A pre-processing tool for Web usage mining in the distance education domain

• Published in: Proceedings. International Database Engineering and Applications Symposium, 2004. IDEAS '04 pp. 78 - 87
• Main Authors: Marquardt, C.G., Becker, K., Ruiz, D.D.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Los Alamitos CA IEEE 2004; IEEE Computer Society
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Cleaning; Computer science; control theory; systems; Computer systems and distributed systems. User interface; Data engineering; Data mining; Data processing. List processing. Character string processing; Design automation; Distance learning; Electronic commerce; Exact sciences and technology; Information systems. Data bases; Memory organisation. Data processing; Navigation; Pattern analysis; Prototypes; Software; Spatial databases; Alignment; User interface; World wide web; Reuse; Database; Internet; Data mining; User behavior; Information browsing; Remote teaching; Teaching
• ISBN: 9780769521688; 0769521681
• ISSN: 1098-8068
• DOI: 10.1109/IDEAS.2004.1319780

Web usage mining (WUM) is the process of extracting navigation behaviour patterns that allow analysing users' interactions with Web-based environments. We discuss the impact of developing the WUM preprocessing phase according to concepts, problems and goals specific to Web-based learning environments. We present a tool prototype that automates typical tasks performed in the pre-processing phase, by offering operators that implement these tasks. The tool seeks for the active involvement of domain-related people (e.g. instructors). Functionality makes easier the alignment of mining goals with required pre-processing tasks, by addressing the configuration of operators visually and by enabling the reuse of existing configurations.