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

The Best Trail Algorithm for Assisted Navigation of Web Sites

We present an algorithm called the Best Trail Algorithm, which helps solve the hypertext navigation problem by automating the construction of memex-like trails through the corpus. The algorithm performs a probabilistic best-first expansion of a set of navigation trees to find relevant and compact trails. We describe the implementation of the algorithm, scoring methods for trails, filtering algorithms and a new metric called \emph{potential gain} which measures the potential of a page for future navigation opportunities.Comment: 11 pages, 11 figure

The Birth of Pictoriality in Computer Media

The aim of the paper is to follow some milestones of the story of computer media as far as the notion of pictoriality is concerned. I am going to describe in the most general way how it happens that two quite separate technologies as computer machine and pictorial representation met and since then became almost inseparable

Development of multiple media documents

Development of documents in multiple media involves activities in three different fields, the technical, the discoursive and the procedural. The major development problems of artifact complexity, cognitive processes, design basis and working context are located where these fields overlap. Pending the emergence of a unified approach to design, any method must allow for development at the three levels of discourse structure, media disposition and composition, and presentation. Related work concerned with generalised discourse structures, structured documents, production methods for existing multiple media artifacts, and hypertext design offer some partial forms of assistance at different levels. Desirable characteristics of a multimedia design method will include three phases of production, a variety of possible actions with media elements, an underlying discoursive structure, and explicit comparates for review

Evaluating the development of wearable devices, personal data assistants and the use of other mobile devices in further and higher education institutions

This report presents technical evaluation and case studies of the use of wearable and mobile computing mobile devices in further and higher education. The first section provides technical evaluation of the current state of the art in wearable and mobile technologies and reviews several innovative wearable products that have been developed in recent years. The second section examines three scenarios for further and higher education where wearable and mobile devices are currently being used. The three scenarios include: (i) the delivery of lectures over mobile devices, (ii) the augmentation of the physical campus with a virtual and mobile component, and (iii) the use of PDAs and mobile devices in field studies. The first scenario explores the use of web lectures including an evaluation of IBM's Web Lecture Services and 3Com's learning assistant. The second scenario explores models for a campus without walls evaluating the Handsprings to Learning projects at East Carolina University and ActiveCampus at the University of California San Diego . The third scenario explores the use of wearable and mobile devices for field trips examining San Francisco Exploratorium's tool for capturing museum visits and the Cybertracker field computer. The third section of the report explores the uses and purposes for wearable and mobile devices in tertiary education, identifying key trends and issues to be considered when piloting the use of these devices in educational contexts

New technology for interactive CAL: The origami project

Origami is a three‐year EPSRC project that forms part of a general research programme on human‐computer interaction. The goal of this research is to investigate and implement new methods for human‐computer interaction, and to apply and evaluate their use. The research centres on the DigitalDesk, an ordinary desk augmented with a computer display using projection television and a video camera to monitor inputs. The DigitalDesk allows electronic and printed documents to be combined to give richer presentation and interaction possibilities than are possible with either separate medium. This paper examines the implications of such a system for CAL, and presents two prototype applications that demonstrate the possibilities

Support for participation in electronic paper prototyping

In this paper, we examine a range of tools for early prototyping of interactive systems that might be described as enabling 'electronic paper prototyping'. We then introduce Gabbeh, a prototype that we are developing to re-enable participatory design when using such tools. Paper-prototyping is an established approach to the creation of early prototypes in the participatory design of computer systems. Recent years have seen the rapid development of new interaction devices in which a display screen is combined with pen-based input to allow users to create sketches or hand-written notes in an interaction that is similar to writing with a pen on paper. Research with such devices has shown how this capability can be used to rapidly create simple prototypes of interactive systems such as websites. However, previous systems have not considered how end-users and other stakeholders could contribute to design dialogues around such prototypes.</p

User-centred design of flexible hypermedia for a mobile guide: Reflections on the hyperaudio experience

A user-centred design approach involves end-users from the very beginning. Considering users at the early stages compels designers to think in terms of utility and usability and helps develop the system on what is actually needed. This paper discusses the case of HyperAudio, a context-sensitive adaptive and mobile guide to museums developed in the late 90s. User requirements were collected via a survey to understand visitors’ profiles and visit styles in Natural Science museums. The knowledge acquired supported the specification of system requirements, helping defining user model, data structure and adaptive behaviour of the system. User requirements guided the design decisions on what could be implemented by using simple adaptable triggers and what instead needed more sophisticated adaptive techniques, a fundamental choice when all the computation must be done on a PDA. Graphical and interactive environments for developing and testing complex adaptive systems are discussed as a further step towards an iterative design that considers the user interaction a central point. The paper discusses how such an environment allows designers and developers to experiment with different system’s behaviours and to widely test it under realistic conditions by simulation of the actual context evolving over time. The understanding gained in HyperAudio is then considered in the perspective of the developments that followed that first experience: our findings seem still valid despite the passed time

Extending the 5S Framework of Digital Libraries to support Complex Objects, Superimposed Information, and Content-Based Image Retrieval Services

Advanced services in digital libraries (DLs) have been developed and widely used to address the required capabilities of an assortment of systems as DLs expand into diverse application domains. These systems may require support for images (e.g., Content-Based Image Retrieval), Complex (information) Objects, and use of content at fine grain (e.g., Superimposed Information). Due to the lack of consensus on precise theoretical definitions for those services, implementation efforts often involve ad hoc development, leading to duplication and interoperability problems. This article presents a methodology to address those problems by extending a precisely specified minimal digital library (in the 5S framework) with formal definitions of aforementioned services. The theoretical extensions of digital library functionality presented here are reinforced with practical case studies as well as scenarios for the individual and integrative use of services to balance theory and practice. This methodology has implications that other advanced services can be continuously integrated into our current extended framework whenever they are identified. The theoretical definitions and case study we present may impact future development efforts and a wide range of digital library researchers, designers, and developers