Exploring Cutting Edge Alternatives to Google Analytics: Things We Learned Along the Way
A walk-through of our foray into Matomo, an open-source web analytics platform as an alternative to Google Analytics. We will be elobrating on why we choose Matomo as an alternative, benefits of using Matomo such as providing full control of tracked data; advanced privacy controls; ability to assign different levels of access to library staff; Matomo’s API to fetch data and use it in visualization softwares; ability to send automatic emails on usage statistics; etc. We will also be talking about the findings of our comparative analysis between Google Analytics and Matomo that helped us make the decision. Finally we will be discussing some free and paid plugins that can be added to Matomo to provide additional insights on how our patrons engage with our site.
Speakers
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Jenny BrandonFront End Developer/Designer, Michigan State University LibrariesJenny Brandon is a Front End Developer and Digital Interface Designer. She has been a librarian at Michigan State University Libraries for over fifteen years, doing web development as well as working as a reference librarian.
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Sruthin GaddamUX Librarian, Michigan State UniversityHe/Him/His
I earned my Bachelors in Accounting and Computer Information Sciences from Pittsburg State University, Pittsburg, KS. I moved to MSU for grad school to pursue a Masters in Human Computer Interaction from the College of Arts & Sciences. I joined the MSU libraries in January 2015 as a student employee and assumed several roles in the Library. I’m a firm believer of lifelong learning, which has attracted me to stay at the libraries, pursue a degree in Library Information Science. I graduated from Wayne State with my MLIS in Aug 2021 and accepted the UX Librarian position at MSU. In my current role I do software development along UX and A11y testing for various projects at the MSU Libraries.