Evaluation of Science in School

Findings of report commissioned by EMBL on behalf of EIROforum Partners

October 2019

Scope of work undertaken by Consultant

• Audience and Readership – online and telephone survey to elicit to determine how magazine is consumed, appreciated, understood and shared

• Content – assessment of efficacy of current content gathering system and whether content is useful and impactful

• Production – is the current publishing model of in-house editorial and web editing and outsourced graphic design optimal ?

• Platform and Distribution – are the current print publication and web platform models fit for purpose. Could they be optimized ?

• Finance – assuming the current level of funding is SiS financially viable

• Alternative Business Model – recommend alternative business models that could reasonably be adopted

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Methodology• Group and one-to-one consultations with SiS staff and EMBL digital

staff

• Online SurveyMonkey questionnaire (636 responses)

• Kudos Research conducted multilanguage telephone interviews (47 participants)

• Discussion with Alperion Web Dev and EMBL’s digital team

• Consultations with specialists experienced in researching, producing and managing Education and Learning Products

• Analysis of quotes from independent suppliers to compare current costs

• Assessment of business model options based on consultant’s extensive experience

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Key findings• SiS is a valuable resource:

Meets EIROforum public and outreach aims among secondary school teachers and educationalists

Excellent content, committed staff, but under-resourced

Highly engaged readership who value excellent quality content, especially teaching materials

• Viability:

High-quality, open access magazine, with broad international coverage, backed by top science organizations

• Production and publishing model:

Print based product, complex and inefficient production workflow, no clearly defined work roles, limited financial management

Web version not optimal - readership seeks greater interactivity, functionality, especially teaching activities content

50% of surveyed readership still value print version4

Competitor Matrix: Openness v Key Content

Extent of Teaching Activities Content

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SWOT Analysis, Science in School

Strengths Weaknesses

Opportunities Threats

• Educational output from prestige, high-quality scientific organizations

• Strong organizational culture of outreach and engagement

• Quality content, with valued teaching/learning material –much in translation

• Great ‘brand’ and engaged broad readership community and volunteer translators

• Full Open Access (online) and free print (Europe)• Print educational resources still used widely

• Labour-intensive, print-based production workflow, with digital secondary to print

• Overlapping staff responsibilities – all team members work across different functions

• Lack of administrative leadership for financial, supplier, customer service, publishing coordination

• Content choices editor-driven rather than readership-needs-led

• Web content is generally low functionality in digital age• Patchy and ad hoc digital and promotional strategies

• Reader and user community can be leveraged and engaged a lot more

• Strong demand for more teaching content and ability to integrate digitally into course planning

• Enhance professional development offering for teachers• Opportunities for partnering (eg repositories such as

STEM Learning and Scientix, European Schoolnet)) • Digital First would improve efficiencies and make the

web-based offering much more attractive and unique• Digital First opens up more opportunities for tech-led

EIROs

• Current workflow predicated on single-point accountability

• Bespoke issue compilation, design and layout cost time and resources

• Technology in classroom teaching is changing – changing curricula/teaching methods

• Funding issues – significant upfront investment may be required for shift to Digital First strategy

• Partnering could shift traffic away from SiS platform• Open CC-BY content could be repackaged and sold by

commercial entities 6

Business model options

•Retain and continue, ‘business as usual’

•Retain and continue with ‘Digital First’ model

•Publishing lease contract

•Publishing services ‘packager’ contract

•Asset sale or disposal/give-away to third party

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Digital model• Current model is a ‘print-first’ model, with web offering re-

engineered

• New digital workflow would improve efficiencies and provide more outputs for different media and products

• Readership needs based on experience of other platforms and demand more content, especially videos and interactive features

• Digital allows more valuable user interaction, feedback and content structuring

• Easier feed of EIRO news content to newsletter and website

• Potential to share more content with strategic teacher and education partners while preserving added-value of SiS website

• Technology options require major review and tendering exercise and migration to new Content Management System

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SiS Digital Team staffing proposal

SiS Publisher

(In-house)

Co-ordinating Editorial Assistant

(In-house)

Freelance Content Editor

(Part-time)

Freelance Content Editor

(Part-time)

Digital Project

Manager

(External f/l contract)

Intern (not costed)

EMBL Digital

Team

SiS Decisions needed1. Whether to continue with the SiS project or Close/Dispose/Seek 3rd party

‘packager’.Cost factors: Unlikely to realize much asset value for title, and a packager will require arrangement fee because no revenue stream exists.

2. If CONTINUE:

Decision about publishing model, print, or print ‘hybrid’ versus online-only.Cost factors: Current quarterly print model with website is unsustainable (€100k costs with rising and higher quarterly dispatch costs). Website will require upgrading/migration in 2021 anyway. Decision is between digital first with annual print volume, or online-only.

3. Whether to proceed with (a) Digital First + annual print, or (b) online-only.

Cost factors: Staff costs in new staffing plan will be lower for both over 2021-2025 than 2019 actual costs were.

(a) Increase of €7k per annum in annual operating budget, and one-off capital tech investment of €160k in 2020/21

(b) Reduction of €25k per annum in annual operating budget, and one-off capital tech investment of €135k in 2020/21

Decisions needed (1)

1. Whether to continue with the SiS project or Close/Dispose.

Cost factor: Annual support costs of €276k (2019) could rise by c.€80k per annum for new website and additional staffing, but may be offset by c.€30k with annual print volume rather than quarterly print + dispatch (dispatch is key cost).

Plus one-off cost of technology investment (one-off cost with new platform, CMS, and templating output project). If YES CONTINUE,

2. Decision about publishing model must be made, ie online-only/print-and-online with all issues printed/print-and-online with only print annual volume.

Cost factor: Online-only saves c.€50k per annum in costs, although requirements for effective marketing of online content to maintain readership and usage may add €10k in costs to offset against this saving.

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Decisions needed (2)3. Whether to proceed with Digital First transformation, to roduce more enhanced publication to meet audience needs and experiences (ie, TO STAY COMPETITIVE).

If YES, agreement is required about the level of technology/staff investment.

Cost factors: High upfront cost of technology investment (€?); additional staff costs of c. €65-70k; carry-over underspend budget of c. €100k from 2019. If YES, Technology/Digital leads need to prepare tender for potential vendors. If NO,

4. Decision still needs to be made about the website in respect of the need for CMS migration as the current Drupal 7 reaches end of life. Tender process for vendors still required.

Cost factor: Costs of migration = €?

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Decisions needed (3)

5. Whether to progress a 2020 SiS transition plan. If the decision is to proceed, then a plan should be drawn up and implemented for Recruitment, Content sourcing, Web edition, Print edition (frequency?), technology (Flipbook e-zine as fallback?).

6. Align SiS budgeting and cost accounting to calendar year to enable effective publishing management, budgeting and cost accounting on SAP against budget.

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