Web Server Logs Research Articles

Using Web Server Logs in Evaluating Instructional Web Sites

Web server logs contain a great deal of information about who uses a Web site and how they use it. Software exists to help analyze these logs, and the programs can produce a variety of reports about your site and its visitors. The analyses can tell us such things as where people enter and exit, what the most popular pages are, what browsers people use to access the site, patterns of use over time, and much more. This information, especially when used in conjunction with data from surveys, usability studies, and other sources, can help us design and revise our Web sites. The goal is to make them more useful to and usable by our students. This article describes the information available from Web server logs, discusses some of the ways to analyze it, and begins to look at how to use that information in formative evaluation for instructional Web sites.

Developing a medical library website at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

This article describes the development of the Central Medical Library website at the Medical Faculty of Ljubljana, Slovenia. The aim of the website is to serve as a guide to the library resources and services. The website is built with a uniform graphic design and a menu driven structure. The structure partitions information space by providing meaningful subject categories that enable efficient exploring by browsing. Because the categories are limited in their granularity a search engine based on the Harvest system is included. An evaluation of website access was carried out by analysing and exploring the web server log files using data warehousing and OLAP (On‐Line Analytical Processing) technology. Finally some possibilities for future development of the website are suggested.

Managing TCP connections under persistent HTTP

Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) traffic dominates Internet traffic. The exchange of HTTP messages is implemented using the connection-oriented TCP. HTTP/1.0 establishes a new TCP connection for each HTTP request, resulting in many consecutive short-lived TCP connections. The emerging HTTP/1.1 reduces latencies and overhead from closing and re-establishing connections by supporting persistent connections as a default. A TCP connection which is kept open and reused for the next HTTP request reduces overhead and latency. Open connections, however, consume sockets and memory for socket-buffers. This trade-off establishes a need for connection-management policies. We propose policies that exploit embedded information in the HTTP request messages, e.g., senders' identities and requested URLs, and compare them to the fixed-timeout policy used in the current implementation of the Apache Web server. An experimental evaluation of connection management policies at Web servers, conducted using Web server logs, shows that our URL-based policy consistently outperforms other policies, and achieves significant 15–25% reduction in cost with respect to the fixed-timeout policy. Hence, allowing Web servers and clients to more fully reap the benefits of persistent HTTP.

Security considerations in the delivery of Web‐based applications: a case study

The study outlines a number of security requirements that are typical of a host of Web‐based applications using a case study of a real life online Web‐based customer support system. It subsequently proposes a security solution that employs a combination of Web server security measures and cryptographic techniques. The Web server security measures include the formulation and implementation of a policy for server physical security, configuration control, users’ access control and regular Web server log checks. Login passwords, in conjunction with public key cryptographic techniques and random nonces, are used to achieve user authentication, provide a safeguard against replay attacks, and prevent non‐repudiatory usage of system by users. These techniques, together with the use of session keys, will allow data integrity and confidentiality of the customer support system to be enforced. Furthermore, a number of security guidelines have been observed in the implementation of the relevant software to ensure further safety of the system.

Listener: A tool for client-side investigation of hypermedia navigation behavior

Behavioral researchers have employed hypermedia-based software applications in their experiments for some time. More recently, interest in the World-Wide Web has developed among researchers in the social sciences, and popular use of this new medium continues to grow at an incredible rate. This paper describes Listener, a tool developed to log users’ hypermedia and World-Wide Web navigation behavior using Apple Macintosh computers in a laboratory setting. Listener is able to capture navigation actions through cached documents, overcoming some of the problems associated with analyzing standard web server logs.

SpeedTracer: A Web usage mining and analysis tool

SpeedTracer, a World Wide Web usage mining and analysis tool, was developed to understand user surfing behavior by exploring the Web server log files with data mining techniques. As the popularity of the Web has exploded, there is a strong desire to understand user surfing behavior. However, it is difficult to perform user-oriented data mining and analysis directly on the server log files because they tend to be ambiguous and incomplete. With innovative algorithms, SpeedTracer first identifies user sessions by reconstructing user traversal paths. It does not require “cookies” or user registration for session identification. User privacy is protected. Once user sessions are identified, data mining algorithms are then applied to discover the most common traversal paths and groups of pages frequently visited together. Important user browsing patterns are manifested through the frequent traversal paths and page groups, helping the understanding of user surfing behavior. Three types of reports are prepared: user-based reports, path-based reports and group-based reports. In this paper, we describe the design of SpeedTracer and demonstrate some of its features with a few sample reports.

Providing Extension Information Electronically—Easing the Transition From a Paper-Based System

Cooperative Extension has relied heavily on the distribution of printed materials to accomplish its mission of providing research-based educational materials to agricultural producers and consumers. As the costs of print media have escalated and budgets have been reduced, Extension has continually sought more efficient and effective alternatives. World Wide Web information servers are central to this task, since they are relatively inexpensive to set up and operate, and can deliver high-quality materials for on-screen viewing or printing on demand. Recent developments (specifically the WebTV network) indicate the Web to be the medium of choice for Extension delivery systems. In addition to providing electronic versions of publications, slide shows, and video clips, most Web browsers also support e-mail and interactive forms for obtaining information from the client. Analysis of Web server logs and guest registers can be used to determine client use patterns to address issues of access and accountability. The current and next generations of most word processing, page layout, and presentation software offer Web-ready layout as one saving option.