# Scholarly Navigation on an Open Science Platform

Mohsine Aabid, Simon Dumas Primbault, Patrice Bellot

► To cite this version:

Mohsine Aabid, Simon Dumas Primbault, Patrice Bellot. Scholarly Navigation on an Open Science Platform. Digital Humanities (DH2025), Jul 2025, Lisboa Portugal, Portugal. hal-05189390

HAL Id: hal-05189390

https://hal.science/hal-05189390v1

Submitted on 28 Jul 2025

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access
archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-
entific research documents, whether they are pub-
lished or not. The documents may come from
teaching and research institutions in France or
abroad, or from public or private research centers.

L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est
destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents
scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non,
émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de
recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires
publics ou privés.

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>

Scan me

# Scholarly Navigation on an Open Science Platform
## A Computational Study of OpenEdition's Server Logs

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /></figure>

## Background

This study analyzes **user behavior** on OpenEdition, a French open access platform for the humanities and social sciences, which includes four services: Journals, Books, Hypotheses (blogs), and Calendar (events), plus a search engine. Using **server logs** from October 2023 and 2024, the research investigates how users interact with and navigate these platforms.

## Question

What **patterns** of user behavior are typically observed during navigation within an open access **digital library**?

## Data Preprocessing

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /></figure>

LOG

Parse

Extract information from log files.

Clean

Clean the non-human queries.

Identify

Identify queries within the same session.

Augment

Enrich with some additional data.

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /></figure>

Database

Structured, enriched data.

## Methodology

* Log files were **preprocessed** to extract features and structure data around identified **user sessions**, enabling a coherent view of user interactions over time.

* **Three separate behavioral analyses** were conducted, each using a different clustering algorithm tailored to a specific objective.

## Transitions

* How do users **transition** in the digital library websites?

* Compute **transition matrices** at platform and website levels.

* Cluster sessions via **Expectation Maximization** and derive matrices with cluster proportions.

<figure><img src="image_6.png" /><figcaption>Example for Platforms 2023</figcaption></figure>

## Preferences

* Are there some preferences for consulted resources?

* Build an **item-item** similarity matrix for editor websites based on sessions.

* Cluster similar **websites** and analyze them by **attributes** like language or discipline.

<figure><img src="image_7.png" /><figcaption>2023 language distribution by website cluster</figcaption></figure>

## Topology

<figure><img src="image_8.png" /></figure>

* What types of navigation **profiles** can be expected in user sessions?

<figure><img src="image_9.png" /></figure>

* Represent visited websites numerically using **Word2Vec**.

<figure><img src="image_10.png" /></figure>

* Analyze **topology** of navigation paths and cluster by structure.

<figure><img src="image_11.png" /><figcaption>Example of navigation strategies</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_12.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_13.png" /></figure>

## Preliminary Results

* Most sessions stay on one platform; cross-platform sessions often lead to journal sites.

* User preferences emerge in editor metadata—for example, one group favors Spanish and Portuguese sites, another prefers disciplines like sociology, anthropology, education, and area studies

<figure><img src="image_14.png" /></figure>

* Navigation patterns reveal four session types: single-site (one editor), linear (no revisits), semi-linear (linear start with later loops), and complex (branched with constant backtracking).