report on network usage, contacted users and telescopes ...€¦ · 01.f june 25, 2013 1st report...

GLORIA is funded by the European Union 7th Framework Programme

(FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n° 283783

1st Report on network usage, contacted users and telescopes,

participation, etc.

CODE: DEL-061

VERSION: 01.F

DATE: June 25, 2013

Authors: Martin Jelínek (IAA CSIC)

Collaborators: Alberto J. CASTRO-TIRADO (CSIC)Carmen LOPEZ CASADO (UMA)Raquel Cedazo (UPM)Fernando SERENA (UPM)Esteban GONZALEZ (UPM)Lorraine Hanlon (UCD)Luciano Nicastro (INAF)Alexander F. Zarnecki (UWAR)

Revised by: Alberto J. CASTRO-TIRADO (CSIC)Francisco Manuel SÁNCHEZ (UPM)José María SEBASTIÁN y ZÚÑIGA (UPM)Mercedes GRIJALBO (UPM)

Approved by: Francisco Manuel SÁNCHEZ (UPM) Raquel CEDAZO (UPM)

Distribution List:

Name Affiliation Date

Francisco Manuel SÁNCHEZ UPM June 25, 2013

Raquel CEDAZO UPM June 25, 2013

Alberto J. CASTRO-TIRADO CSIC June 25, 2013

Oscar LARA-GIL CSIC June 25, 2013

01.F June 25, 2013 1st Report on network usage, contacted users ...

Change Control

Issue Date Section Page Change Description

01.A 01/03/2013 All New document

01.B 30/04/2013 2 Experiments

01.C 24/05/2013 1+3 Main and Broadcasting webpage statistics, Activities

01.D 20/06/2013 1 User webpage statistics

01.E 24/06/2013 All Touch ups

01.F 25/06/2013 All Changed to a new template

Reference Documents

Nº Document Name Code Version

http://gloria-project.eu 3/28


Index1. Introduction...............................................................................................................................................................82. Network usage and participation..............................................................................................................................8

2.1. Main web page visit report ..............................................................................................................................82.2. Live, broadcast.................................................................................................................................................92.3. Support website..............................................................................................................................................112.4. Users website..................................................................................................................................................11

2.4.1. Demographic statistics...........................................................................................................................122.4.2. Audience overview.................................................................................................................................142.4.3. Traffic statistics......................................................................................................................................152.4.4. Language statistics.................................................................................................................................152.4.5. Location statistics...................................................................................................................................172.4.6. Browsers and operating systems............................................................................................................182.4.7. Devices...................................................................................................................................................182.4.8. Reservation statistics..............................................................................................................................202.4.9. Images statistics.....................................................................................................................................212.4.10. Offline experiments statistics...............................................................................................................22

3. Experiments............................................................................................................................................................243.1. GLORIA online experiments.........................................................................................................................243.2. GLORIA offline experiments.........................................................................................................................25

4. Presidents, schools, and amateur associations contacted.......................................................................................264.1. Spain...............................................................................................................................................................264.2. Italy.................................................................................................................................................................264.3. Ireland.............................................................................................................................................................274.4. Russia..............................................................................................................................................................274.5. Poland.............................................................................................................................................................27

5. Summary.................................................................................................................................................................28

Figures IndexFigure 1: Gloria main web page...................................................................................................................................8Figure 2: Page views of the main Gloria web page......................................................................................................9Figure 3: Visits by country............................................................................................................................................9Figure 4: Visits during the Venus transit.....................................................................................................................10Figure 5: Visits during the northern lights event........................................................................................................10Figure 6: Visits during the solar eclipse.....................................................................................................................10Figure 7: Visits during the 2012DA14 event..............................................................................................................10Figure 8: Screenshot of the first online experiment throught the Users Website.......................................................11Figure 9: Web form creating an account at Users Website.........................................................................................12Figure 10: Statistics by sex in Gloria Users Website (March 25, 2013 -- May 25, 2013).........................................13Figure 11: Users Website visits during the first two months......................................................................................14Figure 12: Visit statistics of the Users Website..........................................................................................................14Figure 13: Referrer summary......................................................................................................................................15Figure 14: Language summary...................................................................................................................................16Figure 15: Accounts by language...............................................................................................................................16Figure 16: Location statistics......................................................................................................................................17Figure 17: Browser statistics......................................................................................................................................18Figure 18: Device statistics.........................................................................................................................................19Figure 19: Number of reservations by week (March 25 -- May 25).........................................................................21Figure 20: Number of reservations by week (March 25 -- May 25)..........................................................................21Figure 21: Number of images taken per week (March 25 -- May 25).......................................................................22Figure 22: Screenshot of the offline experiment "Calculate Earth-Sun distance".....................................................23Figure 23: Solar experiment screenshot.....................................................................................................................24Figure 24: Planet tracking experiment screenshot......................................................................................................25



1. Introduction

The topic of this document turned out to split into three relatively distinct topics: a) Network usage and user statistics of the GLORIA web page, with special attention paid to the periods of astronomical event broadcasting. b) The state of implementation and network status of GLORIA experiments, both online and offline. and c) The resumé of dissemination activities related to the latter. The three main chapters of this document present each of these distinct topics.

2. Network usage and participation

Besides the access to GLORIA for following up the broadcasting of astronomical events reported elsewhere, following the opening of the GLORIA Network on Mar 25, we hereby provide a brief report of the network usage and participation doring the following days. We will focus on the first GLORIA online experiment made available to users as of Mar 25.

2.1. Main web page visit report

The official GLORIA website, www.gloria-project.eu (see Fig. 1), is the official entry point for the Internet surfers. It reports news and general information about the project and its educational and scientific activities. Additionally it allows to redirect the visitors to the “users”, “live” and “support” websites. Is is available in the six GLORIA languages, plus French and German (not fully translated yet). Launched in its current version on May 2012, the following statistics (Fig. 2) has been collected in the period May 2012 March 2013:

• Visits: 208,300• Unique visits: 164,700• Pageviews: 402,300• Distinct countries of visitors: 100


Figure 1: Gloria main web page

http://www.gloria-project.eu/


In the following section, access information for the project period M13M18 are shown with more details.

2.2. Live, broadcast

GLORIA as a project and the promoted live events have received wide coverage in the press. The list of 150 articles in the press speaking about GLORIA is reported in the Media section of the public website. The figures below show the gloriaproject.eu website connection statistics for the M13M18 period. The two peaks related to the live webcasting of the total solar eclipse and asteroid 2012DA14 transit are evident.


Figure 3: Visits by country.

Figure 2: Page views of the main Gloria web page.


During the Transit of Venus, under Google Analytics service we can see that in the analysed period were obtained 52,674 visits and 86,581 pages visits, with a maximum of 11,245 visits and 23,172 pages shows at the beginning of the first connection as we see in the chart below.

During the Northern Lights, under Google Analytics service we can see that in the analyzed period we obtained 21,163 visits and 32,769 page views, as we can see in the following graph.

During the Solar eclipse 2012, we had 186,298 visits and 249,994 page views, with a peak of 33,946 visits and 54,554 page views at the time of the broadcast, as we can see in the chart below, through live . gloria - project . eu .

In the transit of the asteroid 2012DA14, we had 153,756 visits and 397,553 pageviews, with a peak of 35,877 visits and 108,387 page views, as we can see in the chart below.


http://live.gloria-project.eu/








2.3. Support website

Support website is the GLORIA Project support web where users and telescope owners can find all the information and instructions required to take advantage of the functionalities provided by the project.

Support Website is not yet deployed in production environment so we have not yet any statistics to show.

2.4. Users website

This section includes the relevant statictics related to the GLORIA Users Website (http://users.gloriaproject.eu) during the first two months from the starting date on 25th March 2013. In that date, the first online experiment was launched to the general public (see Fig. 8).

The statictics presented here have been gathered by three different ways:

1. Database (MySQL) of the Liferay Portal, where the Users Website is developed.

2. Database (MySQL) of the GLORIA Web Services, which are communicated directly with the Liferay Portal.

3. Google Analytics, a free Google service which measures the site traffic of the website. There is a Google Analytics ID configured within the Liferay Portal.


Figure 8: Screenshot of the first online experiment throught the Users Website

http://users.gloria-project.eu/


The first data to take into account is that, during the period from 25th March to 25th May 2013, there were 206 new users registered into the website, of which only 9 users have never accessed (4,37%).

The next statistics have been organized according to the following criteria:

• Demographic, by age and gender.• Audience Overview. • Traffic.• Language.• Location.• Browser and OS.• Devices.• Reservations.• Images taken.• Offline experiment: Calculate EarthSun distance.

All these data are very helpful in order to take future decisions to develop the new functionalities and mantain the website.

2.4.1. Demographic statistics

When users register at the Users Website and create an account, they have to fill out a form with their own information (see Fig. 9). Some fields are required but others are optional, like the Birthday and Gender. These two data are very useful for extracting the “Demographic Profile” of the GLORIA Community, included next.

The demographic statistics are stored in the database of the Liferay Portal. Next it is included the statictics of the GLORIA Community at Users Website by age and sex.


Figure 9: Web form creating an account at Users Website


Table 1 summarizes the number of users registered at Users Website from the 25th March 2013 to 25th May 2013. As it can see the users between the ages 25 to 44 (40,78% of total) are the more numerous, but there are an important percentage between the ages 14 to 19 (13,11%) and 45 to 54 (11,17%).

Also a curious data is a 19,42% of the users registered did not indicate their age (they kept the default birthday in the registration web form of the previous screenshot).

Age (years) No. Users % Percentage

< 14 5 2,43%

14 19 27 13,11%

20 – 24 14 6,80%

25 – 34 46 22,33%

35 – 44 38 18,45%

45 – 54 23 11,17%

55 – 64 10 4,85%

> 65 3 1,46%

Not indicated 40 19,42%

Table 1: Statistics by age in Gloria Users (March 25, 2013 -- May 25, 2013)

Figure 10 summarizes the percentage of users registered by sex. There were a total of 180 men (87,38%) and 26 women (12,62%), which shows that the profile of the GLORIA user is preferable men.

The conclusion of the demographic survey is that the profile of the user is, during the first two months of running, men between ages 25 to 44.


Figure 10: Statistics by sex in Gloria Users Website (March 25, 2013 -- May 25, 2013)

87,38%

12,62%

Male Female


2.4.2. Audience overview

The next report extracted from Google Analytics allows to view ataglance the visitor metrics. The graph at fig. 11 lets see the visits over the first two months. As it can be seen, there is a big increase in the number of visits with the time. So there were far fewer visits during the first month.

The pie chart is a quick look at the ratio of new to returning visitors by number of visits and percentage of visits. This give us great insights to which type of visitors are more engaged with the Users Website, i.e., during the first two months it is shown that there were more returning visitors (58,4%) that new visitors (41,6%). This may be a positive sign that people liked the website and they came back.

Furthermore, there are more list of values for each of the following metrics:

• 1.956 total number of visits..• 812 Unique Visitors.• 41,51% New Visitors, that is, percent of total visitors who visited your site for the

first time.• 12.136 pages viewed.• 6,20 pages/visit. This is the average number of pages viewed per visit.• 7 min and 8 seconds / visitor. It is the average visit length of all visitors.• 29,35% of singlepage visits.


Figure 11: Users Website visits during the first two months

Figure 12: Visit statistics of the Users Website


2.4.3. Traffic statistics

The next report extracted from Google Analytics gives the visitor statistics by:

• Source: The search engine or referring domain from which traffic to the Users Website. As it is shown, the main source of the Users Website is the main GLORIA website, that is, http://gloriaproject.eu. The second source is a direct link and the third one corresponds to a Polish website about Astronomy news. Other sources are Facebook channel, other Polish website about Astronomy, Google and other GLORIA subdomains. (see fig.13)

• Medium: The type of web content that contained the link to the Users Website. In this case, the visitors are exclusively referred by links on other websites or directly (identified as referral).

This report is very helpful to make decisions about where to focus the “advertising” efforts and to know how is linking to the Users Website.

2.4.4. Language statistics

The Users Website is a multilanguage portal translated to the six languages of the partners of the Consortium: English (default language), Spanish, Italian, Czech, Polish and Russian.

There are two different reports, one of this is extracted from the Google Analytics tool and the other one by querying the Liferay database.


Figure 13: Referrer summary

http://gloria-project.eu/


The next report, extracted from Google Analytics (fig. 14), lets see which languages the visitors speak. For web visits, Language is derived from the visitor's browser locale.

Language along with location provides some valuable information: the majority of the visitors speak Polish (1st position), Spanish (2nd position) and English (3rd position). However it can be seen that there are almost no visitors who speak Czech and Russian.

Furthermore, Liferay registers as well the languages preferences of the users who created an account (fig. 15), according to the language selected when they created an account. The statistics are similar to the Google Analytics, as it could be expected: Czech (2 users – 0,97%), English (88 users – 42,72%), Spanish (16 users – 7,77%) and Polish (100 users – 48,54%). Next graph summarizes the figures.


Figure 14: Language summary

Figure 15: Accounts by language

cs_CZ en_GB es_ES pl_PL0

20

40

60

80

100

120

2

88

16

100


2.4.5. Location statistics

The next report (fig. 16) has been extracted from the Google Analytics tool. It allow to see geographically where the visitors access to the the GLORIA Users Website. Viewing statistics by location lets understand the current origins of traffic, as well as make predictions about where traffic will increase. It can see in the map at a glance that Poland and Spain send the most visits.


Figure 16: Location statistics


2.4.6. Browsers and operating systems

The next report (fig. 17) extracted from Google Analytics lets see the different browsers people use to reach the Users Website, along with other configuration about the systems that run those browsers.

This information is very helpful for the developers since can affect in order to take decisions about the design of the website.

The report, as it can be seen at the table, shows that the majority of visitors use Firefox and Chrome as web browser.


Figure 17: Browser statistics


2.4.7. Devices

The next report (fig. 18) extracted from Google Analytics allows to see how some of the visitors use mobile devices to view the Users Website.

The variety of devices can be seen at the table, indicating also the number of visitors which there were during the first two months by device.

As it can be seen, the majority of visitors who use mobile devices, used Apple iPad and iPhone, followed by Samsung Galaxy devices.


Figure 18: Device statistics


2.4.8. Reservation statistics

All the online experiments require that users make a previous reservation of a slot in order to control exclusively the equipment of the observatory. During the first two months the only available experiment was the Solar, so the following statistics are referred to this experiment.

Table 2 summarized, by weeks, the number of reservations done by the users registered. In total there were 537 reservations. The maximum number of reservations made by the same user was 38 and the average was 4,35 (only having into account the users that made at least one reservation).

Statistics indicate that 137 were the number of users that made at least one reservation during these two months. The following table indicate the number of users that made at least one reservation, week by week.

Week Number of reservations

Available observing time (in hours & time

slots)

% Usage(Number of

reservations/Available time

slots)

Number of users that made

at least one reservation

25 Mar – 31 Mar

31 28h / 56 slots of 30 min 55,35% 14

1 Apr – 7 Apr 14 28h / 56 slots of 30 min 25,00% 7

8 Apr – 14 Apr

9 28h / 56 slots of 30 min 16,07% 7

15 Apr – 21 Apr

12 28h / 56 slots of 30 min 21,43% 4

22 Apr – 28 Apr

58 28h (8 slots of 30 min + 96 slots of 15 min)

52,08% 25

29 Apr – 5 May

93 28h (112 slots of 15 min)

83,04% 38

6 May – 12 May

94 28h (112 slots of 15 min)

87,04% 42

13 May – 19 May

108 28h (112 slots of 15 min)

96,43% 45

20 May – 26 May

112 28h (112 slots of 15 min)

100,00% 36

Total 537

Table 2: Time reserved at GLORIA



It is shown that the number of reservations increased week after week, as it can be seen graphically at Fig. 19. Not only that, but the last week the usage of the observatory reached the 100%, as it can be seen in the table before.

The graph at figure 20 indicates the number of users that made at least one reservation. As it can be seen, this number has increased as well week by week with a maximum peak of 45 different users in a week.

2.4.9. Images statistics

Regarding to the images taken using the Solar experiment, it is significant that there were a total of 1.862 images captured by all the users. The maximum number of images that were taken by only one user was 465 and the average was 25,94 (only taking into account the users that taken at least one image).


Figure 19: Number of reservations by week (March 25 -- May 25)

Figure 20: Number of reservations by week (March 25 -- May 25)


Table 3 summarizes the number of images taken by week. It is shown that the number of images increased week after week, as it can be seen graphically at Fig. 21, reaching even peaks of more than 400 images per week.

Week Number of images

25 Mar – 31 Mar 176

1 Apr – 7 Apr 18

8 Apr – 14 Apr 59

15 Apr – 21 Apr 74

22 Apr – 28 Apr 156

29 Apr – 5 May 209

6 May – 12 May 476

13 May – 19 May 259

20 May – 26 May 435

Total 1.862

Table 3: Images by week

2.4.10. Offline experiments statistics

On 25th March 2013, the first offline experiment was launched, named “Calculate EarthSun distance”, which lets users calculate the distance Earth – Sun using images of the transit of Venus (see Fig. 22). More information about the didactic activity and the event can be found in the GLORIA web: http://gloriaproject.eu/venustransit/.


Figure 21: Number of images taken per week (March 25 -- May 25)

http://gloria-project.eu/venus-transit/


This offline experiment is composed of two methods: first method “The Shadows” and second method “The Strings”. The user must follow the description and carry out the steps indicated.

Next are summarized the main usage statistics obtained for this offline experiment.

• The method “The Shadows” was executed in total 103 times, by 25 different users.• The method “The Shadows” was done by 6 schools:

School No. students

De Anza College Extended Year 44

De Anza Extended Year 20

Gimnazjum in Niedzwiedz, Poland 10

IAC 4

Secundaria Prof. Dr. Flavio Resen 1

ZSPiG Cz. Dunajec 14

Table 4: Table of schools and numbers of pupils

The method “The Strings” was executed in total 11 times, by 8 different users.


Figure 22: Screenshot of the offline experiment "Calculate Earth-Sun distance"


3. Experiments

One of the central points of GLORIA is to provide a public access to robotic telescopes and to their data archives. This access is in GLORIA realized in framework of so called experiments. The data or device access units are being implemented as web services and permit either offline (i.e. data) or online (data+device) access to the telescopes.

Experiments framework is meant to be user friendly, and to allow implementation of both relatively complex observing tools and public outreach “astrogames”. In particular, GLORIA counts with online experiments at two levels: interactive, i.e. direct real time use of the telescope and batch, execution of a predefined job at a determined time. Telescopes may support either of the two modes.

3.1. GLORIA online experiments

The current status is that most telescopes involved in GLORIA are integrated at instrument level. The web service interface is still in progress, ut advanced enough that the first telescope – Teide solar telescope – has been made available to the public as an interactive instrument (Mar 2013). It permits users to reserve time and perform observation of the Sun:


Figure 23: Solar experiment screenshot


3.2. GLORIA offline experiments

Two offline experiment have been implemented so far:

Planet tracking based on widefield images taken on different days (fig. 24), used to provide an idea how planets are moving. The images are preprocessed so that the stars do not move between frames, only planets would move. The user is then asked to discover the moving object by blinking the images and then to estimate its speed by marking the positions and examining the changes.

Venus transit analysis uses the data obtained during the expedition to observe the event, and uses images from Australia and from Japan, the images taken at different geographic locations permit the measurement of paralax and that way they permit a direct measurement of the astronomical unit – the distance of Sun.


Figure 24: Planet tracking experiment screenshot


4. Presidents, schools, and amateur associations contacted

4.1. Spain

The online experiment service has been made available in late March, and we prepared a presentation of the interface at the Sociedad Malagueña de Astronomía (SMA), which is the 5th in Spain, with more than 300 associates. The SMA president gave us some feedback after the demo session on Apr 2.

A second presentation took place on Apr 13 during the IV RADA Meeting in South Spain. RADA stands for the Federation of Andalusian Astronomical Societies and encompasses 19 such entities, with more than 1500 associates altogether.

The comments have been collected among amateur astronomers and colleagues at the early stage and so the opinion may be a little biased. An often mentioned comment is that given the simplicity of the tool, 30 minutes of reservation are too much. It is a question whether some guidelines of what could be observed on the solar photosphere should be given (makin this a little game, letting the user make imaging of sunspots, compute the Wolf number, try to find a spike, explain the granularity of the surface etc.) or simply reduce the reservation time to about 10 minutes. Generally, the experience is positive, although it seems somewhat shallow, which is something that should be improved.

The IAC installed an inflatable Planetarium in AULA 2013 (http :// www . ifema . es / aula _01 , IFEMA, Madrid) from 12nd to 16th Feb. 2013.

The IAC had a meeting with the Education Department of the Canary Government to reach an agreement that, for 6 months (from April to June and October to December), will visit 200 schools (IES, Institutos de Educación Secundaria, secondary schools), to give talks, showing educational activities and experiments of GLORIA project using an inflatable planetarium. This work started this month, visiting over 20 schools to date.

4.2. Italy

Information about the established contacts with schools and amateur associations are reported in the deliverable 2.2.


http://www.ifema.es/aula_01











4.3. Ireland

Astronomy Ireland claims the highest per capita membership of any amateur astronomy organisation in the world. It is an extremely organised and effective club, especially in terms of its media presence and regular astronomy lectures. They, along with other active amateur clubs such as the Irish Astronomical Association (in Northern Ireland), Shannonside Astronomy Club and the Irish Federation of Astronomical Societies, will all be included in mailing lists for GLORIA events and offered lectures for their members on how to participate in GLORIA. There is already significant interest in GLORIA within the Irish amateur community and a number of lectures to astronomy clubs and societies, as well as popular magazine articles, have already been presented and written.

4.4. Russia

Messages about GLORIA project have been sent to 7 schools of KarachaevoCherkessian Republic, to directors and physics teachers, as well as to Institute of Teacher's Professional Development, Cherkessk City. During the AllRussian Astronomical Conference, combined with the Congress of Russian Astronomical Society, the GLORIA project has been presented to the school teachers during the work of educational section. On the territory of Special Astrophysical Observatory, there is an amateur observational site KADAR consisting of 4 telescopes, 2040 cm diameter. Every year, nearly 50 amateur astronomers perform observations here. Members of GLORIA performed the discussion of the project with them, including the discussion on possible experiments to perform inside the GLORIA. Similar activities have been performed with amateur astronomers from Stavropol and Pyatigorsk cities, as well as with participants of "Astrofest" AllRussian Amateur Meeting. We will continue this communication and will involve Russian amateurs in GLORIA activities and experiments.

4.5. Poland

There were students from Bonn University visiting Warsaw end of May. They used Luiza server, the one installed for offline demonstrator to test Luiza software (data processing for demonstrator) and optimizing its parameters in a laboratory program Analysis of astronomical data parameter tuning for lightcurve reconstruction.

On April 25, President of Poland Bronislaw Komorowski and the First Lady visited Torun, home town of Nicolaus Copernicus, famous Polish astronomer, who “stopped the Sun and moved the Earth”. In the Main Library of the Nicolaus Copernicus University President met


http://www.sait.it/

http://www.sait.it/

http://www.sait.it/

http://www.sait.it/

http://www.sait.it/

http://www.sait.it/


with representatives of the Polish astronomer community. One of the short presentations given was devoted to citizenscience projects. In the presence of the President, the TAD (Telescopio Abierto Divulgación) robotic telescope at Observatorio del Teide in Tenerife (Canary Islands) was used to perform remote observation of the Sun, which was the symbolic opening of the GLORIA network to users.

5. Summary

The document shows in three chapters the start of GLORIA network in terms of webservice activity on the principal web portals of Gloria – the main entrance with the news, the Events portal, where the broadcasts are presented, and the User portal with entrance to the experiments and user activities. The the experiments being deployed form another part of the effort, and so do the public dissemination activities organised in different countries of the consortium.



GLORIA Partners

UPMUniversidad Politécnica de MadridSPAIN

AUAVAstronomical Institute, Academy of Sciences of the Czech RepublicCZECH REPUBLIC

CSICConsejo Superior de Investigaciones CientíficasSPAIN

INAT & CVUTCzech Technical University in PragueCZECH REPUBLIC

IP-ASCRInstitute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech RepublicCZECH REPUBLIC

IACInstituto de Astrofísica de CanariasSPAIN

INAFIstituto Nazionale di AstrofisicaITALY

SAOSpecial Astrophysical Observatory of Russian Academy of SciencesRUSSIA

UCDNUIDUniversity College DublinIRELAND

UCUniversity of ChileCHILE

UMAUniversity of MálagaSPAIN

UOXFUniversity of OxfordUNITED KINGDOM

UNIWARSAWUniwersytet Warszawski POLAND
