Overview
Since 2016, our research group has collaborated with Deutsche Welle (DW), Germany’s international public broadcaster, on the development of web analytics tools and methods tailored to DW’s editorial and technical needs. The cooperation combined applied research with hands-on software development, giving students the opportunity to work on real-world problems in close exchange with DW’s editorial and IT departments.
The project was initiated by Kai Eckert while affiliated with Stuttgart Media University, where it was based until 2022. In 2023, Kai Eckert moved to Mannheim Technical University, and the project moved with him, continuing the collaboration with DW under its new institutional home.
Project Focus
The collaboration addressed three closely related areas:
- Focused and specialized web crawlers — development of crawling infrastructure tailored to DW’s multilingual web presence, enabling systematic and reliable data collection across DW’s various platforms.
- Business intelligence tools — design and implementation of components to aggregate, structure, and query web and usage data in support of editorial and strategic decision-making.
- Advanced visualization and analytics — development of dashboards and analytical components that translate raw web data into actionable, interpretable insights for editorial teams.
A Decade of Student Research
Over the course of the project, several generations of students contributed to the collaboration through research assistantships, and bachelor’s and master’s theses conducted jointly with DW. These works covered a wide range of topics within web analytics, crawling methodology, data engineering, and information visualization, providing students with direct exposure to an industry setting while contributing new methods and tools to the ongoing cooperation.
PageStats: From Research Prototype to Production Use
A central outcome of the collaboration was PageStats, an in-house data analytics solution developed to provide DW with detailed insights into the performance of articles on its website. PageStats was designed and iteratively refined over several project phases, incorporating feedback from DW’s editorial teams to ensure its relevance for day-to-day editorial work.
In 2025, PageStats was successfully handed over to Deutsche Welle as a mature research prototype. It is now maintained and further developed internally by DW, marking a successful transition of a long-term research effort into an operational tool.
A very early poster to present what would become PageStats
Outcome and Continuation
Since 2016, the collaboration has continued across two institutional homes and produced a steady stream of research results, tools, and trained researchers. The partnership between our group and Deutsche Welle remains active today, several of our former students are now DW staff.