Jennifer Root
Document Development Coordinator
Violence Against Women Online Resources
Publication Date: Not Available
This document highlights the activities and achievements of the Violence Against Women Online Resources website during the Federal fiscal year, October 1, 2000 through September 30, 2001. This report provides statistical information regarding site usage, a summary of key findings gathered from information requests and a listing of new documents and content added to the site.
Violence Against Women Online Resources is a cooperative project between the Minnesota Center Against Violence and Abuse within the School of Social Work at the University of Minnesota and the Violence Against Women Office, Office of Justice Programs, United States Department of Justice. This site provides law, criminal justice, and social service professionals with current information on interventions to stop violence against women.
VAWOR is supported by grant number 98-WT-VX-K001 awarded by the Violence Against Women Office, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice.
VAWOR is maintained by approximately 2.5 FTE staff, which includes an Executive Director (PI), one full-time project manager, two half-time graduate assistants, a partial-time administrative assistant and technical contractor. The site is advised by a National Advisory Board comprised of professionals from a spectrum of criminal justice and related professions. The board members review documents added to the site.
The project's Principal Investigator oversees the design, management, and direction of Violence Against Women Online Resources.
The Project Manager manages the daily operations of the site, including project design, management and staff supervision. She acts as the key liaison to VAWO and the National Advisory Board, supervises the project staff, and oversees the contract with the web-server consultant.
The graduate assistants assist the Project Manager with identifying existing material for linkage to the site, identifying existing documents and obtaining in an electronic form, coding documents in HTML, and preparing them for placement on the site. They also scan the site for dead links, repair broken ones, and search for material that has moved.
The technical contractor specialist maintains the server and performs specialized programming in CGI and Java to allow interactive access to search routines, databases, and other advanced features.
The following general statistics tables indicate the total monthly and yearly activity for Violence Against Women Online Resources.
The term 'hit' can be thought of as the number of times the entire site was accessed by users. The average number of hits per day ranges from 2,686 in December 2000 to 5,192 in April 2001. On average, the site receives approximately 4,000 hits per day, an increase of 81% from the previous year. During the previous year, the average number of hits per day was 2,213.
The table above illustrates the number of user sessions per day. This data does not inform us about the number of unique people accessing the site per day, but does provide insight about how many times per day users conduct a session on the site. A 'user' is considered a unique person accessing the site. A user commits 'hits' on the site when she visits various pages on the website. Therefore, one user may commit several hits during her user session.
On average, the site experienced approximately 878 user sessions per day between October 1, 2000 - September 30, 2001. During the previous year, the site averaged approximately 491 user sessions per day, a 79% increase in the number of user sessions per day from the previous year.
The above chart represents the most active countries in terms of site usage. Each of the countries listed had a significant usage increase during the year. The United States represented the most active country between October 1, 2000 - September 30, 2001 with 227,318 user sessions (94%). Countries in the top five include:
Users accessing the site have come from many different countries including, Japan Singapore, Germany, New Zealand (Aotearoa), Malaysia, Belgium Arab Emirates, Norway, and Mexico.
The following charts represent the top ten downloaded PDF documents and the top ten most accessed HTML documents on the site. Some of these documents are available in both PDF and HTML formats, while others are only available in one of these formats.
| Document | Total Number of Downloads |
|---|---|
| An Advocates Guide to Full Faith and Credit | 2,616 |
| Police Response to Crimes of Sexual Assault: A Training Curriculum (Modules 1, 2 , 3 and 5) |
2,255 |
| Child Custody and Visitation Decisions in Domestic Violence Cases: Legal Trends, Research Findings, and Recommendations |
262 |
| Assessing Justice System Response to Violence Against Women |
200 |
| Problems Associated with Children's Witnessing of Domestic Violence |
194 |
| Evaluating Coordinated Community Responses to Domestic Violence |
160 |
| A Review of Standards for Batterer Intervention Programs |
146 |
| Evaluations of Advocacy Efforts to End Intimate Male Violence Against Women |
146 |
| Marital Rape | 131 |
| The Overlap Between Child Maltreatment and Woman Abuse |
49 |
| Document | Number of Times Viewed |
|---|---|
| Marital Rape | 53,632 |
| Child Custody and Visitation Decisions in Domestic Violence Cases |
16,374 |
| Poverty, Welfare and Battered Women: What Does the Research Tell Us? |
9,878 |
| Annual Report on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Domestic Violence |
7,509 |
| Abuse and Women with Disabilities | 6,782 |
| Problems Associated with Children's Witnessing of Domestic Violence |
6,598 |
| Handbook for statutory rape issues | 4,350 |
| Critique of the "Battered Woman Syndrome" Model |
4,152 |
| A Law Enforcement Officer's Guide to Enforcing Orders of Protection Nationwide |
2,476 |
| Reviewing Domestic Violence Fatalities: Summarizing National Developments |
1,490 |
It is important to note the significance of the number of times "Marital Rape" by Raquel Bergen was accessed. This document has been the number one accessed document for the past two years. Additional statistical data reveals that the document "Marital Rape" is also the top exited page and the top single access page. Since users were accessing this document and immediately exiting the site, this leads us to believe that some users may be seeking material outside the context of technical assistance regarding violence against women and perhaps are instead seeking pornographic material.
Violence Against Women Online Resources houses over 100 full text documents related to sexual assault, domestic violence and stalking. Staff members solicit content for the site from national and international organizations. The site houses papers, reports, research findings, curricula, presentations, training manuals and multi-media resources related to violence against women.
From October 1, 2000 - September 30, 2001, VAWOR added 30 new documents to the website. Of these, 27 were previously published documents and three documents were commissioned by VAWOR. The 27 previously published documents include:
Violence Against Women Online Resources commissioned authors to develop six unique, research manuscripts where a lack of information related to violence against women existed. The National Advisory Board identified research priorities from which the document topics were drawn. After identifying the research priorities, VAWOR staff began searching for and commissioning authors to develop these original documents. During the document development process, VAWOR staff worked closely with authors and reviewers to develop these highly utilized documents.
These documents, created to fill a gap in information, were published online. In total, six manuscripts were commissioned by VAWOR.
These commissioned documents have been greatly utilized since their publication on the site. One month following their publication, one half of the documents were in the top five of the most downloaded PDF's. They continue to be heavily used both in HTML and PDF formats.
From October 1, 2000 through September 30, 2001, Violence Against Women Online Resources received 696 information requests through the website's email account. The following charts provide information regarding the number of requests per month, type of requests, topic of technical assistance and the identity of the requestor.
Violence Against Women Online Resources received a total of 696 requests for information between October 1, 2000 - September 30, 2001, a 61% increase in the number of requests received the previous year.
VAWOR identifies the type of request received as either a (1) solicitation/ad, (2) technical assistance, (3) crisis support, (4) other or (5) undisclosed. These five categories are defined by VAWOR as:
Between October 1, 2000 - September 30, 2001, the majority (53%) of requests were identified as technical assistance. Requests for crisis support/advocacy, typically sent by primary and secondary victims, represented 33% of the requests received.
The category Technical Assistance is further broken down into descriptive types of technical assistance. VAWOR defines these types as:
As seen in this chart, the majority (60%) of requests for technical assistance is regarding research.
The categories are defined in the VAWOR Code Book as:
The requests received from victims this year represent a 4% decrease from the previous year. This could be attributed to the recent implementation of warnings regarding Internet safety and privacy on the website's email page. VAWOR made these warnings available to victims so that they would be aware that an abusive partner could monitor their Internet activity. These warnings could account for the decrease in information requests from victims.
Professionals are also major users of the site. Social service, criminal justice and health care professionals represent 24% of the requestors. The identity of the requestor could not be determined in 19% of the cases.
VAWOR experienced enormous growth and activity over the past fiscal year. This growth can be seen in the site's usage, development and technical assistance provision.
On average the site experienced close to 1,000 user sessions per day. While the United States represented the majority of users, it was clear that VAWOR also had an international presence. International usage among the top five countries increased, on average, 95% from the previous year. With user sessions increasing and international recognition growing as well, the number of users accessing the site increased 79% from the previous year.
Growth could also be seen in the number of new full-text documents and website links that were added to the site. Between October 1, 2000 and September 30, 2001, VAWOR added 27 previously published documents and three commissioned documents to the site.
VAWOR continued to receive increasing numbers of requests for technical assistance. The majority of requestors, victims and professionals, contacted VAWOR for information related to crisis support, advocacy, research and training. These requests increased 61% from the previous year.
VAWOR receives positive feedback about the site and staff are pleased that the resources are well utilized in the community.
This document was not developed by Violence Against Women Online Resources. The document's author or sponsoring organization granted VAWOR permission for placement on this site. Points of view in this document are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
This web site is a cooperative project of Office on Violence Against Women and Minnesota Center Against Violence & Abuse at the University of Minnesota and is supported by grant number 2004-WT-AX-K075 awarded by the Office on Violence Against Women, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice.
Additional information about this site can be obtained by reading Email us for more information and assistance.
©Copyright 1998-2005 Minnesota Center Against Violence and Abuse (MINCAVA)
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