1School of Medicine, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, Oregon.
2University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, Florida.
Neurosurg Focus. 2020 Mar 1;48(3):E17. doi: 10.3171/2019.12.FOCUS19820.
The advent of the internet and the popularity of e-learning resources has promoted a shift in medical and surgical education today. The Neurosurgical Atlas has sought to capitalize on this shift by providing easily accessible video and online education to its users on an international scale. The rising popularity of social media has provided new avenues for expanding that global reach, and the Atlas has sought to do just that. In this study, the authors analyzed user demographics and web traffic patterns to quantify the international reach of the Atlas and examined the potential impact of social media platforms on the expansion of that reach.
Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram metrics were extracted using each respective service's analytics tool from the date of their creation through October 2019. Google Analytics was used to extract website traffic data from September 2018 to September 2019 and app data from January 2019 to October 2019. The metrics extracted included the number of platform users/followers, user demographic information, percentage of new versus returning visitors, and a number of platform-specific values.
Since the authors' previous publication in 2017, annual website viewership has more than doubled to greater than 500,000 viewing sessions in the past year alone; international users accounted for more than 60% of the visits. The Atlas Twitter account, established in August 2012, has more than 12,000 followers, primarily hailing from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Saudi Arabia. The Atlas Facebook account, established in 2013, has just over 13,000 followers, primarily from India, Egypt, and Mexico. The Atlas Instagram account (established most recently, in December 2018) has more than 16,000 followers and the highest percentage (31%) of younger users (aged 18-24 years). The Atlas app was officially launched in May 2019, largely via promotion on the Atlas social media platforms, and has since recorded more than 60,000 viewing sessions, 80% of which were from users outside the United States.
The Neurosurgical Atlas has attempted to leverage the many e-learning resources at its disposal to assist in spreading neurosurgical best practice on an international scale in a novel and comprehensive way. By incorporating multiple social media platforms into its repertoire, the Atlas is able to ensure awareness of and access to these resources regardless of the user's location or platform of preference. In so doing, the Atlas represents a novel way of advancing access to neurosurgical educational resources in the digital age.
互联网的出现和电子学习资源的普及推动了当今医学和外科学教育的转变。神经外科学图谱（The Neurosurgical Atlas）试图通过在国际范围内为用户提供易于访问的视频和在线教育来利用这一转变。社交媒体的兴起为扩大全球影响力提供了新的途径，而图谱也在努力实现这一目标。在这项研究中，作者分析了用户人口统计学和网络流量模式，以量化图谱的国际影响力，并研究了社交媒体平台对扩大影响力的潜在影响。
从创建之日起至 2019 年 10 月，使用每个社交媒体平台的分析工具提取了 Twitter、Facebook 和 Instagram 的指标。使用 Google Analytics 提取了 2018 年 9 月至 2019 年 9 月的网站流量数据和 2019 年 1 月至 2019 年 10 月的应用程序数据。提取的指标包括平台用户/关注者的数量、用户人口统计信息、新访客和回访访客的百分比，以及一些特定于平台的值。
自作者 2017 年的上一次发表以来，仅在过去一年中，网站的年浏览量就翻了一番多，超过了 50 万次浏览；国际用户占访问量的 60%以上。图谱的 Twitter 账户于 2012 年 8 月建立，拥有超过 12000 名关注者，主要来自美国、英国、加拿大和沙特阿拉伯。图谱的 Facebook 账户于 2013 年建立，拥有超过 13000 名关注者，主要来自印度、埃及和墨西哥。图谱的 Instagram 账户（最近于 2018 年 12 月建立）拥有超过 16000 名关注者，并且拥有最高的年轻用户比例（31%，年龄在 18-24 岁之间）。图谱应用程序于 2019 年 5 月正式推出，主要通过图谱的社交媒体平台进行推广，此后已记录了超过 60000 次浏览，其中 80%来自美国以外的用户。
神经外科学图谱试图利用其可获得的许多电子学习资源，以新颖而全面的方式协助在国际范围内传播神经外科学的最佳实践。通过将多个社交媒体平台纳入其工具包，图谱能够确保用户无论其所在位置或首选平台如何，都能了解和访问这些资源。通过这种方式，图谱代表了在数字时代推进神经外科学教育资源获取的一种新途径。
