What is an Analogue for the Semantic Web and Why is Having One Important?

This paper postulates that for the Semantic Web to grow and gain input from fields that will surely benefit it, it needs to develop an analogue that will help people not only understand what it is, but what the potential opportunities are that are enabled by these new protocols. The model proposed in the paper takes the way that Web interaction has been framed as a baseline to inform a similar analogue for the Semantic Web. While the Web has been represented as a Page + Links, the paper presents the argument that the Semantic Web can be conceptualized as a Notebook + Memex. The argument considers how this model also presents new challenges for fundamental human interaction with computing, and that hypertext models have much to contribute to this new understanding for distributed information systems

User Interfaces for Personal Knowledge Management with Semantic Technologies

This thesis describes iMapping and QuiKey, two novel user interface concepts for dealing with structured information. iMapping is a visual knowledge mapping technique based on zooming, which combines the advantages of several existing approaches and scales up to very large maps. QuiKey is a text-based tool to interact with graph-structured knowledge bases with very high interaction efficiency. Both tools have been implemented and positively evaluated in user studies

How organisation of architecture documentation affects architectural knowledge retrieval

A common approach to software architecture documentation in industry projects is the use of file-based documents. This approach offers a single-dimensional arrangement of the architectural knowledge. Knowledge retrieval from file-based architecture documentation is efficient if the organisation of knowledge supports the needs of the readers; otherwise it can be difficult. In this paper, we compare the organisation and retrieval of architectural knowledge in a file-based documentation approach and an ontology-based documentation approach. The ontology-based approach offers a multi-dimensional organisation of architectural knowledge by means of a software ontology and semantic wiki, whereas file-based documentation typically uses hierarchical organisation by directory structure and table of content. We conducted case studies in two companies to study the efficiency and effectiveness of retrieving architectural knowledge from the different organisations of knowledge. We found that the use of better knowledge organisation correlates with the efficiency and effectiveness of AK retrieval. Professionals who used the knowledge organisation found this beneficial

Semantic Markup for Geographic Web Maps in HTML

In the recent years more and more geographical web maps have been developed and published on the Open Web Platform. Technically this has turned all variants of these maps into documents of the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) making them appear to us naturally as graph-like and semi-structured data. In this dispute with geographical web maps and HTML we draw on the notion of so called “map mashups”. Requiring an alternative model and definition of what such a map is, our research allows us to build and refine supportive technology which helps us in analyzing and interpreting information map makers code into their visualizations. The spectacles we take on to shine light on the current authoring practices behind many geographical web maps are informed by the perspective of a “critical map reader”. A task-oriented conception of “map critique” helped us to deduce a meaningful user perspective from which we specifically call the semantic web community for support on how to represent various information presented in maps from many authors and sources. With this perspective and questions in mind we investigated the Schema.org vocabulary as an ontology to use for turning elements of geographic web maps into textual statements referencing entities in the “outer world”. To illustrate and to make our investigation of the corresponding web standard documents easily applicable for map makers, to open up the discussion, but also to challenge and develop our first conclusions, we implemented them as a minimal extension to the standard API of the LeafletJS open source web mapping library

Technologies to enhance self-directed learning from hypertext

With the growing popularity of the World Wide Web, materials presented to learners in the form of hypertext have become a major instructional resource. Despite the potential of hypertext to facilitate access to learning materials, self-directed learning from hypertext is often associated with many concerns. Self-directed learners, due to their different viewpoints, may follow different navigation paths, and thus they will have different interactions with knowledge. Therefore, learners can end up being disoriented or cognitively-overloaded due to the potential gap between what they need and what actually exists on the Web. In addition, while a lot of research has gone into supporting the task of finding web resources, less attention has been paid to the task of supporting the interpretation of Web pages. The inability to interpret the content of pages leads learners to interrupt their current browsing activities to seek help from other human resources or explanatory learning materials. Such activity can weaken learner engagement and lower their motivation to learn. This thesis aims to promote self-directed learning from hypertext resources by proposing solutions to the above problems. It first presents Knowledge Puzzle, a tool that proposes a constructivist approach to learn from the Web. Its main contribution to Web-based learning is that self-directed learners will be able to adapt the path of instruction and the structure of hypertext to their way of thinking, regardless of how the Web content is delivered. This can effectively reduce the gap between what they need and what exists on the Web. SWLinker is another system proposed in this thesis with the aim of supporting the interpretation of Web pages using ontology based semantic annotation. It is an extension to the Internet Explorer Web browser that automatically creates a semantic layer of explanatory information and instructional guidance over Web pages. It also aims to break the conventional view of Web browsing as an individual activity by leveraging the notion of ontology-based collaborative browsing. Both of the tools presented in this thesis were evaluated by students within the context of particular learning tasks. The results show that they effectively fulfilled the intended goals by facilitating learning from hypertext without introducing high overheads in terms of usability or browsing efforts