make sense of it all. Cora and Laura attended a Google Analytics User Conference in
Amsterdam to develop their understanding. What are the best questions to ask in regards to Google
analytics information? What goals should be set? TERENA has also been wondering whether to install the
new Analytics Universal on the future new website or whether to continue with Google Analytics
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because of all the data that has been collected over the years.
Issue of privacy: the EU cookie directive does not allow you to put cookies
before getting the user’s consent. In Slovenia, ARNES is testing PWIK (free open source) which allows you
to measure without going against the EU directive as it only uses first private cookies and does not share
cookies with third parties, as Google Analytics does. In the Netherlands, Google Analytics could not be
used, and a recent change in the rule means it can now be used again. So the rules are constantly
changing. Privacy and cookies are issues with every measuring tool.
ACTION: Possible future discussion ‘how to address the privacy and cookie issues?’
By seeing who comes to your website, you can use that information for ‘cold calling’ type targeting. This
information can be used to gain more users or ameliorate user experience. Tinaa noted that ‘we are not
selling anything’. According to Karl, what we do is provide interest and get visitors to go to a service. The
rest of the transaction takes place outside of our realm. So the concept of ‘we do not sale’ is true in that
we do not make money, however, we are selling ideas of using a service. Tiina argues that we are trying
to convince IT managers who need personal sales.
Lajos: presented about survey. A slide recapped the presentation made in May 2012 to TF-MPS/CPR. A
table about tools is now available in the wiki. The 2012 conclusions are still valid. Survey monkey surveys
are dangerous as they are very easy to make, including too many questions and too many options.
Invited feedback is often limited to extremes ‘Very good’ or ‘very bad’. It is important to convince people
why a survey is attractive for them and should therefore fill in the survey.
Karl noted that survey monkey is not good for context-sensitive surveys. In the commercial world, a real
problem is people abandoning a survey before completing it. Pop-up surveys about websites are known
to be filled by people who want to complain.
Karl: We need to look and listen more, we spend too much time talking (we have 2 eyes, 2 ears and 1
mouth). Social media allows the talking (posting) but also offers us the ability to listen. Web analytics
only show you see what visitor do on your site. This data does not tell your why people come to your
website. Social media allows you to listen to complaints (less relevant in the non-profit world) about
services. Because the user base is so small, the level of listening is quick. You can ignore one person
complaining all the time for the sake of complaining, as this will get lost in the see of social media talk. At
other times, you need to look at whether a response is necessary for particular complaints: check
whether the issue raised affect the entire organisation. Most communications staff is not qualified to
reply to complaints so it is important to refer them to the appropriate contact e.g. ‘Thank you for your
message. We will report this to the right person.’ If more technical staff is listening to social media, it is
important to ensure that they have been trained to deal with customers complaints and social media
communications so that they reply in a professional way. Karl’s view on social media is that twitter is
great for instantaneous communication while Facebook has a longer dwell time; however, both are
essentially funnels towards the goal of converting them into a visitor to your website.
ACTION: Karl to post his presentation slides after giving his social media talk to a university next week.
Who approved tweets and comments at TERENA and DANTE? At PRACE, a CEO wants to approve
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everything, which is why there is a separate campaign page. Lonneke
noted that social media should not be used in such cases. Karl noted that
some level of media training should be offered to anyone who is using
social media under the company name. A guideline document is also useful here. Frederica finds that
most people do not understand the added value of such trainings.
Session 2: CONTEXTS - 'Measuring & Monitoring' theme day, including breakouts Group 1: Press relations/social media press and collaboration
Melanie explained that the European Commission has asked high-level media coverage of GEANT e.g.
Financial Times. DANTE has subscribe for two years to Cision, a media database, as they did not have the
manpower to create own database. This database of journalists includes information about who the
journalist writes for (journal, blog) and what their interests are. The aim is to now search for journalists
who would be interested in a GEANT press release, and try to develop a personal relationship with
him/her in order to start creating their own journalist database. Melanie is now looking for a service to
help gather statistics: if an article has been published online it is relatively easy to find. It becomes harder
when the article is only published in print. An option could be to ask NRENs to do local media
monitoring, or use a press cutting service. Meltwater is a very expensive medium. Cora used to use it at
her former job but her organisation stopped using it as it was too expensive.
For strategic press releases, GEANT does 7-day coverage press reports and sends these results to the
Assembly. However, some NREN PC members still do not see the relevance of news. GARR has produced
very few news items (4 in the last year). GARR coverage is monitoring by verifying particular websites.
Press activities are one of the less important activities at GARR. RedIris distributed information about
events, new services and activities and uses social media to present the news. Twitter is effective for
RedIris as it has many followers, including technical people who participate in the discussions. Facebook
is less used by RedIris, there is generally no participation, it is rather used as a one-way news
dissemination channel. During events, wikis and blogs are used for technical topics – the coordinator of
the services coordinates the wiki or blog. DANTE only releases a press items once a month. When a news
story/press release is release, DANTE measures hits using Google Analytics over a period of 7-days.
A point system could be used to rank/weigh how important media coverage is e.g. if a press release is
simple reprinted – 1point; if a press release is partially used – 2 points; if the press release was rewritten
and information was used – 3 points. DANTE uses Mail Chimp, which allows you to see how many people
clicked on a link in a newsletter.
The European Commission year 3 review stated that a media awareness survey should be done to check
who in the key press knows about them. However, it is still too early to do this. A possible alternative is to
first check, which journalists are writing, then determine what you want them to write about, and then
determine how to make them interested in writing about you.
RedIris has a mailing lists with PRs of associated organisations. Information about services and other
relevant material is shared through this list. This also improves collaboration in regards to dissemination.
Technical centres do not collaborate, but science centres and universities do.
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Collaborators: when DANTE writes a user story, it works with the
concerned NREN and user. It is therefore important to work together to
find out how much each collaborator was mentioned in a final news piece.
It is generally challenging to get your name, and not just the user, in the news article e.g. an article will
mention that CERN is doing great work but will fail to mention the network.
Lajos explained that Hungarnet provides information in the form of press releases about 3 times a year:
one is related to a major conference (April/may), another about a different conference, and another
about a particular event. A press agency is provided with information that it then distributed. ITC-
orientated media tend to pick up their news. About two weeks ago, there was a service fall-out that was
really picked up among the media. Two years ago, Hungarnet began working with one person who has
now become a point of contact with the rest of the journalists. Hungarnet has do put in the news what
the ministries tell them to. Its overall relation with the media is a moderate one. It costs too much time
and energy compared to the benefit.
Group 2: Website communication. What kind of audience are you talking with? Different audiences =
different messages and services. User profiling allows customisation to help users find what they looking
for. Segmentation needs to happen first, and only then can indicators be found to measure and then
determine whether the data is what you expected. Different KPIs may be relevant for different user
groups. The number of visitors may not be meaningful enough.
KPIs related to communications goals and priorities e.g. are your users getting enough support? A KPI
would be whether a visitor found a particular information/FAQ. KPI is key only to the right question. It is
easier to measure points that include an action e.g. a button to download a document, the rating of a
comment. However, a user could be downloading the wrong thing. Here again, you need to be specific
about goals and KPIs to measure.
Recommendations: actions need to be specific to your communications strategy. The clearer your
objectives, the better your KPIs. There are different KPIs for different media/tools and different targets.
Your KPI should be mapped on your communications goal. Integrate different measurements to obtain a
meaningful interpretation of results. Interpretations cannot be avoided: it is impossible to tell
categorically that a statistic is due to one particular factor.
ACTION: Frederica suggested that professional help is hired to help TF-CPR further explore the issue of
setting KPIs.
Group 3: Awareness of NRENs. The general impression is that awareness of NRENs is low compared to
services. How can we obtain concrete statistics? Looking at web traffic is one way, although one person
could be aware of an NREN but not know about the website. Another way to measure indirect indicators
is by looking how a Wikipedia entry is rated, as well as clickthroughs from that page.
Idea of acknowledgement: researchers should be encouraged to mention the network in helping them
achieve their work. This way, the EC and other funders would see that people are aware that the network
is providing a good service. Idea of co-branding and ensuring that if a service is promoted, it is
highlighted that it is (co)-provided by an NREN. Depending on the service, measure the number of
account formed, press mentions, key word search. An NREN becomes known because it is associated
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with a service.
Press relations: awareness is raised through press activities. Suggestion to
offer articles written by NREN experts e.g. Damian has written 4 articles
that have been published.
GARR is looking into how many NRENs do customer satisfaction surveys. Is this something to look into
with TF-MSP and pull surveys together to gain an insight across Europe and possible collaborate? A
survey is good to find out positive and negative points. Instead of one big survey, a single ‘question of
the day’ or ‘question of the week’ could be pop up on the homepage e.g. ‘if eduroam fails to work, who
should you contact? Give multiple-choice answer. This provides a way to measure the level of knowledge
about specific topics while also informing the user.
Session 3: FEEDBACK, KPIs AND DISCUSSION - 'Measuring & Monitoring' theme day The acknowledgement of KPI is becoming increasingly relevant in the community. SURFnet uses Google
Alert to measure citations, and also uses a service that reads all papers, looks at keywords and sends an
alert. Melanie noted that the British Antarctic Survey counts a citation event if only the name is
mentioned in a citation at the end of an article. When DANTE writes stories, the focus is generally on the
user story, leaving the network bit out because it is more difficult for readers to relate to the latter.
Frederica’s general impression and experience with European Commission funded projects when
indicators have to be set is that ultimately it is difficult to measure them. It is not just about numbers e.g.
a comment might be that not enough people use a particular service. However they really use the
service, whereas a higher number of subscribed might not mean that all use it as much. Another
example is that only 40 people attend an event, however two of them were ministers: how do we
measure this? Tiina explained that PRACE has a cocktail bar at their booth with 500 participants coming
by, yet how many of them were actually relevant? The EU, however, is only interested in numbers.
DeIC has KPIs for the organisation as a whole. The communications department at SURFnet sets goals
rather than KPIs. At Belnet, a KPI man was hired – a government obligation - and results should be
available in one year
SWITCH is in the process of re-launching the website around the summer 2014. He will look at KPIs for his
website and other online presence to determine whether the website has changed for the good.
ACTION: Frederica suggested that we try to work on a real use case. TF-CPR participants should take a
small part of their work and try to apply KPIs in a practical way e.g. events/websites and report back in 6-
months/one year time. This will then allow TF-CPR to determine whether it is worth continuing to spend
time discussing KPIs.
ACTION: a Wiki space to be created where NRENs can add a line about whether they are working/are
interested in/will be working with KPIs.
Meeting summary, thoughts for next meetings, AOB Future task force actions: trainings (suggested by Frederica) – technical training to use tools.
Lonneke suggested that at the next TF-CPR one of the participant’s website is used to discuss/brainstorm
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about what kind of KPIs would be appropriate. This exercise could also be
combined with discussing KPIs for social media.
Participants need to continue to fill in the wiki as this will help identify
where we have things in common and where we could organise future training about tools. Gitte and
Laura will follow up to investigate what is available in terms of training.
The next meeting might be a joint one with TF-MSP in which case marketing could be an overlapping
topic. There is a space in the wiki where we can share ideas for future topics of discussion. A future topic
could be crisis communications
There is now only one GEANT-PR meeting per year. The next one will be in September 2014. Melanie
suggested to visit a user-community or to get a member of a user community to come to a meeting.
A comment was made that 5-minute presentation slots are too short. Personal presentations are
generally very interesting but need more time. More time should be given for presentations and for
discussions.
Jim Buddin sent an email asking TF-CPR participants what training programmes NRENs have and for who
they are aimed e.g. staff? Jim to send the email to the TF-CPR mailing list.
Proposal to create a Steering Committee for PeaR. This is not for editorial purposes but in regards to the
content i.e. is a particular item relevant for PeaR? Cristina, Lajos and Frederica have volunteered to join
the committee. Tasks will also include reviewing guidelines. The committee can be called upon for quick
responses about content.