A Study on Structural and Semantic Analysis for Presentation Content Management

兵庫県立大学大学院201

Design and Implementation Strategies for IMS Learning Design

SIKS Dissertation Series No. 2008-27The IMS Learning Design (LD) specification, which has been released in February 2003, is a generic and flexible language for describing the learning practice and underlying learning designs using a formal notation which is computer-interpretable. It is based on a pedagogical meta-model (Koper & Manderveld, 2004) and supports the use of a wide range of pedagogies. It supports adaptation of individual learning routes and orchestrates interactions between users in various learning and support roles. A formalized learning design can be applied repeatedly in similar situations with different persons and contexts. Yet because IMS Learning Design is a fairly complex and elaborate specification, it can be difficult to grasp; furthermore, designing and implementing a runtime environment for the specification is far from straightforward. That IMS Learning Design makes use of other specifications and e-learning services adds further to this complexity for both its users and the software developers. For this new specification to succeed, therefore, a reference runtime implementation was needed. To this end, this thesis addresses two research and development issues. First, it investigates research into and development of a reusable reference runtime environment for IMS Learning Design. The resulting runtime, called CopperCore, provides a reference both for users of the specification and for software developers. The latter can reuse the design principles presented in this thesis for their own implementations, or reuse the CopperCore product through the interfaces provided. Second, this thesis addresses the integration of other specifications and e-learning services during runtime. It presents an architecture and implementation (CopperCore Service Integration) which provides an extensible lightweight solution to the problem. Both developments have been tested through real-world use in projects carried out by the IMS Learning Design community. The results have generally been positive, and have led us to conclude that we successfully addressed both the research and development issues. However, the results also indicate that the LD tooling lacks maturity, particularly in the authoring area. Through close integration of CopperCore with a product called the Personal Competence Manager, we demonstrate that a complementary approach to authoring in IMS Learning Design solves some of these issues

Supporting Scholarly Research Ideation through Web Semantics

We develop new methods and technologies for supporting scholarly research ideation, the tasks in which researchers develop new ideas for their work, through web semantics, computational representations of information found on the web, capturing meaning involving people’s experiences of things of interest. To do so, we first conducted a qualitative study with established researchers on their practices, using sensitizing concepts from information science, creative cognition, and art as a basis for framing and deriving findings. We found that participants engage in and combine a wide range of activities, including citation chaining, exploratory browsing, and curation, to achieve their goals of creative ideation. We derived a new, interdisciplinary model to depict their practices. Our study and findings address a gap in existing research: the creative nature of what researchers do has been insufficiently investigated. The model is expected to guide future investigations. We then use in-context presentations of dynamically extracted semantic information to (1) address the issues of digression and disorientation, which arise in citation chaining and exploratory browsing, and (2) provide contextual information in researchers’ prior work curation. The implemented interface, Metadata In-Context Explorer (MICE), maintains context while allowing new information to be brought into and integrated with the current context, reducing the needs for switching between documents and webpages. Study shows that MICE supports participants in their citation chaining processes, thus supports scholarly research ideation. MICE is implemented with BigSemantics, a metadata type system and runtime integrating data models, extraction rules, and presentation hints into types. BigSemantics operationalizes type-specific, dynamic extraction and rich presentation of semantic information (a.k.a. metadata) found on the web. The metadata type system, runtime, and MICE are expected to help build interfaces supporting dynamic exploratory search, browsing, and other creative tasks involving complex and interlinked semantics

A Semantics-based User Interface Model for Content Annotation, Authoring and Exploration

The Semantic Web and Linked Data movements with the aim of creating, publishing and interconnecting machine readable information have gained traction in the last years. However, the majority of information still is contained in and exchanged using unstructured documents, such as Web pages, text documents, images and videos. This can also not be expected to change, since text, images and videos are the natural way in which humans interact with information. Semantic structuring of content on the other hand provides a wide range of advantages compared to unstructured information. Semantically-enriched documents facilitate information search and retrieval, presentation, integration, reusability, interoperability and personalization. Looking at the life-cycle of semantic content on the Web of Data, we see quite some progress on the backend side in storing structured content or for linking data and schemata. Nevertheless, the currently least developed aspect of the semantic content life-cycle is from our point of view the user-friendly manual and semi-automatic creation of rich semantic content. In this thesis, we propose a semantics-based user interface model, which aims to reduce the complexity of underlying technologies for semantic enrichment of content by Web users. By surveying existing tools and approaches for semantic content authoring, we extracted a set of guidelines for designing efficient and effective semantic authoring user interfaces. We applied these guidelines to devise a semantics-based user interface model called WYSIWYM (What You See Is What You Mean) which enables integrated authoring, visualization and exploration of unstructured and (semi-)structured content. To assess the applicability of our proposed WYSIWYM model, we incorporated the model into four real-world use cases comprising two general and two domain-specific applications. These use cases address four aspects of the WYSIWYM implementation: 1) Its integration into existing user interfaces, 2) Utilizing it for lightweight text analytics to incentivize users, 3) Dealing with crowdsourcing of semi-structured e-learning content, 4) Incorporating it for authoring of semantic medical prescriptions

Using and advancing DITA XML : A case study of evaluating DITA-authored customer documentation

In today’s world, customer documentation for products must comply with the changing needs of the users, who want to access and consume information effortlessly as soon as they need it. Traditional documentation strategies such as desktop publishing and linear writing have been challenged by the emerging technologies in technical communication that emphasize modularity, flexibility and efficiency from both the users and the technical writers’ perspectives. The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is one of the most interesting technologies within the technical communication field. The theoretical framework of this study is based on markup languages – especially DITA – and various perspectives of technical writing, such as topic-based writing, single-sourcing and minimalism. The features of DITA and the best practices of structured writing offer a lucrative starting point for addressing the highly practical research question of this study, namely how DITA XML has been used. This thesis is done in collaboration with a large company’s business unit that produces highly complex products and whose technical documentation strategy includes writing use case-based DITA topics. Now, the unit has initiated a transformation project whose goal is to evolve the customer documentation, and this thesis is a part of this project. The research problem of this thesis was approached by conducting a heuristic evaluation by using the DITA heuristics that were created as a part of this study, as such heuristics did not exist yet. The heuristics are based on both literature and practical experience on authoring technical documentation in DITA, as well as the business unit’s internal guidelines and discussions with a senior documentation specialist with extensive knowledge and competencies of the themes of this thesis. The DITA heuristics will later serve as a basis for a tool for the technical writers at the unit. The research data comprises 80 DITA XML modules, 40 of which contain descriptive, conceptual information (DITA concept topics) while the remaining 40 guide the users on carrying out procedures (DITA task topics). The sample data dates to 2021, and it was collected from the customer documentation of four different software components. The research shows that DITA can be used in various ways to author technical documentation, but some practices conform better to the principles of the DITA standard as well as the guidelines of structured, modular documentation. The most central issues include semantic markup, information typing and minimalism, especially task-orientation. Moreover, conducting a heuristic evaluation with a customized heuristics list proved to be an effective method for assessing the practices of authoring customer documentation in DITA. The results of this thesis provide valuable information for the business unit’s endeavors in terms of evolving their customer documentation content and presentation as well as supporting technical writers. The results of this thesis can be used internally in the business unit as a part of their transformation project regarding the usability and user-centeredness of their customer documentation. As a continuum to this study, technical writers who use DITA could be researched in terms of how they perceive DITA and structured authoring to increase the knowledge of how these themes are regarded among technical documentation experts today.Asiakasdokumentaation käyttäjät sekä heidän tapansa ja tarpeensa ovat muuttuneet ajan saatossa, minkä seurauksena myös itse dokumentaatio on muuttunut. Teknisen viestinnän alalla on havaittu, että käyttäjät haluavat saada tarvitsemansa tiedon nopeasti juuri sillä hetkellä, kun he sitä tarvitsevat. Tästä syystä perinteinen lineaarinen dokumentaatio, jossa käyttöohjeet kirjoitetaan kokonaisuutena alusta loppuun sivu-sivulta-periaatteella on alkanut väistyä uusien metodien tieltä, jotka painottavat modulaarisuutta, joustavuutta ja tehokkuutta niin käyttäjien kuin informaatiota tuottavien teknisten kirjoittajienkin näkökulmasta. Yksi alan suosituimmista tähän tarkoitukseen sopivista metodeista on Darwin Information Typing Architecture eli DITA. Tämän pro gradu -tutkielman teoreettinen viitekehys rakentuu merkintäkielten (etenkin DITAn) ja teknisen viestinnän eri periaatteiden ja hyvien käytäntöjen ympärille, joihin sisältyvät modulaarisuus, yksilähteistäminen ja minimalismi. Tutkimuskysymys on hyvinkin käytännöllinen, nimittäin tässä tutkielmassa tarkastellaan DITA XML:llä tuotettua dokumentaatiota sen lähtöformaatissa. Tutkielma on tehty yhteistyössä erään suuren yrityksen kompleksisia tuotteita valmistavan liiketoimintayksikön kanssa, jossa olen ollut harjoittelussa teknisenä kirjoittajana. Yksikössä tuotetaan itse tuotteiden lisäksi myös niiden dokumentaatio, ja DITA on tämän dokumentointistrategian ytimessä. Yksikössä on käynnistetty transformaatioprojekti, jonka tarkoituksena on kehittää asiakasdokumentaatiota entisestään. Tämä tutkielma on osa tuota projektia. Tutkimuskysymystä lähestyttiin toteuttamalla heuristinen arviointi dokumentaatiolle. Tutkielmassa esitellyt ja käytetyt DITA-heuristiikat luotiin osana tutkimusta, sillä vastaavia heuristiikkoja ei ollut luotu aiemmin. Heuristiikat pohjautuvat teoreettiseen ja käytännön tuntemukseen dokumentoinnista DITAa käyttäen, minkä lisäksi niiden taustalla vaikuttavat yksikön sisäiset ohjeistukset ja käytänteet sekä keskustelut ja yhteistyö yksikön dokumentaatioasiantuntijan kanssa, jolla on kattava kokemus ja tietämys tutkielmaan liittyvistä aihepiireistä. Tutkimusaineisto kattaa 80 DITA-topiikkia eli yksittäistä moduulia neljästä eri ohjelmistotuotekomponentista. Topiikeista 40 käsittelee konseptuaalista informaatiota komponenteista, kun taas toiset 40 kuvailevat tehtäviä, joita komponenttien käyttäjät noudattavat. Aineisto on peräisin vuodelta 2021. Tutkimuksen tulokset osoittavat, että DITAa voidaan soveltaa monilla eri tavoilla dokumentaatiossa, mutta tietyt tavat toteuttavat DITAn arkkitehtuuria muita paremmin. Lisäksi tapojen välillä havaittiin olevan eroja sen suhteen, miten hyvin ne vastaavat rakenteisen ja modulaarisen tekstin kirjoittamisen konventioita. Olennaisimmat havainnot liittyvät semanttisen merkintäkielen käyttöön, minimalismiin ja informaatiotyypittelyyn sekä käyttäjän ydintehtävien korostamiseen tuoteominaisuuksiin keskittymisen sijaan. Tutkimuksen johtopäätökset tarjoavat käyttökelpoista tietoa yksikön transformaatioprojektin tarpeisiin, ja niitä tullaankin käyttämään osana asiakasdokumentaation kehittämistä. Tutkimuksen perusteella jatkotutkimuksen aiheena voisi olla esimerkiksi DITAa käyttävien teknisten kirjoittajien suhtautuminen tässä tutkielmassa käsiteltyihin rakenteellisen kirjoittamisen ja modulaarisuuden teemoihin. Näin olisi mahdollista saada ajankohtaista tietoa siitä, miten alan ammattilaiset näkevät DITAn ja sen käyttökelpoisuuden

D1.4 – First version applied gaming asset methodology

This deliverable (D1.4) is an intermediate document, expressly included to inform the first project review about RAGE’s methodology of software asset creation and management. The final version of the methodology description (D1.1) will be delivered in Month 29. The document explains how the RAGE project defines, develops, distributes and maintains a series of applied gaming software assets that it aims to make available. It describes a high-level methodology and infrastructure that are needed to support the work in the project as well as after the project has ended.This study is part of the RAGE project. The RAGE project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 644187. This publication reflects only the author's view. The European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains