Users' trust in information resources in the Web environment: a status report

This study has three aims; to provide an overview of the ways in which trust is either assessed or asserted in relation to the use and provision of resources in the Web environment for research and learning; to assess what solutions might be worth further investigation and whether establishing ways to assert trust in academic information resources could assist the development of information literacy; to help increase understanding of how perceptions of trust influence the behaviour of information users

Metadata enrichment for digital heritage: users as co-creators

This paper espouses the concept of metadata enrichment through an expert and user-focused approach to metadata creation and management. To this end, it is argued the Web 2.0 paradigm enables users to be proactive metadata creators. As Shirky (2008, p.47) argues Web 2.0’s social tools enable “action by loosely structured groups, operating without managerial direction and outside the profit motive”. Lagoze (2010, p. 37) advises, “the participatory nature of Web 2.0 should not be dismissed as just a popular phenomenon [or fad]”. Carletti (2016) proposes a participatory digital cultural heritage approach where Web 2.0 approaches such as crowdsourcing can be sued to enrich digital cultural objects. It is argued that “heritage crowdsourcing, community-centred projects or other forms of public participation”. On the other hand, the new collaborative approaches of Web 2.0 neither negate nor replace contemporary standards-based metadata approaches. Hence, this paper proposes a mixed metadata approach where user created metadata augments expert-created metadata and vice versa. The metadata creation process no longer remains to be the sole prerogative of the metadata expert. The Web 2.0 collaborative environment would now allow users to participate in both adding and re-using metadata. The case of expert-created (standards-based, top-down) and user-generated metadata (socially-constructed, bottom-up) approach to metadata are complementary rather than mutually-exclusive. The two approaches are often mistakenly considered as dichotomies, albeit incorrectly (Gruber, 2007; Wright, 2007) . This paper espouses the importance of enriching digital information objects with descriptions pertaining the about-ness of information objects. Such richness and diversity of description, it is argued, could chiefly be achieved by involving users in the metadata creation process. This paper presents the importance of the paradigm of metadata enriching and metadata filtering for the cultural heritage domain. Metadata enriching states that a priori metadata that is instantiated and granularly structured by metadata experts is continually enriched through socially-constructed (post-hoc) metadata, whereby users are pro-actively engaged in co-creating metadata. The principle also states that metadata that is enriched is also contextually and semantically linked and openly accessible. In addition, metadata filtering states that metadata resulting from implementing the principle of enriching should be displayed for users in line with their needs and convenience. In both enriching and filtering, users should be considered as prosumers, resulting in what is called collective metadata intelligence

Evaluating global e-government sites: A view using web diagnostics tools

This is the post-print version of the Article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2004 The AuthorsSeveral governments across the world have embraced the digital revolution and continue to take advantage of the information and communication facilities offered by the Internet to offer public services. Conversely, citizens’ awareness and expectations of Internet based online-public-services have also increased in recent times. Although the numbers of the different national e-Government web portals have rapidly increased in the last three years, the success of these portals will largely depend on their accessibility, quality and privacy. This paper reports the results of an evaluative study of a cross-section of e-Government portals from these three perspectives, using a common set of performance metrics and Web diagnostic engines. Results show that not only are there wide variations in the spectrum of information and services provided by these portals, but that significant work still needs to be undertaken in order to make the portals examples of ‘best practice’ e-Government services

The United States Marine Corps Data Collaboration Requirements: Retrieving and Integrating Data From Multiple Databases

The goal of this research is to develop an information sharing and database integration model and suggest a framework to fully satisfy the United States Marine Corps collaboration requirements as well as its information sharing and database integration needs. This research is exploratory; it focuses on only one initiative: the IT-21 initiative. The IT-21 initiative dictates The Technology for the United States Navy and Marine Corps, 2000-2035: Becoming a 21st Century Force. The IT-21 initiative states that Navy and Marine Corps information infrastructure will be based largely on commercial systems and services, and the Department of the Navy must ensure that these systems are seamlessly integrated and that information transported over the infrastructure is protected and secure. The Delphi Technique, a qualitative method approach, was used to develop a Holistic Model and to suggest a framework for information sharing and database integration. Data was primarily collected from mid-level to senior information officers, with a focus on Chief Information Officers. In addition, an extensive literature review was conducted to gain insight about known similarities and differences in Strategic Information Management, information sharing strategies, and database integration strategies. It is hoped that the Armed Forces and the Department of Defense will benefit from future development of the information sharing and database integration Holistic Model

Personalization in cultural heritage: the road travelled and the one ahead

Over the last 20 years, cultural heritage has been a favored domain for personalization research. For years, researchers have experimented with the cutting edge technology of the day; now, with the convergence of internet and wireless technology, and the increasing adoption of the Web as a platform for the publication of information, the visitor is able to exploit cultural heritage material before, during and after the visit, having different goals and requirements in each phase. However, cultural heritage sites have a huge amount of information to present, which must be filtered and personalized in order to enable the individual user to easily access it. Personalization of cultural heritage information requires a system that is able to model the user (e.g., interest, knowledge and other personal characteristics), as well as contextual aspects, select the most appropriate content, and deliver it in the most suitable way. It should be noted that achieving this result is extremely challenging in the case of first-time users, such as tourists who visit a cultural heritage site for the first time (and maybe the only time in their life). In addition, as tourism is a social activity, adapting to the individual is not enough because groups and communities have to be modeled and supported as well, taking into account their mutual interests, previous mutual experience, and requirements. How to model and represent the user(s) and the context of the visit and how to reason with regard to the information that is available are the challenges faced by researchers in personalization of cultural heritage. Notwithstanding the effort invested so far, a definite solution is far from being reached, mainly because new technology and new aspects of personalization are constantly being introduced. This article surveys the research in this area. Starting from the earlier systems, which presented cultural heritage information in kiosks, it summarizes the evolution of personalization techniques in museum web sites, virtual collections and mobile guides, until recent extension of cultural heritage toward the semantic and social web. The paper concludes with current challenges and points out areas where future research is needed

A Qualitative Study of Information challenges in the Cloud

This paper explores the modified information management and information governance challenges faced by organizations when shifting from traditional on-site model to the cloud. The specific cloud information management and governance challenges, often ignored by businesses due to their experience in traditional information governance and outsourcing, have the potential to threaten the sustainability of a business that is new to the cloud. As cloud solutions from powerful vendors are being thrust at unsuspecting customers, it is imperative that organizations understand information related changes required in the cloud to ensure regulatory compliance. A series of qualitative interviews involving expert practitioners has helped investigate the information challenges; and the barriers and drivers of cloud adoption in the current market with some unexpected observations

An e-learning application based on the semantic web technology

The paper describes a framework for the implementation of an elearning system based on the Semantic Web, using software agents and Java Web Services. Hopefully we have elucidated the enormous potential of making web content machine-understandable. One of the killer applications for the Semantic Web might prove to be related to e-learning, considering the amount of research in this sector and the advantages those applications bring to the table compared to existing web-based learning courses.Education for the 21 st century - impact of ICT and Digital Resources ConferenceRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Building information modeling – A game changer for interoperability and a chance for digital preservation of architectural data?

Digital data associated with the architectural design-andconstruction process is an essential resource alongside -and even past- the lifecycle of the construction object it describes. Despite this, digital architectural data remains to be largely neglected in digital preservation research – and vice versa, digital preservation is so far neglected in the design-and-construction process. In the last 5 years, Building Information Modeling (BIM) has seen a growing adoption in the architecture and construction domains, marking a large step towards much needed interoperability. The open standard IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) is one way in which data is exchanged in BIM processes. This paper presents a first digital preservation based look at BIM processes, highlighting the history and adoption of the methods as well as the open file format standard IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) as one way to store and preserve BIM data