As part of the KConnect project we were able to create a wonderful set of analytic tools to analyse how people use the site.  My current favourite is one we’re calling ‘topics’.  For a given search terms it analyses all the article titles that users have clicked on and groups them based on meaning.

This is important as searches for ‘alcohol’ reveal they are interested in the term, but it is only when they click on a title do they ‘reveal’ there likely intention.  That is because search terms are typically 1-3 terms while document titles contain many more terms.  Below is an analysis of search for ‘alcohol’:

This shows that the most popular subject relates to alcohol withdrawal (as that is the major topic in the most popularly clicked titles).  But we can look at even more detail.  So, within alcohol withdrawal we can see that baclofen, dexmedetomidine and benzodiazepines are the most popular sub-topics.

I hope this is clear!

My conclusion is that this gives a clear insight into the Trip user (almost exclusively health professionals are and mainly using Trip to obtain trusted answers to their clinical questions).  But, more than that it surely reflects the uncertainties/questions of the health service, making it an important component of research procurement – ensuring the topics funded meet the needs of the eventual users.

Oh yes, if you want me to generate some examples for topics of your interest then let me know.  I’m sure I can find time to generate a few more examples!