Hytexpros : a hypermedia information retrieval system

The Hypermedia information retrieval system makes use of the specific capabilities of hypermedia systems with information retrieval operations and provides new kind of information management tools. It combines both hypermedia and information retrieval to offer end-users the possibility of navigating, browsing and searching a large collection of documents to satisfy an information need. TEXPROS is an intelligent document processing and retrieval system that supports storing, extracting, classifying, categorizing, retrieval and browsing enterprise information. TEXPROS is a perfect application to apply hypermedia information retrieval techniques. In this dissertation, we extend TEXPROS to a hypermedia information retrieval system called HyTEXPROS with hypertext functionalities, such as node, typed and weighted links, anchors, guided-tours, network overview, bookmarks, annotations and comments, and external linkbase. It describes the whole information base including the metadata and the original documents as network nodes connected by links. Through hypertext functionalities, a user can construct dynamically an information path by browsing through pieces of the information base. By adding hypertext functionalities to TEXPROS, HyTEXPROS is created. It changes its working domain from a personal document process domain to a personal library domain accompanied with citation techniques to process original documents. A four-level conceptual architecture is presented as the system architecture of HyTEXPROS. Such architecture is also referred to as the reference model of HyTEXPROS. Detailed description of HyTEXPROS, using the First Order Logic Calculus, is also proposed. An early version of a prototype is briefly described

Assisting the hypertext authoring process with topology metrics and information retrieval

As more and more documents become available in electronic format, the use of hypertext systems is becoming more common as a way to organise information. However as the size of a hypertext database grows, the ‘lost in hyperspace’ problem may limit efficient and meaningful usage of hypertext systems. In order to increase local coherence at net level, authors should limit 'the fragmentation characteristics of hypertext’. These characteristics seem to be endemic to hyperdocuments and result from the segmentation of information into disjointed nodes. Fragmentation may result in a lack of interpretative context and thus lead to the impression that the hyper-document is an aggregation of loosely linked pieces of information rather then a coherent whole. In an attempt to understand a new node, readers try to extract information and relate it in context to other nodes that they have viewed. In this thesis we describe an application which incorporates an apprentice link editor to suggest candidate information/hypertext links for the hypertext author to validate. These ‘suggestions’ use node-to-node comparison and metrics to present the author with the most appropriate choices in adding a new node to the hypertext they are authoring. Although this project is intended to provide a hypertext author with the tools needed to enhance the construction of a large hypertext, the assumption of trusting the author, and the notion that the best quality control tool is a skilled author is never forgotten