Thanks so much for your comments.

Brian: You are so right about a first system being all you know so you shun all others. I have absolutely done this (and still do to a point). We use Omniture SiteCatalyst at work and I find myself cursing Google Analytics when I try to do similar things on my blog. It’s not GAs fault, it can do what I want. I just need to find out how. Using *something* *is* the key and people need to realize that it is probably going above and beyond their job description, but it’s necessary for the good of the user.

Sam: I am all about making sweeping generalizations, so I am going to agree with you that in higher ed analytics goes *very* under-appreciated. Admittedly I have only worked in higher ed for two years. I come from a corporate background where ROI is everything. That just doesn’t seem to be the culture in higher ed I’m finding.

I think what folks in higher ed need to realize, though, is that analytics is not just about ROI. It *is* customer service. By not using analytics and gaining insight into what is frustrating users, we are delivering bad customer service (or student service if you want to think of it that way).

Right now I think that too many website owners in higher ed think of web analytics as a marketing function and nothing else. As we both know, that can’t be further from the truth.

I also think the web analytics community needs to promote itself more to sites other than e-commerce. I don’t know how many conferences I’ve been to that are 90% e-commerce centered. That’s definitely part of the problem.

That’s actually sparked some thoughts in my head. I think I’m going to expand on this conversation in a post next week.

Thanks to you both.

Would you say that the audit of analytics versus master web, UX objectives goes largely unassigned in the realm of higher ed? Is this another instance where the decentralization of communication efforts (marketing, university relations, PR, recruitment) has caused analytics to fall through the cracks?

Really, it comes down to using *something* and actually spending time looking at your stats. Using any analytics package opens the doors to actually make judgements based on semi-objective numbers, not the subjective opinions of developers/webmasters, or worse SEI “professionals”.