There’s a very good persona analysis in the latest edition of D-Lib called “Using Personas to Understand the Needs and Goals of Institutional Repository Users” out of the U. Colorado Boulder. A couple things caught my eye.

Firstly, the persona study came across findings they didn’t expect, which is a classic result for user-centered research:

It was assumed that the users desired an open-access archive of primarily published research materials generated by the faculty and graduate students, but the users actually desired a network where teaching and learning materials are shared, potential collaborators are identified, and participants’ research is promoted to institutional colleagues.

Secondly, the article references an article by the same authors I had missed: A latent semantic analysis methodology for the identification and creation of personas. ( I haven’t read this, my institution doesn’t have a subscription so it’s back to good old ILL.)

The resulting personas are well fleshed out, with a mix of professors and students. Very interesting study.