Collaborative semantic web browsing with Magpie

Web browsing is often a collaborative activity. Users involved in a joint information gathering exercise will wish to share knowledge about the web pages visited and the contents found. Magpie is a suite of tools supporting the interpretation of web pages and semantically enriched web browsing. By automatically associating an ontology-based semantic layer to web resources, Magpie allows relevant services to be invoked as well as remotely triggered within a standard web browser. In this paper we describe how Magpie trigger services can provide semantic support to collaborative browsing activities

Magpie: towards a semantic web browser

Web browsing involves two tasks: finding the right web page and then making sense of its content. So far, research has focused on supporting the task of finding web resources through ‘standard’ information retrieval mechanisms, or semantics-enhanced search. Much less attention has been paid to the second problem. In this paper we describe Magpie, a tool which supports the interpretation of web pages. Magpie offers complementary knowledge sources, which a reader can call upon to quickly gain access to any background knowledge relevant to a web resource. Magpie automatically associates an ontologybased semantic layer to web resources, allowing relevant services to be invoked within a standard web browser. Hence, Magpie may be seen as a step towards a semantic web browser. The functionality of Magpie is illustrated using examples of how it has been integrated with our lab’s web resources

Uses of contextual information to support online tasks

In this paper we make a case for the role of user context information in supporting task performance online, examine previous attempts at representing and making use of user context factors, and highlight the limitations of existing tools and services. We then suggest how the emergent Semantic Web might be able to better facilitate the capture of knowledge regarding user context, and provide the means for its reuse in supporting the performance of tasks online

KnowledgePuzzle: a browsing tool to adapt the web navigation process to the learner's mental model

This article presents KnowledgePuzzle, a browsing tool for knowledge construction from the web. It aims to adapt the structure of web content to the learner’s information needs regardless of how the web content is originally delivered. Learners are provided with a meta-cognitive space (eg, a concept mapping tool) that enables them to plan navigation paths and visualize the semantic processing of knowledge in their minds. Once the learner’s viewpoint becomes visually represented, it will be transformed to a layer of informative hyperlinks and annotations over previously visited pages. The attached layer causes the web content to be explicitly structured to accommodate the learner’s interests by interlinking and annotating chunks of information that make up the learner’s knowledge. Finally, a hypertext version of the whole knowledge is generated to enable fast and easy reviewing. A discussion about the

On the emergent Semantic Web and overlooked issues

The emergent Semantic Web, despite being in its infancy, has already received a lotof attention from academia and industry. This resulted in an abundance of prototype systems and discussion most of which are centred around the underlying infrastructure. However, when we critically review the work done to date we realise that there is little discussion with respect to the vision of the Semantic Web. In particular, there is an observed dearth of discussion on how to deliver knowledge sharing in an environment such as the Semantic Web in effective and efficient manners. There are a lot of overlooked issues, associated with agents and trust to hidden assumptions made with respect to knowledge representation and robust reasoning in a distributed environment. These issues could potentially hinder further development if not considered at the early stages of designing Semantic Web systems. In this perspectives paper, we aim to help engineers and practitioners of the Semantic Web by raising awareness of these issues

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

Instantiation of relations for semantic annotation

http://www.ieee.orgThis paper presents a methodology for the semantic annotation of web pages with individuals of a domain ontology. While most semantic annotation systems can recognize knowledge units, they usually do not establish explicit relations between them. The method presented identifies the individuals which should be related among the whole set of individuals and codes them as role instances within an OWL ontology. This is done by using a correspondence between the tree structure of a web page and the semantics of the information it contains

A new vision for Israeli Hebrew: Theoretical and practical implications of analyzing Israel's main language as a semi-engineered Semito-European hybrid language

A language is an abstract ensemble of idiolects - as well as sociolects, dialects and so on - rather than an entity per se. It is more like a species than an organism. Still, the genetic classification of Israeli Hebrew as a consistent entity has preoccupied linguists since the language emerged about 120 years ago. As a consequence, Israeli Hebrew affords insights into the politics and evolution not only of language, but also of linguistics. The author of this article maintains that the language spoken in Israel today is a semi-engineered Semito-European hybrid language. Whatever one chooses to call it, one should acknowledge, and celebrate, its complexity

Trying to make more sense: an introduction, beginning and reflection of a dialogic performance

The contributions to the first issue of volume 2, Figure of the sensible, explore discursive and bodily practices and aims to make sense of the nature of these sensible differences in articulation. The interplay of exactly the relations between signs and bodies emerges as figure of the sensible. A figure indexes the sense through its relation and context and more often than not this makes the sensation intelligible. For that matter the ‘sensible’ refers to what is capable of being apprehended by the senses in its double meaning: as a relation of sensation, and of sense pertaining to the ethical, representational and aesthetic regimes (Rancière, 2000). This intricate reticulation of meaning eludes simple placement or anchoring. Instead, this issue is a versatile collection of traces that elaborate the complex process of sense-making, effecting a profound investigation of the sensible between the lines of practice and theory. An assemblage of five approaches to the “figure of the sensible” is introduced in this first special issue of activate, which weaves together a fabric of relational choreographic movements. Hosting a get-together on unruled pages, this issue is written to be read between the lines of practice and theory. In this collection of various text(ure)s, the topology of the sensible is opened for fragile interrelations, prolific contaminations, unforeseen revelations, and perhaps at times gentle provocations, always exploring the interplay of signs and bodies