A framework analysis for managing feedback of visitors of a web site

Abstract

Purpose

An important issue in the management of a web‐based user community, where users are registered to a web portal, is to identify patterns of users' interest. In this context, the users' feedback plays a major role. The purpose of this paper is to define a novel framework analysis for managing the feedback given by registered visitors of a web site.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper presents a new technique to integrate the feedback explicitly given by users into already existing user profiles. The authors introduce the novel concepts of scope, filtering, and relevance profiles for managing users' feedback. The new concept of Relevance Profile (RP) is defined.

Findings

Using the framework, the authors were able to discover patterns of usage of registered users of a web site.

Practical implications

The practical applicability of the approach is validated by a use case study showing how the framework can be used with a real web site. The authors used Gugubarra as a reference system, a prototype for creating and managing web user profiles, developed by the DBIS group at the Goethe‐University of Frankfurt.

Originality/value

A new way to integrate the user feedback into interest profiles and a novel framework to analyze and discover patterns of interests are presented. The paper is an extended version (more than 50 per cent novel material) of a previous paper presented at the iiWAS2010 conference.

Citation

Schefels, C. and Zicari, R.V. (2012), "A framework analysis for managing feedback of visitors of a web site", International Journal of Web Information Systems, Vol. 8 No. 1, pp. 127-150. https://doi.org/10.1108/17440081211222618