Empirical observations on the session timeout threshold

  • Authors:

  • Toan Huynh;James Miller

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta, Electrical and Computer Engineering Research Facility, Edmonton, AB, Canada T6G 2V4;Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta, Electrical and Computer Engineering Research Facility, Edmonton, AB, Canada T6G 2V4

  • Venue:
  • Information Processing and Management: an International Journal
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

The World Wide Web is a popular ''tool'' for companies. It can be used as a method of communication between companies and their customers; it also allows organizations to setup virtual storefronts that can be accessed by customers from all over the world. The ability to understand customers' behavior is extremely important as companies strive to increase the usability and profitability of their web service. The concept of a session is a popular unit of measurement used to analyze recorded information. However, this concept is currently rather abstract and lacks definition. How we measure a session is a fundamental question for web services utilizing this concept. Currently, this question has no real answer. This paper presents a session timeout threshold model based on empirical observations as an initial answer to this question. The model seeks to provide accurate session data with respect to individual web services.