Book Chapter on Foundations of Log Analysis

There are a whole lot of posting, articles, and books on the trick and techniques for analyzing logs. However, there are few to no articles on the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of log analysis. This is too bad because it is important to understand the biases and paradigms employed when one uses log analysis.

I co-authored a book chapter on these foundational elements. The chapter presents the theoretical and methodological foundations for log analysis. It covers the fundamentals of log analysis from a research viewpoint and the concept of transaction logs as a data collection technique from the perspective of focusing on behaviors. The chapter moves to the methodological aspects of log analysis, examining the strengths and limitations of logs as trace data. Then, the chapter reviews the conceptualization of log analysis as an unobtrusive approach to research, and presents the power and deficiency of the unobtrusive methodological concept. Some of the ethical questions concerning the collection of data via transaction log applications are discussed.

You can access, for free, the book chapter on the methodological and theoretical foundations of search log analysis.