Newsgroups: bit.listserv.medlib-l
Date:         Tue, 5 Jan 1993 16:05:49 EST
From:         James Jay Morgan <MORGANJ@UCS.INDIANA.EDU>
Subject:      Plusnet2 statistics with Bindview

This is cross-posted to CDROMLAN, CDPLUS-L and Medlib-l.

In December I reported on CDROMLAN@IDBSU that because of the
limitations of the CDPStats statistics module in Plusnet2
systems, I was using Bindview to generate user statistics.  Since
this has been mentioned on CDPLUS-L and Medlib-L I thought I
would post my latest findings to all three lists.

From late July through December CDPSTATS shows a total of 6,309
uses of our system.  Bindview for the same period shows 16,463.
Because of the way we administer our system, both figures
underestimate usage, but the Bindview figure is more accurate.

Using CDPStats we can generate detailed information about
searches, and statistics from survey questions.  However the
module does not record data unless the user closes the session
normally.  Judging from the figures above, 38% of our users close
the session normally.  Most leave in mid-session and the session
either times out or is continued by another user.

We have open terminals with no passwords or charges within the
library and the Learning Resouce Center, so the users have no
incentive to close the session. If your system does give the
users an incentive to close the session properly, the CDPStats
statistics will be much more accurate.  So far I've heard of 3
incentives, 1) charging for use, 2) giving users passwords good
only for a fixed amount of time, and 3) withholding printed
results until the user closes the session.  Each of these
incentives would increase the number of properly closed sessions.


Using Bindview we can total the number of logins by month, group
and by user or station.  This is still an undercount, because if
another user continues an open session, that user will not be
counted.  We have set the timeout at 3 minutes, but during busy
periods we have people waiting and terminals seldom timeout.  In
addition the CDPLUS timeout doesn't work in some situations, such
as when the user leaves the station in browse mode and in some of
the other informational screens.  Some of the logins represent
use by system administrators rather than users, but these can be
easily subtracted from the total.

I plan to do some observation in January to try to estimate the
undercount during busy and during quiet periods.  Right now I
would guess that the undercount during a busy hour could be as
much as 150%, since fewer than 40% of our users close their
session.  Of course such busy periods are limited to weekday
afternoons, and the rest of the day the number of uncounted users
would be lower.  It would probably related the the percentage of
time users leave the terminals in a no timeout mode.  Overall the
actual number of users is probably 20-30% higher than our
Bindview login count.

I would be happy to hear from anyone else who has worked on a
formula for estimating use from the number of logins, or other
methods of measuring use.


Jim Morgan
RUTH LILLY MEDICAL LIBRARY
INDIANA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
MORGANJ@INDYVAX.BITNET  MORGANJ@INDYVAX.IUPUI.EDU
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU