The internet is almost everywhere these days, as are the various efforts to analyze how people consume it. Most of those efforts are focused on trying to get us to buy or do something. But internet analytics can also be used to monitor specific goals or outcomes. During 2020, ACS has been exploring the use of internet analytics as an a monitoring tool for environmental programs. From phones to drones, the role of technology in monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) is rapidly expanding. Yet in the environmental sector, there are few examples of leveraging the internet as an MEL tool to monitor programs and their performance.
Free tool like Google Trends and Google Analytics allow for the opportunity to design cost-effective monitoring tools that, in some cases, can be applied to environmental programs. While such tools are increasingly being used to track public perception around environmental topics, they have not been used much to monitor other stakeholders, such as communities of conservation practitioners. We are interested in doing so. Earlier this year, we ran our first workshop on the topic. Below is a short information and resource guide that gives an introduction to internet analytics, the tools, and how it might be applied to the monitoring of environmental programs.