A Data Webhouse to monitor the use of a Web Based Higher Education Information System

Abstract

Monitoring the user behaviour of an information system (IS) is a valuable way to assess its impact and to guide its improvement. In the case of Web Based IS this is usually done analyzing the Web server logs or clickstreams, a too low-level approach with huge amounts of data. Dealing with this calls for data warehouse techniques, which abstract the clickstream to notions like session and navigation path and combine them with information on the structure and meaning of the IS and its users, leading to what is called a Data Webhouse. The paper presents the dimensional modelling of a data webhouse specifically designed to monitor Web-based Higher Education IS and describes some aspects of its ETL process instantiation in SIGARRA, the WBHEIS of the University of Porto.