DocumentCode :
379041
Title :
Evaluation of user search in a Web-database
Author :
Nordbotten, Joan C. ; Nordbotten, Svein
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Inf. Sci., Bergen Univ., Norway
fYear :
2002
fDate :
7-10 Jan. 2002
Firstpage :
1848
Lastpage :
1854
Abstract :
The number of Web databases has exploded during the last few years. In order to justify the development of new information resources, it is essential to know if the use of existing resources has followed a similar trend. This paper presents an analysis of the use of a national statistical Web database that was made to support Web-site improvement efforts. The study is based on log data taken during two time periods in 1999 and 2000. In this period, the number of registered users increased five-fold and the number of sessions more than doubled. During September 2000, active users spent 4,320 hours on the Web database and initiated 14,998 topic sessions, giving an average of seven hours and 25 sessions per user. The definition of a "session" has proved difficult, since the log data available is based on registered organizations, rather than on tasks or individual users. Ideally, a "session" should be defined as a search for and retrieval of the information required for a task. We have used a "topic session", defined as a sequence of requests from topic initiation to retrieval of the data on this topic, as a task approximation.
Keywords :
information resources; information retrieval; information use; statistical databases; task analysis; Web log data; Web site improvement efforts; World Wide Web databases; information resource development; information resource use trends; information retrieval; information searching; national statistical database; registered organizations; registered users; request sequence; session definition; task approximation; topic initiation; topic sessions; user search evaluation; user sessions; Data security; Databases; Electronic mail; Government; Information resources; Information retrieval; Information science; Internet; Organizational aspects; Statistics;
fLanguage :
English
Publisher :
ieee
Conference_Titel :
System Sciences, 2002. HICSS. Proceedings of the 35th Annual Hawaii International Conference on
Print_ISBN :
0-7695-1435-9
Type :
conf
DOI :
10.1109/HICSS.2002.994099
Filename :
994099
Link To Document :
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