Version Control in Online Software Repositories

Software version control repositories provide a uniform and stable interface to manage documents and their version histories. Unfortunately, Open Source systems, for example, CVS, Subversion, and GNU Arch are not well suited to highly collaborative environments and fail to track semantic changes in repositories. We introduce document provenance as our Description Logic framework to track the semantic changes in software repositories and draw interesting results about their historic behaviour using a rule-based inference engine. To support the use of this framework, we have developed our own online collaborative tool, leveraging the fluency of the modern WikiWikiWeb

Version Control in Online Software Repositories

Software version control repositories provide a uniform and stable interface to manage documents and their version histories. Unfortunately, Open Source systems, for example, CVS, Subversion, and GNU Arch are not well suited to highly collaborative environments and fail to track semantic changes in repositories. We introduce document provenance as our Description Logic framework to track the semantic changes in software repositories and draw interesting results about their historic behaviour using a rule-based inference engine. To support the use of this framework, we have developed our own online collaborative tool, leveraging the fluency of the modern WikiWikiWeb

Hypermedia Learning Objects System - On the Way to a Semantic Educational Web

While eLearning systems become more and more popular in daily education, available applications lack opportunities to structure, annotate and manage their contents in a high-level fashion. General efforts to improve these deficits are taken by initiatives to define rich meta data sets and a semanticWeb layer. In the present paper we introduce Hylos, an online learning system. Hylos is based on a cellular eLearning Object (ELO) information model encapsulating meta data conforming to the LOM standard. Content management is provisioned on this semantic meta data level and allows for variable, dynamically adaptable access structures. Context aware multifunctional links permit a systematic navigation depending on the learners and didactic needs, thereby exploring the capabilities of the semantic web. Hylos is built upon the more general Multimedia Information Repository (MIR) and the MIR adaptive context linking environment (MIRaCLE), its linking extension. MIR is an open system supporting the standards XML, Corba and JNDI. Hylos benefits from manageable information structures, sophisticated access logic and high-level authoring tools like the ELO editor responsible for the semi-manual creation of meta data and WYSIWYG like content editing.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figure

Should heritage management be democratized? The Denkmalpflegediskussion in Germany.

This paper is about the recent discussions (known as Denkmalpflegediskussion) on the general organization of heritage management in Germany. The main issue discussed was whether heritage management should be further denationalized (’entstaatlicht’) and made the responsibility of individual citizens in order to serve better both the monuments and the people. A number of fundamental criticisms were made concerning existing practices of heritage management, some of which were said to alienate and patronize people despite opposite intentions. In the course of the public exchange of views various alternatives were suggested and discussed. In particular, more influence should be given to the owners. The overriding criterion for scheduling should be a site’s ability to move people, in other words its ’beauty’ rather than some complex academic reasoning about historical significance. This paper will review the polarized debate that ensued, summarize the main arguments that were made, and discuss emerging key issues in the light of the existing discussion in Sweden, for example in the context of the Agenda Kulturarv project. Should heritage management in a democratic society be liberalized to the extent that it becomes a matter for local communities and individual citizens rather than for the state

Open Access zwischen Revolution und Goldesel. Eine Bilanz fünfzehn Jahre nach der Erklärung der Budapest Open Access Initiative

Open Access war anfangs der 2000er Jahre von Umbruchstimmung, Euphorie und Idealismus getragen. Die Erwartungen waren klar umrissen: Wissenschaftlern war an rascher Verbreitung wissenschaftlicher Texte gelegen, Bibliothekaren an einer Abhilfe für stark steigende Journalpreise, den Wissenschaftseinrichtungen an effizienter und freier Verbreitung ihrer Inhalte. Einzig die Position der kommerziellen Wissenschaftsverlage zu Open Access war überwiegend zögerlich bis ablehnend. 15 Jahre nach dem Treffen der Budapest Open Access Initiative muss 2016 festgehalten werden, dass die erhoffte Revolution wohl ausbleiben wird. Vielmehr scheint Open Access heute weitgehend von den vormals in Szenarien kaum erwähnten kommerziellen Verlagen angetrieben. Zwar findet sich auch Open Access in wissenschaftlicher Selbstverwaltung, dennoch bleiben die Akteure im wissenschaftlichen Publizieren bislang die gleichen wie 2001 und die schon damals bekannten Konzentrationseffekte am Publikationsmarkt setzen sich fort. In the early 2000s Open Access spread a mood of upheaval, euphoria, and idealism. The expectations were obvious: scientists wanted to share their own articles immediately with other scientist, librarians needed a remedy for exploding journal prices, the scientific institutions wanted funded research to be efficiently and freely disseminated. Only the position of the commercial publishers to Open Access was predominantly hesitant or even disapproving. 2016 - 15 years after the Budapest Open Access Initiative meeting - it must be noted that the hopes for a revolution will be disappointed. On the contrary, today Open Access seems to be largely driven by the commercial publishers, which were barely mentioned in the early Open Access scenarios. Although there non-commercial Open Access in scientific self-administration exists, today the actors in scientific publishing are still the same as in 2001, and the already known concentration effects on the publishing market continue