WINTER 2012 - National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and ...

Patricia Shields, Nandhini Rangarajan, and Lewis Stewart
relevance and timeliness of this study is underscored by the fact that we live in an
era where numbers of downloads are key determinants of prominence, interest in
a piece of work, and success in almost every realm. Given the success of websites
like Google Scholar, it is evident that academic work is not immune to these
influences. In fact, the power of the Internet and other technologies that
have a global influence should be harnessed wisely to increase the impact of
academic work.
The purpose of this research was to address the question of why some Texas
State University Applied Research Projects (ARPs) experience significantly
higher download rates than others. Our preliminary analysis of download
activity suggested that these ARPs were not merely downloaded by local users,
but were sought by users from more than 130 countries spread across Africa,
Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America. There is a lot of
anecdotal evidence (from current and past students) for these ARPs used in
policy discussion at the local level of government. The impact of ARPs at the
global level is evident; a bulletin of the World Health Organization cites an ARP
by a Texas State University MPA alumnus as an important source for policy
makers considering fiscal policies related to obesity prevention. Why is there so
much local, regional, national, and international interest in these ARPs? Could
the consistent application of microconceptual frameworks have led to an increase
in the utility of recent years’ ARPs for online users? Could the fact that some of
these ARPs won significant national awards have resulted in a significant number
of downloads?
Building on previous work, different characteristics of ARPs that could
potentially influence download rates were delineated into two broad categories—
content factors and search engine optimization factors. Hypotheses were
then developed and tested through multiple regression analyses to determine
the extent and nature of influence of those two sets of factors on download
rates. Results supported only four of our hypotheses related to sector—state
government, length of time on the Web, Google scholar citation, and Wikipedia
entry. In essence, if an ARP addressed a state government issue, it was likely to
be downloaded more times than if it did not. If an ARP had a Google Scholar
citation and had an entry on Wikipedia, it was downloaded more often than
those ARPs that did not meet those criteria. Finally if an ARP was on the Web
for a longer time, it was likely to be downloaded more often than one that was
on the Web for a shorter period of time. This study provides a strong foundation
for examining how the potential downloadability of academic pieces, especially
high-quality student work, can increase their prominence in the knowledge
realm. This study establishes the connection between download rates and lines of
inquiry, level of government/type of sector, analytical methods, research purpose,
and policy/administration topics.
However, the lack of support for some of the hypotheses generated in this
study necessitates examination of other factors that might influence download
174 Journal of Public Affairs Education