|
||
| Newsletter | July 2002 | |
|
Contents |
Evaluating AERADE: How good is the service? | |||
AERADE was first launched in November 1999 and was re-launched with major enhancements in August 2000. Despite our commitment to continuous improvement we were always conscious that these developments were not based upon sound evidence of user needs. To this end we commissioned Maxine Freshwater, a member of staff at Cranfield University (Royal Military College of Science), to carry out a survey aimed at evaluating the service and gaining feedback from the users' perspective. The survey was undertaken during November and December 2001. 84% of respondents were based in the UK, with 51% of the total from higher education. (However recent Web statistics suggest that 84% is a rather high figure: 45% may be nearer, with 14.5% from the USA). It was pleasing that 36% of respondents came from industry and 24% from government as this demonstrates the usefulness of AERADE across the aerospace and defence sector. Satisfaction levels with the product, from its design features to range of resources, were universally high. At the heart of the survey were the open-ended questions that enabled you to communicate what you really wanted from AERADE. These responses were of most interest to us as they will inform any future developments to the service. For example, when asked if there were additional features that you would like to see offered, you requested enhancements such as "Ask the Information Expert", a contacts database, more full text resources and details of job advertisements. All these suggestions are now under active consideration. A further two requests - for more full text papers and details of conference announcements - have already been implemented within the service via the integration of nearly 2,000 full text NASA technical reports and the additions of ReportsBrief and ConferenceBrief. We were also interested to find out if there were any other aerospace / defence topics that you would like to see AERADE cover. Defence technology and supersonic flight design were suggested (but these are already covered) as was military history which we have consequently added. Some requests, such as economics, were considered outside the scope of the service. The final comments pleased us greatly:
We are listening and will take into consideration all feedback we receive from our users. If you would like to let us know what you think about AERADE, please email us at aerade@cranfield.ac.uk. We're looking forward to hearing from you! |
||||