THE USE OF WEB LOG ANALYSIS IN ACADEMIC JOURNALS CASE STUDY

Abstract

Web log reports (the reports that are generated to list the statistical data on visitors of web sites) are often used by e-commerce sites to analyze their customer data. The same reports provide valuable information on the patterns of browsing by various visitors of the web site. This information can be analyzed and further studied to use for future decision making and for the benefit of the e-commerce organization in particular and for their web site in particular. The benefits that can be gained from the web log reports are not limited to e-commerce web sites. Other organizations that conduct regular work on their web sites can benefit from this kind of reporting as well. Among the other organizations that may benefit from web log reports are research organizations that publish papers/journals and post them on their web sites. This paper is to elaborate on the type of web log reports that are generated by one research institution that publishes a number of academic journals online. The journal editors for this institution receive web log reports where data for visitors of their web sites are presented in various formats. The process of producing these web log reports, their contents and the benefits that the reports may bring to the journals is discussed in this paper.