Web usage mining of organisational web sites

Web Usage Mining (WUM) can be used to determine whether the information architecture of a web site is structured correctly. Existing WUM tools however, do not indicate which web usage mining algorithms are used or provide effective graphical visualisations of the results obtained. WUM techniques can be used to determine typical navigation patterns of the users of organisational web sites. An organisational web site can be described as a site which has a high level of content. The Computer Science & Information Systems (CS&IS) web site at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) is an example of such a web site. The process of combining WUM and information visualisation techniques in order to discover useful information about web usage patterns is called visual web mining. The goal of this research is to discuss the development of a WUM model and a prototype, called WebPatterns, which allows the user to effectively visualise web usage patterns of an organisational web site. This will facilitate determining whether the information architecture of the CS&IS web site is structured correctly. The WUM algorithms used in WebPatterns are association rule mining and sequence analysis. The purpose of association rule mining is to discover relationships between different web pages within a web site. Sequence analysis is used to determine the longest time ordered paths that satisfy a user specified minimum frequency. A radial tree layout is used in WebPatterns to visualise the static structure of the organisational web site. The structure of the web site is laid out radially, with the home page in the middle and other pages positioned in circles at various levels around it. Colour and other visual cues are used to show the results of the WUM algorithms. User testing was used to determine the effectiveness and usefulness of WebPatterns for visualising web usage patterns. The results of the user testing clearly show that the participants were highly satisfied with the visual design and information provided by WebPatterns. All the participants also indicated that they would like to use WebPatterns in the future. Analysis of the web usage patterns presented by WebPatterns was used to determine that the information architecture of the CS&IS web site can be restructured to better facilitate information retrieval. Changes to the CS&IS web site web were suggested, included placing embedded hyperlinks on the home page to the frequently accessed sections of the web site

Web structure mining of dynamic pages

Web structure mining in static web contents decreases the accuracy of mined outcomes and affects the quality of decision making activity. By structure mining in web hidden data, the accuracy ratio of mined outcomes can be improved, thus enhancing the reliability and quality of decision making activity. Data Mining is an automated or semi automated exploration and analysis of large volume of data in order to reveal meaningful patterns. The term web mining is the discovery and analysis of useful information from World Wide Web that helps web search engines to find high quality web pages and enhances web click stream analysis. One branch of web mining is web structure mining. The goal of which is to generate structural summary about the Web site and Web pages. Web structure mining tries to discover the link structure of the hyperlinks at the inter-document level. In recent years, Web link structure mining has been widely used to infer important information about Web pages. But a major part of the web is in hidden form, also called Deep Web or Hidden Web that refers to documents on the Web that are dynamic and not accessible by general search engines; most search engine spiders can access only publicly index able Web (or the visible Web). Most documents in the hidden Web, including pages hidden behind search forms, specialized databases, and dynamically generated Web pages, are not accessible by general Web mining applications. Dynamic content generation is used in modern web pages and user forms are used to get information from a particular user and stored in a database. The link structure lying in these forms can not be accessed during conventional mining procedures. To access these links, user forms are filled automatically by using a rule based framework which has robust ability to read a web page containing dynamic contents as activeX controls like input boxes, command buttons, combo boxes, etc. After reading these controls dummy values are filled in the available fields and the doGet or doPost methods are automatically executed to acquire the link of next subsequent web page. The accuracy ratio of web page hierarchical structures can phenomenally be improved by including these hidden web pages in the process of Web structure mining. The designed system framework is adequately strong to process the dynamic Web pages along with static ones

Website visualizer : a tool for the visual analysis of website usage

Mestrado em Engenharia Electrónica, Telecomunicações e InformáticaOs sítios web estão incorporados em organizações para sustentar a missão das mesmas e para garantir uma difusão eficaz de informação num quadro de fluxo de trabalho eficiente. Neste contexto, os gestores de conteúdo e informação tem que monitorizar constantemente as necessidades inerentes à missão institucional e reflecti-las na estrutura, conteúdos e paradigmas de interacção das respectivas intranets e extranets. Esta tarefa de monitorização e análise não é de todo trivial, nem automática, sendo difícil garantir a sincronização dos sítios institucionais com as efectivas necessidades da sua missão em dado momento. O objectivo fundamental deste trabalho traduz-se nos exercícios de conceptualização, desenvolvimento e avaliação de uma aplicação capaz de relatar um cenário de análise e visualizar padrões de interacção em sitíos institucionais suportados em tecnologias web, que seja capaz de realçar as áreas mais críticas, com base na análise da estructura, conteúdo e hiperligações. Para este efeito, propôs-se um modelo conceptual e uma arquitectura, bem como um conjunto de métodos de visualização que facilitem essa análise. De forma a validar o modelo conceptual, a arquitectura, as estruturas de informação e os diversos métodos de visualização propostos, desenvolveu-se um protótipo que já comporta algumas fases de avaliação e aferição. Este protótipo pode ser considerado como uma plataforma de suporte à investigação capaz de integrar e testar esquemas específicos de visualização e procedimentos de correlação visual. Em suma, é parte integrante de um dos projectos de investigação da Universidade de Aveiro. Mais específicamente, este trabalho introduz uma arquitectura por camadas que suporta vistas multiplas sincronizadas, bem como novos metódos de visualização, inspecção e interacção. O prototipo integra estes metódos de visualização numa aplicação capaz de capturar, compilar e analizar informação relacionada com a estructura e conteúdo do sitío web, bem como padrões de utilização. O protótipo destina-se fundamentalmente a dar apoio a especialistas de usabilidade ou gestores de conteúdo na organização do espaço de informação de um sitío institucional. Contudo, não se destina a produzir directamente soluções para problemas de usabilidade encontrados, mas sim a ajudar a tomar decisões com base nos problemas de usabilidade diagnosticados, identificados e sinalizados durante o processo de análise. ABSTRACT: Websites are incorporated in organizations to support their mission and guarantee effective information delivery within an efficient information workflow framework. In this context, content managers have to constantly monitor the business needs and reflect them on the structure, contents and interaction paradigm of the institutional websites. This task is not trivial, nor automated, being difficult to guarantee that these websites are synchronized with the actual business requirements. The overall goal of this work is the conceptualization, development and evaluation of an application able to assist usability experts in the analysis and visualization of interaction patterns of organizational web based systems. It should be able to highlight the most critical website areas, based on the analysis of website structure, contents and interconnections. For this purpose, a conceptual model and architecture has been proposed, as well as a set of visualization methods designed to facilitate that analysis. In order to validate the proposed conceptual models, the architecture, information structures and several visualization methods, a prototype was developed, evaluated and refined. It can be considered as an experimental research platform, capable of integrating and testing specific visualization schemes and visual correlation procedures, and is part of an ongoing research program of University of Aveiro. Specifically, this work introduces a layered architecture that supports simultaneously synchronised multiple views, as well as novel visualization, inspection and interaction mechanisms. The prototype integrates these visualization methods in an application able to capture, compile and analyze the information related to the structure, contents and usage patterns of a website. This work is meant mainly to help usability experts or content managers to organize the informational space of an institutional web site. However, this application is not supposed to directly provide solutions for the usability problems of the site but to offer the means to help its users take decisions based on the interpretation of the usability problems identified and highlighted during the analysis process

Narrativa innatural: comparación dentro de la narrativa simple y compleja

[ES] En el presente trabajo de fin de grado se pretende definir, entender y analizar la narrativa innatural, comparando sus elementos dentro tanto de la narrativa simple como de la narrativa compleja. Para ello en un primer lugar se hablará de la innaturalidad y posteriormente de los dos tipos de narrativa que se han comentado, contando sus características, así como sus principales diferencias. Para poder entender todo aquello explicado en relación a la narrativa innatural, y las diferencias que encontramos de esta dentro de la narrativa simple y la narrativa compleja, se va a utilizar el estudio de dos casos concretos. Las series Dark y The Rain se consideran narrativas innaturales, la diferencia entre ellas es que una pertenece a las narrativas complejas y la otra a las simples, respectivamente. Tras realizar el mapa de tramas y el análisis de cada una de las series, seremos capaces de realizar una comparación entre los elementos innaturales en cada uno de los casos.[EN] In the present end-of-degree work, we aim to define, understand and analyze the unnatural narrative, comparing its elements within both the simple narrative and the complex narrative. For this, in the first place, we will talk about the unnaturality and then the two types of narrative that have been commented, counting their characteristics and their main differences. In order to understand everything explained in relation to the unnatural narrative, and the differences that we find from this within the simple narrative and the complex narrative, the study of two specific cases will be used. The series Dark and The Rain are considered unnatural narratives, the difference between them is that one belongs to the complex narratives and the other to the simple ones, respectively. After making the map of plots and the analysis of each of the series, we will be able to make a comparison between the unnatural elements in each of the cases.Garcia Serrano, M. (2019). Narrativa innatural: comparación dentro de la narrativa simple y compleja. Universitat Politècnica de València. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/128641TFG

Narrativas Dinámicas. Estructuras Interactivas de los Nuevos Medios en la Red

Siendo las bases de datos el centro del proceso creativo en la era del ordenador1 (Manovich) y siendo su medio de elección, Internet, partiendo de la hipótesis de que para que se adapten a este espacio las narrativas dinámicas deben amoldarse a las características inherentes al mismo, haciendo uso de las bases de datos - esto debe ser su enfoque principal para la supervivencia en este medio. Como forma de adaptar la narrativa a Internet, en esta investigación se distinguen dos modos que pueden completar ideas así como proyectos presentes y emergentes: la primera se titula bionarrativas ¿ se trata de estructuras que se auto generan, infinitas, que se construyen y se desarrollan sin control alguno del autor y siguen libremente sin la opción de encontrar un fin; la segunda se titula narrativas ecológicas - estructuras narrativas que se recrean, o no, a través de la intervención colaborativa, y cuya principal característica es hacer uso de bases de datos existentes, en el sentido de la remix, recontextualizándolas a través de enlaces semióticos (aquí entran todos los datos multimedia, como el vídeo, la fotografía, las imágenes gráficas, la animación, el sonido, el texto u otros elementos medias mezclados), que se podrán adaptar a estructuras prediseñadas. Para representar estos dos modos se han creado estructuras narrativas orgánicas, basadas en las ya existentes y en las propuestas realizadas, entre ellas podemos destacar: la acción injerto y la computación ubicua como las posibilidades futuras que serán desarrolladas en las narrativas dinámicas en línea, permitiendo el entendimiento de la principal rivalidad en las narrativas - la inmersión y la interactividad. La implicación humano-humano puede ser mucho más inmersiva que la Inteligencia artificial y puede facilitar más posibilidades de crear algo inesperado y no previsto por el autor de la estructura. El arte en red está entorno al ser humano y en lo referente a las narrativas, ellas también deberán estar basadas en el factor presencia y acción colaborativa del mismo.Moreira Abrantes Ferreira Da Silva, ME. (2013). Narrativas Dinámicas. Estructuras Interactivas de los Nuevos Medios en la Red [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/31382TESI

Online-Content-Mining für die Kreuzfahrtindustrie : ein Modell für die Technologieanpassung und Technologieakzeptanz

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