What you think about the Bulletin

The internal communication service has carried out a survey regarding the quality of the Bulletin. Between the middle of May and the middle of June, 35 members of the CERN personnel were consulted individually about what they liked and disliked about the Bulletin and any changes they wanted to see.

 

A wide readership
The first point to emerge from the survey is that the Bulletin is read by a large proportion of the CERN population, even if opinions on its form and contents vary: 33 of the 35 people questioned said that they read it, representing 94.3%. Some even consider it as a point of reference: "If a subject isn’t featured in the Bulletin, I don't even know it exists!", said one young woman.

Different reading habits

Of course, almost all the people questioned don't read the Bulletin from cover to cover but select the information which concerns them personally or is on a subject of interest to them. The choice of articles read varies according to profession, job and personal curiosity. As a general rule, the articles on the LHC are particularly popular.

The LHC: important but sometimes given too much emphasis

"For me, it goes without saying that the Bulletin should talk about the LHC", says one respondent. "The work of each and every one of us has been geared towards the LHC for several years now, so it would be a pity if we didn't know what was going on there, what was happening with the components, the teams, the problems and the challenges!" Many of the survey's participants shared these views as the LHC machine is a subject of great curiosity, not only at CERN but among the general public: "People ask lots of questions when they discover that we work at CERN", said one woman, "and they're mostly about the LHC. The Bulletin is a good source of basic information that helps to answer them".
On the other hand, several people thought that the LHC was sometimes given too much coverage in the Bulletin. "It seems like the other machines and the other projects, etc., have been forgotten about", said one respondent. The Bulletin's articles will soon start to focus more on the experiments, then later on the accelerators of the future. Articles on their design and construction are already featured from time to time, as and when there are developments to be reported.

Suggestions for improvements

As well as suggestions about the contents, such as covering a wider range of subjects, the survey reveals a desire for improvements to the form, including that of the web version. Some respondents suggested the possibility of allowing readers to comment on articles on-line, a feature which should be introduced by next year. Another suggestion concerning the form was the introduction of sub-headings in articles to make it easier to get a gist of the contents: "In general, I read the title and the introduction, then I skim through the rest", said one participant.

An overview of science and technology

The articles that readers most tend to glance through are those of a scientific and/or technical nature. Opinions on their comprehensibility are divided: some think that the level is correct, while others feel that articles are not accessible enough. But many readers say that they don't require more from the Bulletin: they don't wish to know the details but simply have an overview of what's going on at CERN. "Even if I don't understand all the technical terms, it's not a big problem for me. When I hear them mentioned again in conversations, I make the link".

The Bulletin team will take account of all the opinions and ideas emerging from the survey in order to improve the form and content of the magazine and ensure that it meets its readers expectations as closely as possible.



If you have any other suggestions, please write to: Bulletin-Editors@cern.ch.

 

 


 


by Alizée Dauvergne