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Rachel Finley
574 TNRB
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
(801) 422-3598
prspecialist@byu.edu

Learning the Ways of Web Analytics

With more businesses jumping to the web, the face of marketing has changed forever. Today, web analytics can track mouse clicks, the number of visitors on a site, a visitor’s pathway while on a site, and a myriad of other things. This data is of extreme value. Businesses use is to optimize their web sites in an effort to increase traffic and conversion rates.

The BYU Marriott School of Management recognizes this trend and has designed a course to instruct students about it. The course, ISYS 590R, was designed to introduce analytics, their value, and how they are implemented on the web to students. Professor Clint Rogers, who recently taught the course for the second time, believes that the students are not the only ones who can benefit from the course.

“As it is a somewhat new and evolving field, I believe that the students I teach can have an impact in leading and shaping it in the future,” says Rogers on his blog. “So I am doing everything I can think of to get them invested into learning from and contributing to the leading experts and networks.”

Rogers had two goals for the class going into the winter semester and, according to the student feedback, he was successful. His first goal was to create an atmosphere where everyone in the class could teach and learn from one another. He knew that web analytics was a new field and that he wouldn’t have all the answers.

“Clint is probably one of the most humble guys I know,” says David Woolsey, a recent master’s graduate in information systems from Richfield, Utah. “He doesn’t consider himself to be better than any of the students. He subscribes to the thought that we are teaching and learning together.”

Rogers established this atmosphere by allowing students to give input while they were together as well as creating an instructional blog where students could share their ideas outside of the classroom.

Students also attended the Omniture Summit in Salt Lake City, an event sponsored by Omniture, a world leader in web analytics headquartered out of Orem, to hear from professionals in the field.

Rogers’ second goal was to get students thinking like experts by having them meet as many as possible. He invited guest speakers to class, including BYU faculty and also top experts such as Curtis Morley, one of the nation’s leading Flash specialists and vice president of interactive ievelopment at Agilix Labs, an e-learning solutions company also centered in Orem. Several students felt the interaction was helpful and insightful.

“I really liked the experts from the community. I thought it was a good mixture of lecture and hands-on learning,” Mathews says.

Other students said they felt that guest speakers brought in practical knowledge from their fields.

“I think it brings more of the real world in and it’s not theory, it is real life,” Woolsey says.

As part of the class, students participated in the Omniture Web Analytics Competition. In this competition, students analyze, a real company’s web site using Omniture’s flagship software, SiteCatalyst.

“It is very helpful in giving the students both motivation to learn, and the real-world, hands-on scenario for the application of what they are learning,” Rogers says.

Four students from the class placed in the top three teams of the competition, winning over $6,000. After the class was over, several students were offered jobs at Omniture as well.

Students were also able to put their new skills and knowledge to use on their own websites and several have seen an increase in profit.

“I think we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg as far as web analytics,” Woolsey says. “I think it’s going to be the heart and soul of e-business. This is offline marketing on steroids. If you have an online presence, you should be in the class.”