University of Wyoming Cooperative Extension Service – Impact Statement for 2003
UW Extension’s Food and Nutrition Web Site Maintains Active Use
 

SITUATION

A work group* of county and state-based UW CES educators is responsible for maintaining and expanding the UW Extension Food and Nutrition Web site at www.uwyo.edu/cesnutrition. The following are key points related to the group’s activities and the site’s use for FY 2002:

•Activity data: From October 2002 - September 2003, web server software collected and compiled monthly data related to the site’s activity.

•Site expansion and improvements:
In order to get feedback and suggestions about the website, the food & nutrition website work group sent surveys to 15 educators and homemakers. The group included those with a wide knowledge of the Internet to those who were beginners. Survey questions asked about the following areas: user-friendliness, content, format and appearance. 93% of the surveys were returned. Suggestions led the work group in the decision for the following expansions and improvements:

- Search engine feature added
- Addition of Wyoming Food Safety Coalition food safety press releases and numerous publications
- Easier to read website description formatting
- “Face lift” of home page. Includes coalition and organization icons at top of page, reformatting of web page contents.
- More appealing color and format; addition of photographs

•Promotion:

- Poster session at 2003 Galaxy conference
- Rolodex card distribution state-wide through workgroup members
- Monthly “themed” e:mail promotions sent to Cooperative Extension educators
- Expansion of promotion to 4-H educators; promoting site featuring vegetable judging photographs.
 

IMPACTS ACHIEVED

Popular pages
The most popular pages have been: 1) Wyoming Food Safety Coalition, 2) Food and Nutrition Publications, 3) Newsletters, 4) Food Composition/Nutrition Analysis, and 4) Food Preparation. Most visitors enter the site via the main page.
 

Use & trends

Rank on UW’s server
The site consistently ranks in the top 10% of UW server web sites in terms of visitors.
 

Total Number of Visitors
The average number of visitors per month was 680. This is a significant increase from 2002. Average number of visitors for last year was only 246. *Due to a change in server last year, data is only available for number of visitors for June-Sept. 2002. Months with the highest number of visitors was April, September and August. See the figure and table below for more information.

Month	Visitors
Oct. 2002	423
Nov. 2002	415
Dec. 2002	334
Jan. 2003	479
Feb. 2003	594
Mar. 2003	805
April 2003	929
May 2003	No Data
Jun. 2003	721
Jul. 2003	792
Aug. 2003	830
Sept. 2003	959

Total Number of Pages Viewed
Once visitors reach the site, they can view numerous pages, such as diet and disease, food composition/nutrient analysis, food publications, nutrition misinformation/fad diet critiques and more.

The table and figure below show the number of pages viewed per month. The average number of pages viewed per month for 2003 was 6,549. This is a significant increase from the pages viewed in 2002, which was only 2,689. August and September are the months with the highest number of pages viewed. Speculation for an increase of visitors during August may be the busy food preservation season. September increase may possibly be credited to National food safety month.

Month	Pages Viewed
Oct. 2002	3471
Nov. 2002	3785
Dec. 2002	4364
Jan. 2003	3854
Feb. 2003	7904
Mar. 2003	7347
April 2003	6948
May 2003	No Data
Jun. 2003	7872
Jul. 2003	7583
Aug. 2003	9990
Sept. 2003	8927

SUMMARY

During the fiscal year 2003, the University of Wyoming Food & Nutrition website grew and
changed in many ways. The number of visitors and pages viewed increased greatly from last
year. Major changes have been made to the website in both content and format.
 

*UW Food and Nutrition Extension Web-site Work Group (2002-2003): Randy Anderson, Darlene Christensen, Vicki Hayman, Phyllis Lewis, Christine Pasley, Suzy Pelican (chair), and Virginia Romero-Caron.