Online Dissemination Strategies of a Canada Research Chair: Overview and Lessons Learned.

BACKGROUND: Little is known about the use of online dissemination strategies, such as websites and social media, to increase the visibility and uptake of research.

OBJECTIVE: To describe two online dissemination strategies of the Canada Research Chair in Implementation of Shared Decision Making in Primary Care over an eight-year period.

METHODS: Our two sources of online dissemination data were the website of the Canada Research Chair in Implementation of Shared Decision Making in Primary Care and the Chair's Twitter account. We conducted a content analysis of the news section of the website. We extracted website usage statistics using Google Analytics and analyzed indicators such as total number of visits, new and returning visitors, page views per visit, time spent onsite per visit, visitors' country of origin, and most popular pages. From the Chair's Twitter account, we collected the number of tweets, followers, and follows. We consulted Google Scholar to chart the trend in citations of the Chair's articles over the same period.

RESULTS: From the website's inception in January 2008 to December 2015, we recorded an average of 7906 visits per year (3809 in 2008; 8874 in 2015), 65.85% of which involved new visitors (5206/7906). The average number of pages viewed per visit was 3.2 and average bounce rate was 57.87% (4575/7906). Visitors spent an average of two minutes and 12 seconds per visit. We computed visits from 162 countries, with the majority from Canada (5910/7906, 74.75%). In order of frequency, the seven most visited pages were: (1) home page with news of publications and grants (24,787 visits), (2) profile of Chairholder (8041 visits), (3) profiles of research team members (6272 visits), (4) list of research team members (4593 visits), (5) inventory of shared decision making (SDM) programs (1856 visits), (6) interprofessional approaches to SDM (1689 visits), and (7) description of Chair activities (1350 visits). From the inception of the Twitter account in April 2011 to November 30, 2016 we recorded 5831 tweets in French and English, 1679 followers, and 1112 follows. The total number of visits and visitors to the website increased during the first three years, stabilized, and then dropped slightly, while the number of returning visitors rose slightly. In comparison, citations of the Chair's articles increased steadily over the same period, rising more sharply as visits to the website declined.

CONCLUSIONS: Over an eight-year period, visitors to the website increased in the first three years before levelling off. Meanwhile, the Chair's citations rose continuously. There was no observable association between website visits or Twitter activity and rising citations. Our results suggest that online dissemination may not yet be a major determinant of research uptake or visibility in the scientific community.