The Data Deluge: Opportunities for Research in Educational Digital Libraries

Increasingly, educational digital libraries and associated services that support both formal and informal learning are available on the Web. As these collections are web-based, they can be engineered to capture fine-grained web usage data. However, because of their voluminous and detailed nature, rigorous analytical and interpretation strategies remain challenging. In response, webmetrics refers to the process of measuring, collecting, analyzing, and reporting web usage data. This chapter discusses the utility of webmetrics as a research method, and illustrates approaches for engineering and collecting web usage data in two digital library environments, the Instructional Architect and the Exploratorium’s Learning Resources Collection. The chapter describes how using a set of common webmetrics such as visits, page views, and geographical location can help better understand the behaviors of end users. We also describe the application of educational data mining (EDM) to help discover meaningful patterns in usage data. Results include analyses from a pilot study that applies a clustering technique to teacher usage data from the Instructional Architect. The chapter concludes with a discussion of some of the current limitations and future possibilities of using web metrics to analyze and evaluate use and impact of educational digital