What is an Analogue for the Semantic Web and Why is Having One Important?

This paper postulates that for the Semantic Web to grow and gain input from fields that will surely benefit it, it needs to develop an analogue that will help people not only understand what it is, but what the potential opportunities are that are enabled by these new protocols. The model proposed in the paper takes the way that Web interaction has been framed as a baseline to inform a similar analogue for the Semantic Web. While the Web has been represented as a Page + Links, the paper presents the argument that the Semantic Web can be conceptualized as a Notebook + Memex. The argument considers how this model also presents new challenges for fundamental human interaction with computing, and that hypertext models have much to contribute to this new understanding for distributed information systems

A Model for Managing Information Flow on the World Wide Web

Metadata merged with duplicate record (http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/330) on 20.12.2016 by CS (TIS).This is a digitised version of a thesis that was deposited in the University Library. If you are the author please contact PEARL Admin ([email protected]) to discuss options.This thesis considers the nature of information management on the World Wide Web. The web has evolved into a global information system that is completely unregulated, permitting anyone to publish whatever information they wish. However, this information is almost entirely unmanaged, which, together with the enormous number of users who access it, places enormous strain on the web's architecture. This has led to the exposure of inherent flaws, which reduce its effectiveness as an information system. The thesis presents a thorough analysis of the state of this architecture, and identifies three flaws that could render the web unusable: link rot; a shrinking namespace; and the inevitable increase of noise in the system. A critical examination of existing solutions to these flaws is provided, together with a discussion on why the solutions have not been deployed or adopted. The thesis determines that they have failed to take into account the nature of the information flow between information provider and consumer, or the open philosophy of the web. The overall aim of the research has therefore been to design a new solution to these flaws in the web, based on a greater understanding of the nature of the information that flows upon it. The realization of this objective has included the development of a new model for managing information flow on the web, which is used to develop a solution to the flaws. The solution comprises three new additions to the web's architecture: a temporal referencing scheme; an Oracle Server Network for more effective web browsing; and a Resource Locator Service, which provides automatic transparent resource migration. The thesis describes their design and operation, and presents the concept of the Request Router, which provides a new way of integrating such distributed systems into the web's existing architecture without breaking it. The design of the Resource Locator Service, including the development of new protocols for resource migration, is covered in great detail, and a prototype system that has been developed to prove the effectiveness of the design is presented. The design is further validated by comprehensive performance measurements of the prototype, which show that it will scale to manage a web whose size is orders of magnitude greater than it is today

Toward An Architecture for Internet-based \u27Evolutionary\u27 Collaboration

In this paper, we review, synthesize and extend the World Wide Web (WWW) models for collaboration into a meta-framework. We start with a set of requirements for a framework for collaborative systems and describe a specific architectural implementation of the suggested framework for Internet based collaboration building upon current research efforts worldwide. Areas that need further research and our future plans are describe

Sources of Information with Emphasis on Electronic Resources

Information, an invaluable resource is being disseminated, transformed and communicated in a variety of environments. They are now mostly available in emedia. Librarians connot afford to ignore this development and they must prepare themselves to handle e-sources. Move towards electronic handling of information will be cost-effective and users will be in a position to get pinpointed information with the help of powerful search engines. Some of the important e-sources and problems associated with such sources are discussed in this pape