A fuzzy logic based Web Mining system for click stream analysis
Maksym Rusynyk graduated from Kharkov National University of Radio Electronic, Ukraine and has recently completed his MPhil at WIT entitled ‘A fuzzy logic based system for click stream analysis’. The external examiner was Prof Konrad Morgan from the department of Information Science at the University of Bergen, Norway, and the internal examiner was Dr Andres Peratta. Grateful Acknowledgement is given to the Foreign Office for their support.
The objective of the research was to develop a system for click stream analysis based on a fuzzy logic approach.
Clicks from Web site visitors which are stored in web server log files allow typical behaviour patterns to be investigated. With the help of Web Mining and click stream analysis, it is possible to identify patterns and to understand, for example, why some customers remain loyal to a company for a long time, others do not. Nuggets of knowledge obtained as a result of Web Mining allow e-commerce companies to redesign or restructure Web sites and make them more convenient and attractive for potential customers.
Applying fuzzy logic allows many problems associated with intelligent analysis of Web data to be resolved. Fuzzy logic embedded in such systems, allows both quantitative and qualitative aspects of data to be taken into account which can be effectively applied to cope with a vagueness and uncertainty in the data. Fuzzy logic allows for more than one conclusion to exist for an antecedent-consequent rule, which makes fuzzy systems more flexible than those approaches based on traditional logic.
As a result of this project a system that collects and cultivates click stream data was developed. This system uses both traditional and fuzzy statistics and makes analysis for both the whole web site and the individual visitor. The system was applied in a practical way to carry out an analysis of the WIT e-library web site.
Maksym was congratulated by the examiners on the success of his research and recommended the award of Master of Philosophy.
Wessex Institute