[Dspace-general] Statistics

[George Stanley Kozak]

Tom:

I missed the chat, too, but I have been one of the ones asking for a more
integrated statistics package.  I used to use NetTracker for my DSpace
instance and now am using a combination of the Edinburgh software and some
locally grown software.  I then have a page that lists the top 10 hits and
other stats.

At one time we hade a counter on the item page that kept track of views,
but this local code of ours broke when we went to DSpace 1.4.2.

My users are asking for specific information concerning their partcilular
item(s) or collection(s) and they'd like to see it on the item or
collection page.  I tried to use the Minho package, but have had problems
getting it to work in my instance.

So, my thinking has been that if DSpace had an integrated package (maybe
something that acts like the Minho software), then I would be able to give
the users what they want.  So, in my case, the free and commerical
packages while giving me useful information, doesn't give my users what
they want to see.  To fix that I would have to do some programming and my
experience in changing DSpace software these past several years is that "I
really don't want to do that!" ;-)

So, that's my logic behind asking for an integrated stats package for
DSpace (Yes, I know it's selfish!).

> I missed the chat the other day, so some of this may have been covered and
> dismissed already.
>
> Tomcat has the capacity to output Apache-style "combined" log files for
> all requests, including bitstreams. There's a whole host of commercial,
> shareware and freeware products out there designed to slice-and-dice these
> Apache log files and pull out all the kinds of reports people seem to be
> talking about here.
>
> The programs range from the very simple, like Analog, to the extremely
> complex and expensive, like WebTrends Enterprise. They can be configured
> to download the log files automatically and run reports on a schedule, so
> that they're there when you come in in the morning. They can incorporate
> various filters, resolve user IP addresses, analyze request URL paths
> (which can be translated into collection and community names), referers,
> logged-in users, user agents, etc. etc.
>
> Rather than reinvent the wheel (and this is an extremely complex wheel),I
> think for most users it would pay to look at this approach unless there is
> something really esoteric about your traffic that you are trying to get
> at.
>
> _____________________
> Tom McGee
> Seton Hall University TLTC
> 973 761 9000 x5021_______________________________________________
> Dspace-general mailing list
> Dspace-general at mit.edu
> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/dspace-general
>


****************************************
George Kozak
Coordinator
Web Development and Management
Digital Media Group
501 Olin Library
Cornell University 14853
gsk5 at cornell.edu
607-255-8924