Methods for Building Semantic Portals

Semantic portals are information systems which collect information from several sources and combine them using semantic web technologies into a user interface that solves information needs of users. Creating such portals requires methods and tools from multiple disciplines, including knowledge representation, information retrieval, information extraction, and user interface design. This thesis explores methods for building and improving semantic portals and other semantic web applications with contributions in three areas. The studies included in the thesis draw from the design science methodology in information systems research. First, a method for creating of faceted search user interfaces for semantic portals utilizing controlled vocabularies with a complex hierarchical structure is presented. The results show that the method allows the creation of user-centric search facets that hide the complex hierarchies from the user, resulting in a user-friendly faceted search interface. Second, the creation of structured metadata from text documents is enhanced by adapting a state of the art automatic subject indexing system to Finnish language texts. The results show that using a suitable combination of existing tools, automatic subject indexing quality comparable to that of human indexers can be attained in a highly inflected language such as Finnish. Finally, the quality of controlled vocabularies such as thesauri and lightweight ontologies is examined by developing a set of quality criteria for vocabularies expressed using the SKOS standard, and methods for correcting structural problems in SKOS vocabularies are presented. The results show that most published SKOS vocabularies suffer from quality issues and violate the SKOS integrity conditions. However, the great majority of such problems were corrected by the methods presented in this dissertation. The methods have been implemented in several real world applications, including the HealthFinland health information portal, the ARPA information extraction toolkit, and the ONKI ontology library system.Semanttiset portaalit ovat tietojärjestelmiä, jotka keräävät tietoa useista lähteistä ja yhdistävät ne semanttisen webin teknologioiden avulla käyttäjien tiedontarpeita tukevaksi käyttöliittymäksi. Tällaisten portaalien rakentaminen vaatii menetelmiä ja työkaluja useilta tieteenaloilta, mukaan lukien tietämyksen esittäminen, tiedonhaku, tiedon eristäminen ja käyttöliittymäsuunnittelu. Tässä väitöskirjassa tarkastellaan menetelmiä semanttisten portaalien ja muiden semanttisen webin sovellusten rakentamiseksi. Väitöskirjan tulokset jakaantuvat kolmeen osa-alueeseen. Tutkimuksessa käytetyt menetelmät perustuvat informaatiojärjestelmien tutkimuksessa käytettyihin suunnittelutieteen menetelmiin. Ensiksi väitöskirjassa esitetään menetelmä semanttisten portaalien fasettipohjaisten käyttöliittymien luomiseksi monimutkaisten kontrolloitujen sanastojen pohjalta. Tulokset osoittavat, että menetelmä mahdollistaa sellaisten käyttäjäkeskeisten hakunäkymien luomisen, jotka piilottavat monimutkaiset hierarkiat käyttäjältä ja auttavat siten luomaan käyttäjäystävällisen fasettipohjaisen hakukäyttöliittymän. Toiseksi rakenteisen metatiedon tuottamista tekstidokumenteista parannetaan sovittamalla nykyaikainen automaattisen sisällönkuvailun järjestelmä suomenkieliselle tekstiaineistolle. Tulokset osoittavat, että käyttämällä sopivaa yhdistelmää olemassaolevista työkaluista saavutetaan ihmistyönä tehtyyn sisällönkuvailuun verrattavissa oleva automaattisen sisällönkuvailun laatu myös agglutinatiivisella kielellä kuten suomen kielellä esitetyille aineistoille. Kolmanneksi tarkastellaan kontrolloitujen sanastojen kuten asiasanastojen ja kevytontologioiden laatua kehittämällä laatukriteeristö SKOS-standardin avulla esitetyille sanastoille sekä esittämällä menetelmiä SKOS-sanastojen rakenteisten ongelmien korjaamiseksi. Tulokset osoittavat, että useimmat julkaistut SKOS-sanastot kärsivät laatuongelmista eivätkä noudata SKOS-standardin eheyssääntöjä. Suuri osa näistä ongelmista pystyttiin korjaamaan tässä väitöskirjassa esitetyin menetelmin. Menetelmät on toteutettu useissa käytössä olevissa järjestelmissä, kuten TerveSuomi-terveystietoportaalissa, ARPA-tiedoneristämistyökalussa ja ONKI-ontologiakirjastossa

Integration of distributed terminology resources to facilitate subject cross-browsing for library portal systems

With the increase in the number of distributed library information resources, users may have to interact with different user interfaces, learn to switch their mental models between these interfaces, and familiarise themselves with controlled vocabularies used by different resources. For this reason, library professionals have developed library portals to integrate these distributed information resources, and assist end-users in cross-accessing distributed resources via a single access point in their own library. There are two important subject-based services that a library portal system might be able to provide. The first is a federated search service, which refers to a process where a user can input a query to cross-search a number of information resources. The second is a subject cross-browsing service, which can offer a knowledge navigation tree to link subject schemes used by distributed resources. However, the development of subject cross-searching and browsing services has been impeded by the heterogeneity of different KOS (Knowledge Organisation System) used by different information resources. Due to the lack of mappings between different KOS, it is impossible to offer a subject cross-browsing service for a library portal system. [Continues.

Resource discovery in heterogeneous digital content environments

The concept of 'resource discovery' is central to our understanding of how users explore, navigate, locate and retrieve information resources. This submission for a PhD by Published Works examines a series of 11 related works which explore topics pertaining to resource discovery, each demonstrating heterogeneity in their digital discovery context. The assembled works are prefaced by nine chapters which seek to review and critically analyse the contribution of each work, as well as provide contextualization within the wider body of research literature. A series of conceptual sub-themes is used to organize and structure the works and the accompanying critical commentary. The thesis first begins by examining issues in distributed discovery contexts by studying collection level metadata (CLM), its application in 'information landscaping' techniques, and its relationship to the efficacy of federated item-level search tools. This research narrative continues but expands in the later works and commentary to consider the application of Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS), particularly within Semantic Web and machine interface contexts, with investigations of semantically aware terminology services in distributed discovery. The necessary modelling of data structures to support resource discovery - and its associated functionalities within digital libraries and repositories - is then considered within the novel context of technology-supported curriculum design repositories, where questions of human-computer interaction (HCI) are also examined. The final works studied as part of the thesis are those which investigate and evaluate the efficacy of open repositories in exposing knowledge commons to resource discovery via web search agents. Through the analysis of the collected works it is possible to identify a unifying theory of resource discovery, with the proposed concept of (meta)data alignment described and presented with a visual model. This analysis assists in the identification of a number of research topics worthy of further research; but it also highlights an incremental transition by the present author, from using research to inform the development of technologies designed to support or facilitate resource discovery, particularly at a 'meta' level, to the application of specific technologies to address resource discovery issues in a local context. Despite this variation the research narrative has remained focussed on topics surrounding resource discovery in heterogeneous digital content environments and is noted as having generated a coherent body of work. Separate chapters are used to consider the methodological approaches adopted in each work and the contribution made to research knowledge and professional practice.The concept of 'resource discovery' is central to our understanding of how users explore, navigate, locate and retrieve information resources. This submission for a PhD by Published Works examines a series of 11 related works which explore topics pertaining to resource discovery, each demonstrating heterogeneity in their digital discovery context. The assembled works are prefaced by nine chapters which seek to review and critically analyse the contribution of each work, as well as provide contextualization within the wider body of research literature. A series of conceptual sub-themes is used to organize and structure the works and the accompanying critical commentary. The thesis first begins by examining issues in distributed discovery contexts by studying collection level metadata (CLM), its application in 'information landscaping' techniques, and its relationship to the efficacy of federated item-level search tools. This research narrative continues but expands in the later works and commentary to consider the application of Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS), particularly within Semantic Web and machine interface contexts, with investigations of semantically aware terminology services in distributed discovery. The necessary modelling of data structures to support resource discovery - and its associated functionalities within digital libraries and repositories - is then considered within the novel context of technology-supported curriculum design repositories, where questions of human-computer interaction (HCI) are also examined. The final works studied as part of the thesis are those which investigate and evaluate the efficacy of open repositories in exposing knowledge commons to resource discovery via web search agents. Through the analysis of the collected works it is possible to identify a unifying theory of resource discovery, with the proposed concept of (meta)data alignment described and presented with a visual model. This analysis assists in the identification of a number of research topics worthy of further research; but it also highlights an incremental transition by the present author, from using research to inform the development of technologies designed to support or facilitate resource discovery, particularly at a 'meta' level, to the application of specific technologies to address resource discovery issues in a local context. Despite this variation the research narrative has remained focussed on topics surrounding resource discovery in heterogeneous digital content environments and is noted as having generated a coherent body of work. Separate chapters are used to consider the methodological approaches adopted in each work and the contribution made to research knowledge and professional practice

Information between Data and Knowledge: Information Science and its Neighbors from Data Science to Digital Humanities

Digital humanities as well as data science as neighboring fields pose new challenges and opportunities for information science. The recent focus on data in the context of big data and deep learning brings along new tasks for information scientist for example in research data management. At the same time, information behavior changes in the light of the increasing digital availability of information in academia as well as in everyday life. In this volume, contributions from various fields like information behavior and information literacy, information retrieval, digital humanities, knowledge representation, emerging technologies, and information infrastructure showcase the development of information science research in recent years. Topics as diverse as social media analytics, fake news on Facebook, collaborative search practices, open educational resources or recent developments in research data management are some of the highlights of this volume. For more than 30 years, the International Symposium of Information Science has been the venue for bringing together information scientists from the German speaking countries. In addition to the regular scientific contributions, six of the best competitors for the prize for the best information science master thesis present their work

Towards Interoperable Research Infrastructures for Environmental and Earth Sciences

This open access book summarises the latest developments on data management in the EU H2020 ENVRIplus project, which brought together more than 20 environmental and Earth science research infrastructures into a single community. It provides readers with a systematic overview of the common challenges faced by research infrastructures and how a ‘reference model guided’ engineering approach can be used to achieve greater interoperability among such infrastructures in the environmental and earth sciences. The 20 contributions in this book are structured in 5 parts on the design, development, deployment, operation and use of research infrastructures. Part one provides an overview of the state of the art of research infrastructure and relevant e-Infrastructure technologies, part two discusses the reference model guided engineering approach, the third part presents the software and tools developed for common data management challenges, the fourth part demonstrates the software via several use cases, and the last part discusses the sustainability and future directions

Knowledge and Artifact Representation in the Scientific Lifecycle

This thesis introduces SKOs (Scientific Knowledge Object) a specification for capturing the knowledge and artifacts that are produced by the scientific research processes. Aiming to address the current existing limitations of scientific production this specification is focused on reducing the work overhead of scientific creation, being composable and reusable, allow continuous evolution and facilitate collaboration and discovery among researchers. To do so it introduces four layers that capture different aspects of the scientific knowledge: content, meaning, ordering and visualization

Development of Domain Specific Cluster : An Integrated Framework for College Libraries under the University of Burdwan

This paper discusses the development of six domain specific cluster software in the college libraries under the University of Burdwan. Library is the heart of educational institutions. So, as to select the open source relevant with comprehensive software and global parameters on the basis of global recommendations like IFLA-Working Group, Integrated Library System for Discovery Interface (ILS-DI), Request for Proposals (RFP), Request for Comments (RFC), Service Oriented Architectre (SOA) and Open Library Environment Projects (OLE) including the areas like integrated library system cluster, digital media archiving cluster, content management system cluster, learning content management system cluster, federated search system cluster and college communication interaction cluster for designing and developing the college libraries under the University of Burdwan. Also develop the single window based interface in six domain specific cluster for the college librarians and the users to access their necessary resources through open source software and open standards. These six domain specific cluster softwares are to be selected for easily managed the digital and library resources in the college libraries affiliated to the University of Burdwan. This integrated framework can easily managed the housekeeping operations and information retrieval systems like acquisition, cataloguing, circulation, member generation, authority control, report generation and online public access catalogue for the users as well as library professionals also

Towards Interoperable Research Infrastructures for Environmental and Earth Sciences

This open access book summarises the latest developments on data management in the EU H2020 ENVRIplus project, which brought together more than 20 environmental and Earth science research infrastructures into a single community. It provides readers with a systematic overview of the common challenges faced by research infrastructures and how a ‘reference model guided’ engineering approach can be used to achieve greater interoperability among such infrastructures in the environmental and earth sciences. The 20 contributions in this book are structured in 5 parts on the design, development, deployment, operation and use of research infrastructures. Part one provides an overview of the state of the art of research infrastructure and relevant e-Infrastructure technologies, part two discusses the reference model guided engineering approach, the third part presents the software and tools developed for common data management challenges, the fourth part demonstrates the software via several use cases, and the last part discusses the sustainability and future directions