austraLasia 1379
Analysis of austraLasia 2005
ROME: 5th January 2006 -- Most readers would be aware that in the course of the past year, some fairly sophisticated content analysis software has been applied, with useful and interesting results, to some important material - the total set of responses to the Brother's Questionnaire in preparation for the 2006 Assembly in the Region, for example (this analysis can be downloaded and read from the Brother's page on Bosconet). The same process was actually applied here at the Pisana to the complicated set of responses given by 60+ community members to their community project. It certainly helped the process to clarify the key ideas and people's 'drift'.
So, I thought I would apply the same software to austraLasia, the full set of items for the year 2005, to see if we are anywhere near meeting our stated aim which is to provide news from/for and create bonds amongst the far-flung entities, circumscriptions and more importantly, people belonging to the Salesian Family in our Region. Herewith some results.
Firstly some basic statistics: there were 391 editions of austraLasia in 2005. One doesn't need to be Mandrake to work out that this offers a frequency of one a day and a teeny bit more. It seems to be a good frequency to maintain. It is possible to tell exactly what these items applied to - if we go by province or similar grouping, here's how it looks: Between the two Philippines provinces plus Pakistan - 43; Thailand-Cambodia - 42; Vietnam-Mongolia - 31; Japan - 29; Australia-Samoa-Fiji - 26; China-Taiwan - 25; Papua New Guinea-Solomon Islands - 22; Indonesia-East Timor - 19; Korea - 16; in addition to our own area, South Asia recorded 51 items (the provinces of India plus Myanmar), and a further 106 had no particular application to a place but were general news items, 'Salesian' general - 80, and other general (as distinct from Mother General!) - 26. That all adds up to a little over 400 - some of the items applied to more than one place so were recorded in both, some items referred to specific entities within the Salesian Family rather than an SDB province.
Altogether I have noted 43 correspondents who have provided at least one item in the course of the year. I may have missed a couple along the way. 10 of those are quite regular and have adopted a pattern of one new item (or more) per month. This seems to be a winning formula and I would encourage others to consider it. It results in a good overall flow of news and views.
In terms of content anlaysis, it is not possible here to go into the details available, but it is an interesting picture, a scattergram, if you like, showing not only frequency of concepts but relationships and inter-relationships. It can be viewed from several angles. One of these turns up 6 main concept clusters: Salesian(which includes young people, confreres, work, community, the RM, Salesian Family); school (which also includes parish, children, home, studies and - I haven't yet worked out why - novitiate house!); news - news is news, enough said; life (includes mission, group); then a cluster of time and place locators (province, region, world, day, year...); finally - English, which probably reflects a fascination of the coordinator, but also the fact that this language has been chosen as the lingua franca of the region. Another angle on this identified Salesian, Community, Region as the three key concepts around which the rest clustered. Yet another way of seeing all the above was to identify a Salesian-young people-work pattern, a Don Bosco-life-world-community pattern, and a students-school-English-group pattern. Over to you to determine whether or not all the above adequately reflects Salesian Life and Mission in the psyche and the reality of our readers and contributors!
In the course of 2005 austraLasia introduced several improvements: most significant was RSS, which enables people to be more selective and discerning in reading choice. Another was the occasional introduction of a glossary for difficult or unusual words - which many have commented on as helpful. A third was the listing of all items in Bosconet under their various province groupings, so readers can gain the kind of overall picture I have just outlined above. austraLasia also links in neatly enough with other similar Salesian e-letter distribution networks like Rualink, Boscolink, BIS, and of course ANS which it feeds into almost daily. This makes for a powerful set of connections in the English-speaking Salesian world. Occasionally this 'power' is discernible in other ways. Within three hours of the most recent austraLasia on the B&W Don Bosco DVD, Ireland had received orders for nine copies. What a pity we are not in this game for filthy lucre!!
VOCABLULARY
filthy lucre: money
____________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For RSS feeds, subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/rssala.xml
Analysis of austraLasia 2005
ROME: 5th January 2006 -- Most readers would be aware that in the course of the past year, some fairly sophisticated content analysis software has been applied, with useful and interesting results, to some important material - the total set of responses to the Brother's Questionnaire in preparation for the 2006 Assembly in the Region, for example (this analysis can be downloaded and read from the Brother's page on Bosconet). The same process was actually applied here at the Pisana to the complicated set of responses given by 60+ community members to their community project. It certainly helped the process to clarify the key ideas and people's 'drift'.
So, I thought I would apply the same software to austraLasia, the full set of items for the year 2005, to see if we are anywhere near meeting our stated aim which is to provide news from/for and create bonds amongst the far-flung entities, circumscriptions and more importantly, people belonging to the Salesian Family in our Region. Herewith some results.
Firstly some basic statistics: there were 391 editions of austraLasia in 2005. One doesn't need to be Mandrake to work out that this offers a frequency of one a day and a teeny bit more. It seems to be a good frequency to maintain. It is possible to tell exactly what these items applied to - if we go by province or similar grouping, here's how it looks: Between the two Philippines provinces plus Pakistan - 43; Thailand-Cambodia - 42; Vietnam-Mongolia - 31; Japan - 29; Australia-Samoa-Fiji - 26; China-Taiwan - 25; Papua New Guinea-Solomon Islands - 22; Indonesia-East Timor - 19; Korea - 16; in addition to our own area, South Asia recorded 51 items (the provinces of India plus Myanmar), and a further 106 had no particular application to a place but were general news items, 'Salesian' general - 80, and other general (as distinct from Mother General!) - 26. That all adds up to a little over 400 - some of the items applied to more than one place so were recorded in both, some items referred to specific entities within the Salesian Family rather than an SDB province.
Altogether I have noted 43 correspondents who have provided at least one item in the course of the year. I may have missed a couple along the way. 10 of those are quite regular and have adopted a pattern of one new item (or more) per month. This seems to be a winning formula and I would encourage others to consider it. It results in a good overall flow of news and views.
In terms of content anlaysis, it is not possible here to go into the details available, but it is an interesting picture, a scattergram, if you like, showing not only frequency of concepts but relationships and inter-relationships. It can be viewed from several angles. One of these turns up 6 main concept clusters: Salesian(which includes young people, confreres, work, community, the RM, Salesian Family); school (which also includes parish, children, home, studies and - I haven't yet worked out why - novitiate house!); news - news is news, enough said; life (includes mission, group); then a cluster of time and place locators (province, region, world, day, year...); finally - English, which probably reflects a fascination of the coordinator, but also the fact that this language has been chosen as the lingua franca of the region. Another angle on this identified Salesian, Community, Region as the three key concepts around which the rest clustered. Yet another way of seeing all the above was to identify a Salesian-young people-work pattern, a Don Bosco-life-world-community pattern, and a students-school-English-group pattern. Over to you to determine whether or not all the above adequately reflects Salesian Life and Mission in the psyche and the reality of our readers and contributors!
In the course of 2005 austraLasia introduced several improvements: most significant was RSS, which enables people to be more selective and discerning in reading choice. Another was the occasional introduction of a glossary for difficult or unusual words - which many have commented on as helpful. A third was the listing of all items in Bosconet under their various province groupings, so readers can gain the kind of overall picture I have just outlined above. austraLasia also links in neatly enough with other similar Salesian e-letter distribution networks like Rualink, Boscolink, BIS, and of course ANS which it feeds into almost daily. This makes for a powerful set of connections in the English-speaking Salesian world. Occasionally this 'power' is discernible in other ways. Within three hours of the most recent austraLasia on the B&W Don Bosco DVD, Ireland had received orders for nine copies. What a pity we are not in this game for filthy lucre!!
VOCABLULARY
filthy lucre: money
____________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For RSS feeds, subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/rssala.xml
