Making sense of audit trail data

Abstract

In this paper we argue that the use of audit trail data for research and evaluation purposes has attracted scepticism due to real and perceived difficulties associated with the data's interpretation. We suggest that educational technology researchers and evaluators need to better understand how audit trail data can be processed and analysed effectively, and identify three stages of audit trail analysis. We present an investigation of a computer based learning resource as a vehicle for exploring strategies that can assist researchers and evaluators in the analysis and interpretation of audit trail data. The analytical approach we describe is iterative in nature, moving to greater levels of sp..