To date, information about electronic book (ebook) usage has been sought explicitly through interviews, questionnaires, think-aloud sessions and measurements of task success. Logs, commonly used in tracking user behaviour on the web, present a new possibility: gathering data about users implicitly. Users can be "tracked" behaving naturally and without interruption, giving rise to new and valuable forms of feedback; such data could be used in a variety of ways, including informing good design and developing personalisation services. This project will explore the potential of this non-invasive technique for observing user behaviour with ebooks, assessing its effectiveness as an evaluation method.

The project aims to:

• Determine what sort of information can be gathered from logging and tracking software about ebook use, and the value of this information.
• Assess the costs and benefits of using logs as an ebook evaluation tool.

Specifically, its objectives are to:

• Survey logging and tracking software and its current applications.
• Use logging software to implicitly study user interactions with a free web book.
• Compare and combine the results with data from other evaluation methods, expanding the EBONI Project's ebook evaluation methodology.
• Record the costs involved in using logs as an evaluation tool.
• Disseminate this information to the appropriate communities.

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Department of Computer & Information Sciences
University of Strathclyde    Livingstone Tower    26 Richmond Street
Glasgow, G1 1XH