How to interpret viewing scenarios in log files from streaming media servers
by Jelle De Boer, Jos Tolboom
International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning (IJCEELL), Vol. 18, No. 4, 2008

Abstract: When video is offered to students in a Web-based Learning Environment through a streaming video server, digital traces of their viewing behaviour can be collected in log files. These traces can be linked to view behaviours like zapping. According to the literature, a zapping scenario could indicate the broken link between the educational task and the video. The analysis of log files from e-learning systems could tell us something about studying the behaviour. The subject of this explorative research is the possibly interesting patterns in log files from streaming media servers. The setting of the experiment was a polytechnic institute in Groningen (The Netherlands) and it involved three groups of students, 50 in total, who were taking a course on JavaScript. We focused on the relationship between the event clusters in the log files and their related viewing scenarios. The presence of zapping can indicate the need for improvements to either the instruction video or its accompanying task. Based on our analysis of the literature, previous experiments and interviews, we have defined four viewing scenarios: one-pass, two-pass, repetitive and zapping scenario. We found traces of these scenarios in the log files. Further research is necessary to link viewing scenarios to study the behaviour.

Online publication date: Fri, 18-Jul-2008

The full text of this article is only available to individual subscribers or to users at subscribing institutions.

 
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.

Pay per view:
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.

Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning (IJCEELL):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:

Username:        Password:          Forgotten your password?

Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.

If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com