A cooperative-relational approach to digital libraries

Copyright @ 2007 Springer-Verlag, Berlin HeidelbergThis paper presents a novel approach to model-driven development of Digital Library (DL) systems. The overall idea is to allow Digital Library systems designers (e.g. information architects, librarians, domain experts) to easily design such systems by using a visual language. We designed a Domain Specific Visual Language for such a purpose and developed a framework supporting it; this framework helps designers by automatically generating code for the defined Digital Library system, so that they do not have to get involved into technical issues concerning its deployment. In our approach, both Human-Computer Interaction and Computer Supported Collaborative Work techniques are exploited when generating interfaces and services for the specific Digital Library domain

Semantic Annotation Model Definition for Systems Interoperability

ISBN 978-3-642-25125-2International audienceSemantic annotation is one of the useful solutions to enrich target's (systems, models, meta-models, etc.) information. There are some papers which use semantic enrichment for different purposes (integration, composition, sharing and reuse, etc.) in several domains, but none of them provides a complete process of how to use semantic annotations. This paper identifies three main components of semantic annotation, proposes for it a formal definition and presents a survey of current semantic annotation methods. At the end, we present a simple case study to explain how our semantic annotation proposition can be applied.The survey presented in this paper will be the basis of our future research on models, semantics and architecture for enterprises systems interoperability during the product lifecycle

Why, Where and How to use Semantic Annotation for Systems Interoperability

ISSN 2247-6040International audienceSemantic annotation is one of the useful solutions to enrich target's (systems, models, meta-models, etc.) information. There are some papers which use semantic enrichment for different purposes (integration, composition, sharing and reuse, etc.) in several domains, but none of them provides a complete process of how to use semantic annotations. This paper identifies three main components of semantic annotation, gives a formal definition of semantic annotation method and presents a survey of current semantic annotation methods which include: languages and tools that can be used to develop ontology, the design of semantic annotation structure models and the corresponding applications. The survey presented in this paper will be the basis of our future research on models, semantics and architecture for systems interoperability

La investigación en Recuperación de Información: Revisión de tendencias actuales y críticas

La investigación en recuperación de información ha estado dominada por dos paradigmas, uno centrado en el diseño de algoritmos y sistemas de recuperación de información, y otro centrado en todo lo que rodea al usuario en la búsqueda de información. En este artículo se revisan brevemente las características y tendencias actuales de investigación en ambos paradigmas, así como las críticas que han recibido, derivadas de la diferente metodología y de la dificultad para definir la relevancia y medir los cambios que se producen en el estado mental del usuario

Information retrieval (IR) and the paradox of change: An analysis using the philosophy of Parmenides

Purpose – This paper aims to explore whether philosophical insights from Plato's dialogue “Parmenides” on the complex and often paradoxical nature of change can illuminate the nature of information retrieval (IR). IR is modelled as a dialectic process involving mutually dependent yet conflicting forces between the subjective and the objective. These forces operate to produce change in the subjective experience of users (becoming informed) through facilitating a relationship with objective documents. Accurately modelling, predicting and enabling this process remains a persistent problem for IR and this paper seeks to examine the extent to which this is because of the nature of change. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is a conceptual analysis and literature review. Findings – The problem of change (what it is, how it happens and how we can know it has happened) is essential to our understanding of information as information normally implies some kind of change in knowledge state. Any process of change, however, on examination of its qualities, appears to necessitate the combination of irreconcilable and conflicting forces. The apparent contradictions within the existence of change as discussed in “Parmenides” also exist in IR on both a theoretical and a technical level. Research limitations/implications – Change is a central concept for information in general and IR in particular. A deeper understanding of the paradoxical nature of change can provide new insights into IR theory and practice. Originality/value – The paper presents a new historical philosophical perspective on the nature of change and applies it to current IR problems

Producing News Services with Search Technologies

Uutispalveluita on tieteellisesti tutkittu useimmiten vain loppukäyttäjän näkökulmasta. Uutistoimisto palveluiden tuottajana on mielenkiintoinen ja vähemmän tutkittu kohde. Tämän työn kohdeyrityksenä oli Suomen Tietotoimisto (STT). Johtoajatuksena tutkimukseen lähdettäessä oli, että STT:n journalistisesti tuottamasta materiaalista on mahdollista hakuteknologioita hyödyntämällä jalostaa uusia entistä paremmin käyttäjien tarpeita vastaavia uutispalveluita. Tutkimus kuuluu informaatiotutkimuksen alaan. Informaatiotutkimuksessa on perinteisesti ollut toisistaan erillisinä tutkimusalueina tiedon loppukäyttäjään keskittyvä tiedonhankintatutkimus sekä tietokantoihin ja hakujärjestelmiin keskittyvä tiedonhakututkimus. Voimistuvana suuntauksena on yhdistää näitä kahta aluetta. Tässä työssä on mallinnettu Suomen Tietotoimistoa informaatiojärjestelmänä soveltaen yhdistettyä tiedonhankinnan ja tiedonhaun mallia. Tutkimuksessa tehtiin katsaus nykyisiin hakuteknologioihin ohjelmistovertailun muodossa ja haastateltiin uutispalveluita käyttäviä asiakkaita. Näiden kahden osatutkimuksen pohjalta esitetään yleisellä tasolla ehdotuksia olemassa olevien uutispalveluiden kehittämiseksi. Ehdotuksissa on huomioitu haastattelututkimuksen yhteydessä selvitetyt loppukäyttäjien tarpeet ja sovellettu ohjelmistovertailun yhteydessä identifioituja hakuteknologioiden ominaisuuksia. Yhdistetty tiedonhaun ja tiedonhankinnan malli soveltui hyvin jäsentämään uutistoimistoa monimutkaisena informaatiojärjestelmänä. Työn tuloksena syntyneet kehitysehdotukset ovat esimerkkejä siitä, miten hakuteknologioiden avulla voidaan tuottaa loppukäyttäjille hyödyllisiä uutispalveluita.News services have been scientifically studied mostly from the end users point of view. The news agency, as a producer of the news services, is an interesting research subject as well. This study is made for the Finnish national news agency STT. Leading idea behind the study is that it is possible to produce better news services from the journalistic material of STT by using the state-of-the-art search technologies. This research belongs to the field of information science. Traditionally information science consists of two separate research areas: information seeking and information retrieval. Information seeking focuses on human as the end user of the information while information retrieval is concerned about the technical aspects of the information systems. Emerging trend is to combine these two research areas into one. In this study the Finnish national news agency has been modelled as an information system by using the integrated information seeking and retrieval research framework. First part of the study constitutes of the interviews made for the customers using news services in their work. Second part of the study is a comparison of the commercially available search technologies. Based on these two studies I propose general level improvements for the current news services. The proposals are based on the features of the modern search technologies which were found in search technology comparison. The end users needs that were found in the interview study are taken into consideration while making the proposals. The integrated information seeking and retrieval research framework suited well for the analysis of the news agency. The proposals of improvement are examples on how the search technology can be used to produce useful news services for the users

Explicitating semantics in Enterprise Information Systems Models

140 pages Report for the Post-Doctorate diploma of the Université Henri Poincaré Supervisors: Hervé Panetto and Alexis AubryInteroperability can be defined as the ability of two or more systems to share, to understand and to consume information (IEEE, 1990). The work (Chen et al., 2006) in the INTEROP NoE project has identified three different levels of barriers for interoperability: technical, conceptual and organisational. Our research focuses on the conceptual level of interoperability, namely the ability to understand the exchanged information. Information may be defined as data linked to knowledge about this data. This research memory will show the results obtained during the Post Doc study referring to the published works. It deals with a first phase from our general research work that focuses on the study of the semantic loss that appears in the exchange of information about business concepts. In order to quantify the semantic gap between interoperating ISs, their semantics needs to be enacted and structured by enriching, normalising and analysing their conceptual models. We propose a conceptualisation approach for explicitation of the finest-grained semantics, embedded into conceptual models in order to facilitate the semantic matching between two different information systems that have to interoperate. The structure of the document represents the different steps and the research domain on which the study focused

Multilingual Information Access: Practices and Perceptions of Bi/multilingual Academic Users

The research reported in this dissertation explored linguistic determinants in online information searching, and examined to what extent bi/multilingual academic users utilize Multilingual Information Access (MLIA) tools and what impact these have on their information searching behavior. The aim of the study was three-pronged: to provide tangible data that can support recommendations for the effective user-centered design of Multilingual Information Retrieval (MLIR) systems; to provide a user-centered evaluation of existing MLIA tools, and to offer the basis of a framework for Library & Information Science (LIS) professionals in teaching information literacy and library skills for bi/multilingual academic users. In the first phase of the study, 250 bi/multilingual students participated in a web survey that investigated their language choices while searching for information on the internet and electronic databases. 31 of these participants took part in the second phase which involved a controlled lab-based user experiment and post experiment questionnaire that investigated their use of MLIA tools on Google and WorldCat and their opinions of these tools. In the third phase, 19 students participated in focus groups discussions and 6 librarians were interviewed to find out their perspectives on multilingual information literacy. Results showed that though machine translation has alleviated some of the linguistic related challenges in online information searching, language barriers do still exist for some users especially at the query formulation stage. Captures from the experiment revealed great diversity in the way MLIA tools were utilized while the focus group discussions and interviews revealed a general lack of awareness by both librarians and students of the tools that could help enhance and promote multilingual information literacy. The study highlights the roles of both IR system designers as well as LIS professionals in enhancing and promoting multilingual information access and literacy: User- centered design, user-modeling were found to be key aspects in the development of more effective multilingual information retrieval (MLIR) systems. The study also highlights the distinction between being multilingually information literate and being multilingual information literate. Suitable models for instruction for bi/multilingual academic users point towards Specialized Information Literacy Instruction (SILI) and Personalized Information Literacy Instruction (PILI)

Automatische Indexierung unter Einbeziehung semantischer Relationen : Ergebnisse des Retrievaltests zum MILOS II-Projekt

Im Rahmen von MILOS II wurde das erste MILOS-Projekt zur automatischen Indexierung von Titeldaten um eine semantische Komponente erweitert, indem Thesaurusrelationen der Schlagwortnormdatei eingebunden wurden. Der abschließend zur Evaluierung des Projekts durchgeführte Retrievaltest und seine Ergebnisse stehen im Mittelpunkt dieses Texts. Zusätzlich wird ein Überblick über bereits durchgeführte Retrievaltests (vorwiegend des anglo-amerikanischen Raums) gegeben und es wird erläutert, welche grundlegenden Fragestellungen bei der praktischen Durchführung eines Retrievaltests zu beachten sind

A Theory for the Measurement of Internet Information Retrieval

The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate a measurement model for Internet information retrieval strategy performance evaluation whose theoretical basis is a modification of the classical measurement model embodied in the Cranfield studies and their progeny. Though not the first, the Cranfield studies were the most influential of the early evaluation experiments. The general problem with this model was and continues to be the subjectivity of the concept of relevance. In cyberspace, information scientists are using quantitative measurement models for evaluating information retrieval performance that are based on the Cranfield model. This research modified this model by incorporating enduser relevance judgment rather than using objective relevance judgments, and by adopting a fundamental unit of measure developed for the cyberspace of Internet information retrieval rather than using recall and precision-type measures. The proposed measure, the Content-bearing Click (CBC) Ratio, was developed as a quantitative measure reflecting the performance of an Internet IR strategy. Since the hypertext "click" is common to many Internet IR strategies, it was chosen as the fundamental unit of measure rather than the "document." The CBC Ratio is a ratio of hypertext click counts that can be viewed as a false drop measure that determines the average number of irrelevant content-bearing clicks that an enduser check before retrieving relevant information. After measurement data were collected, they were used to evaluate the reliability of several methods for aggregating relevance judgments. After reliability coefficients were calculated, measurement model was used to compare web catalog and web database performance in an experimental setting. Conclusions were the reached concerning the reliability of the proposed measurement model and its ability to measure Internet IR performance, as well as implications for clinical use of the Internet and for future research in Information Science