ZooWise is a pioneering audience research project for zoos, aquariums and other organizations engaging public audiences with nature.
This project aims to broaden knowledge within zoos and aquariums around the world of factors that affect the public's understanding of conservation and biodiversity.
The ZooWise research project aims to improve public engagement practices, support conservation and biodiversity awareness and activism within the general public.
ZooWise uses established social science research and evaluation methods to facilitate the research capabilities required for this global mission.
This project addresses common constraints and acute limitations to robust, quality and effective visitor research and impact evaluation (e.g. Jensen 2014).
The ZooWise research project extends survey designs and methods from recent global research projects (Moss, Jensen & Gusset 2015). Information collected in this project supports better understanding of key areas for visitor research.
This project enables comparative impact evaluation at a regional, national and global level. This is accomplished using innovative research technology, standardized systems for comparative benchmarking and a focus on visitor experiences and education impacts.
Comparisons are based on standardized measurement tools to understand visitor profiles, experiences and outcomes relating to conservation education. This project uses benchmarking to aid in discovery and distribution of best practices.
The mission and objectives are enabled with innovative technology that automates the process of data collection, aggregation and processing, sector-level analysis, and evaluation reporting. Audience data are analyzed automatically within a project dashboard that provides each institution with benchmark scores for its comparison groups.
Learn more about ZooWise's automated evaluation system and options available for data collection.
Once you join ZooWise, you get full access to the Question Bank. But what is it and how does it work?
This project is guided by world-leading expert advisors from around the world. Advisors help to orient the project and ensure its impact is maximized for participating zoo and aquarium practitioners and their public audiences.
The project delivery team facilitates the audience research process using the ZooWise survey tools, supporting zoos and aquariums each step of the way from initial interest to real-time benchmarked analytics.
Survey
Design
Data
Collection
Data
Management
Data
Analysis
Data
Reporting
Capacity
Building
The project tools will give individual institutions the ability to monitor visitor experience and impacts in real-time, with relevant benchmarks based on aggregate results from other participating institutions and prior research.
The ongoing evaluation results will provide insights of immediate value across zoo and aquarium operations.
Education
Fundraising
Retail
Membership
Marketing
Catering
Visitor Services
Public Events
The ZooWise research project is open for participation.
Representatives from interested zoos and aquariums are invited to submit general inquiries about the ZooWise research project through the form below.
Find out about what's included with participation in the ZooWise research project.
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