The Mandela Portal – an assessment of global visitors using Web analytics
| Published date | 14 November 2016 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/DLP-01-2016-0002 |
| Date | 14 November 2016 |
| Pages | 270-286 |
| Author | Shadrack Katuu |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Librarianship/library management,Library technology,Records management & preservation,Information repositories |
The Mandela Portal – an
assessment of global visitors
using Web analytics
Shadrack Katuu
International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, Austria and Department of
Information Science, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa
Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to perform a longitudinal assessment of the visitors to the Mandela Portal
using Web analytics over a period of seven years, between 2009 and 2015.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper is based on Web analytics methodology that consists
of a four-step process and utilises the rst and second steps with data collected using Google Analytics.
Findings – The research process found a number of trends relating to the Portal’s visitors, including
changes in the ranking of countries from which the visitors accessed the website as well as the variety
of language settings in the Web browsers. It identied some issues both with the Google Analytics tool
and broader implications on the trustworthiness of data.
Originality/value – This paper provides an analysis of Web visitors to the Mandela Portal, offering
trends that are only possible when viewed over a long period. It also explores issues of data
trustworthiness.
Keywords Big data, Portal, Google Analytics, Data trustworthiness, Mandela Archive,
Nelson Mandela
Paper type Case study
1. Introduction
The Nelson Mandela Foundation (NMF) was established in 1999 as the post-presidential
ofce for Mr Nelson Mandela upon his retirement as South Africa’s rst democratically
elected president. Mr Mandela had promised to serve only one ve-year term, and upon
retirement felt that he needed to continue working to promote social justice (Harris,
2012). He was actively involved in the work of the NMF for the rst ve years, but in
2004 announced he was “retiring from retirement” (Mandela, 2004). His stepping away
from public life, and from direct involvement in NMF operations, sparked a review of the
organisation’s mandate, vision and mission. The review was completed in 2006, and
adoption of the review report by the NMF Board of Trustees introduced a ve-year
transition process designed to transform the institution into the Nelson Mandela Centre
of Memory (Josias, 2006).
The author was a staff member at the NMF for a period of ve years from 2005 and contributed to
the development of the Mandela Portal. The author gratefully acknowledges the thoughtful
readings of previous iterations of the article by Lee Davies, Verne Harris and Sello Hatang. The
views expressed herein are solely those of the author and should neither be attributed to his
current employer, the International Atomic Energy Agency, nor any of his previous employers,
including the NMF.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/2059-5816.htm
DLP
32,4
270
DigitalLibrary Perspectives
Vol.32 No. 4, 2016
pp.270-286
©Emerald Group Publishing Limited
2059-5816
DOI 10.1108/DLP-01-2016-0002
In early 2010, Mr Mandela stopped going to the premises of the NMF, as he went into
full retirement and the institution embarked on its transition beyond being his
post-presidential ofce. Since then, the transition into a streamlined non-governmental
organisation, promoting social justice through memory and dialogue work has
continued in earnest with various elements, including changes in the building
infrastructure and organisational activities. At the core of the mandate of the NMF is to
document and facilitate access to the Mandela Archive, which is innite, fragmented
and scattered both geographically and institutionally. As the NMF does not envisage
bringing the Archive into a physical location, the objective is to use the Mandela Portal
as the key avenue to provide access to the Archive (Nelson Mandela Foundation, 2016b).
1.1 Conceptualising the Mandela Portal
The NMF conceptualised a multi-layered virtual archive or portal that would be
accessible through its website. The website was initially developed in the early 2000s
and had already undergone several phases of development by the late 2000s (Katuu
et al., 2011). The drafting of the Mandela Portal began in 2008 with an architecture that
had four design elements:
(1) databases providing a dense description of resource materials;
(2) linkages to actual materials, to other websites and to different layers within the
website;
(3) digitised materials including paper, sound and moving images; and
(4) a surface layer of stories and information (Nelson Mandela Foundation, 2009a,
pp. 22-23).
These elements further integrated with social media platforms that relate to each of
these elements were launched in April 2011 as an integrated Mandela Portal (Nelson
Mandela Foundation, 2012a, p. 14). By 2014, the Portal had “established itself as the
most trusted and widely used internet resource for research on the life and times of
Nelson Mandela” (Nelson Mandela Foundation, 2014, p. 11). In this regard, the Mandela
Portal that was initially developed to provide Web presence for the nascent Centre of
Memory had grown to becoming its premier communication platform. Over the
years, the Portal has offered a rich resource of content, including databases on
Mr Mandela’s speeches, archival material on the Rivonia Trial, speeches and a
bibliography of books. In addition, it has tributes databases that are an inventory of
thousands of civic honours and awards given to Mr Mandela from educational, arts
and cultural as well as sports institutions (Nelson Mandela Foundation, 2016a).
These databases have opened the resources of the Portal to new audiences and
“provided traditional users a way to access, use and repurpose materials” without
the mediation of archivists and other information professionals at institutions such
as the Centre of Memory (Ndebele, 2013,p.1;Prom, 2011, p. 160). Therefore, Web
analytics tools facilitate monitoring and gathering of information about visitors’
online interactions taking place around the clock on a global scale.
1.2 Assessing visitors to the Mandela Portal
The NMF publishes a statistical analysis demonstrating the impact of the Portal
through its annual reports (Nelson Mandela Foundation, 2010, pp. 46-47, 2011, pp. 48-51;
271
The Mandela
Portal
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