Mobile Device Policies in Archive Reading Rooms

Humanities scholars increasingly use mobile devices such as laptops, iPhones, and iPads in their professional lives. We are exploring the opportunities for employing such devices for supporting scholarly activities in archive reading rooms. As a first step in this process, we are studying how reading room policies related to the use of technological devices impact scholars’ interaction with the source materials in terms of capturing, organizing, note taking, and record keeping for future use of found materials. We studied the policy documents made available by thirty archives and complemented the results by soliciting the perspectives of administrators who craft these policies and scholars who use these archives. We present our analysis and an early prototype of a policy awareness mobile application called AMTracker.Informatio

MIDAS: Multi-device Integrated Dynamic Activity Spaces

Mobile phones, tablet computers, laptops, desktops, and large screen displays are increasingly available to individuals for information access, often simultaneously. Dominant content access protocols, such as HTTP/1.1, do not take advantage of this device multiplicity and support information access from single devices only. Changing devices means restarting an information session. Using devices in conjunction with each other poses several challenges, which include the presentation of content on devices with diverse form factors and propagation of the content changes across these devices. In this dissertation, I report on the design and implementation of MIDAS - architecture and a prototype system for multi-device presentations. I propose a framework, called 12C, for characterizing multi-device systems and evaluate MIDAS within this framework. MIDAS is designed as a middleware that can work with multiple client-server architectures, such as the Web and context-aware Trellis, a non-Web hypertext system. It presents information content simultaneously on devices with diverse characteristics without requiring sensor-enhanced environments. The system adapts content elements for optimal presentation on the target device while also striving to retain fidelity with the original form from a human perceptual perspective. MIDAS reconfigures its presentation in response to user actions, availability of devices, and environmental context, such as a user's location or the time of day. I conducted a pilot study that explored human perception of similarity when image attributes such as size and color depth are modified in the process of presenting images on different devices. The results indicated that users tend to prefer scaling of images to color-depth reduction but gray scaling of images is preferable to either modification. Not all images scale equally gracefully; those dominated by natural elements or manmade structures scale exceptionally well. Images that depict recognizable human faces or textual elements should be scaled only to an extent that these features retain their integrity. Attributes of the 12C framework describe aspects of multi-device systems that include infrastructure, presentation, interaction, interface, and security. Based on these criteria, MIDAS is a flexible infrastructure, which lends itself to several content distribution and interaction strategies by separating client- and server-side configuration

ASTRIA Ontology: Open, Standards-based, Data-aggregated Representation of Space Objects

The necessity for standards-based ontologies for long-term sustainability of space operations and safety of increasing space flights has been well-established [6, 7]. Current ontologies, such as DARPA’s OrbitOutlook [5], are not publicly available, complicating efforts for their broad adoption. Most sensor data is siloed in proprietary databases [2] and provided only to authorized users, further complicating efforts to create a holistic view of resident space objects (RSOs) in order to enhance space situational awareness (SSA). The ASTRIA project is developing an open data model with the goal of aggregating data about RSOs, parts, space weather, and governing policies in order to provide a comprehensive awareness of space objects and events. The first step in this direction involves modeling RSOs. Our standards-based, graph data model adopts design and documentation best practices as well. The model expresses data using well-known general-purpose data modeling schemas (such as Dublin Core [1] and OAI-ORE [4]), and orbit representations (such as Keplerian elements and position-values), and controlled vocabularies (e.g. DISCOS classifications of space debris, orbital regimes, and fragmentation events [3]) expressed as Resource Description Framework (RDF) triples. Recognizing uncertainties in tracking as well as associating RSOs with known objects, our model supports name or track-based initiation, incremental specification, and uncertainty in association. De-siloing data is the first step toward enabling discovery regarding impact of the space environment and human based activity on space object behavior. We intend the ASTRIA ontology to support data-driven decision-making processes in order to make the space domain safe, secure, and sustainable

Sustainability Strategies for Digital Humanities Systems

Now that the Digital Humanities (DH) are becoming a well-established research field, producing seminal publications in print as well as digital formats, the time for consolidation has come. It is noteworthy that digital tools and methods from the pioneering days of the DH are degrading and some have already vanished. Therefore, it is urgent to take action and to prevent further losses. While the necessity of high quality research data management (RDM) is encouraged or even required by funding agencies and there is an increasing awareness for long-term archiving (LTA), when it comes to primary research data, the fact that the DH exhibit a structural deficit regarding maintaining and preserving research software is at the least underestimated. In this panel, we will focus on infrastructure and institutional support. Beginning with an overview of existing strategies from the DH and beyond, we highlight selected strategies to compare how they are implemented at different institutions in terms of infrastructure, expert knowledge and also funding. We also want to evaluate the extent of institutional support that is needed to successfully sustain and archive DH projects and the software they use. We will discuss currently implemented solutions to maintain and preserve research projects and software, all of which approach the outlined problem from a different angle

Walden's authoring tools: a usability evaluation

Due to the character of the original source materials and the nature of batch digitization, quality control issues may be present in this document. Please report any quality issues you encounter to [email protected], referencing the URI of the item.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 65-66).Issued also on microfiche from Lange Micrographics.Walden's Paths enables K-12 teachers to incorporate Web-based information in their curriculum. However, most information on the Web requires some tailoring or contextualization in order to adapt it for curricular purposes. An annotated list of Web resources with a common thread that binds them is called a Path. Walden's Paths' Path Server is a presentation tool for viewing Paths over the Web. It provides a means for guided exploratory learning where the students can start with pages on the path and browse the Web unhindered, with a facility to return to the path at will. Providing GUI support for authoring paths presents many issues. The changes in the Web, author skills and work practices necessitate the need for Authoring Tools that support the new paradigms. This thesis describes the development of a new generation of authoring tools for Walden's Paths. The new tools separate the process of authoring of paths from publishing of paths. Authoring involves creation of paths, while publishing involves making the authored paths accessible to the intended audience. This separation helps provide authoring support for users while they do not have access to a network connection. The PathAuthor is a network-independent, platform-independent stand-alone tool with minimal overhead. The PathPublisher is a CGI tool that can be accessed via the Web to publish paths. Usability evaluation of an application determines its efficiency, ease of use and learnability. The usability of the PathAuthor and PathPublisher was evaluated by a group of K-12 teachers. This thesis presents the results of this evaluation. The results are in three forms, observations made during the evaluation, questionnaires that were filled in by the teachers and views expressed by them during the discussion that was conducted after the evaluation. The thesis then outlines avenues for further development of the Walden's Authoring Tools

eBat: A Technology-enriched Life Sciences Research Community

We are leveraging Web-based technology to create an online community for Life Science research. Our prototype community for cardiovascular research with live bats, called eBat, consists of local researchers as well as remote collaborators. The eBat project offers scientists and students a remote-controlled microscope for conducting experiments, a message board and a chat system for scheduled as well as spontaneous communication, and an online peer-reviewed manuscript repository. In this paper, we report our observations of the use of the eBat infrastructure by local researchers over a period of six months. Resident researchers quickly adopted the eBat infrastructure. eBat technology has now become an indispensable part of the local research group and is used extensively for coordination, communication, and awareness. eBat complements face-to-face interactions well and has resulted in improved communication amongst lab members. We are currently exploring the extension of eBat technology to include distant researchers in live cardiovascular research experiments. We discuss our initial experiences with adapting the eBat infrastructure for research-at-a-distance and the lessons learned from these initial interactions

User issues

The MIDAS project is developing infrastructure and policies for optimal display of digital information on devices with diverse characteristics. In this paper we present the preliminary results of a study that explored the effects of scaling and color-depth variation in digital photographs on user perceptions of similarity. Our results indicate general trends in user preferences and can serve as guidelines for designing policies and systems that display digital images optimally on various information devices

Employing smart browsers to support flexible information in Petri net-based digital libraries

Abstract. For effective real-life use, digital libraries must incorporate resource and system policies and adapt to user preferences and device characteristics. The caT (context-aware Trellis) hypertext model incorporates these policies and adaptation conditions within the Petri net specification of the digital library to support context-aware delivery of digital documents in a dynamically changing environment. This paper describes extensions to the caT architecture for supporting adaptation via smarter browsers and an external resource store to provide greater flexibility in information presentation. Browsers request resources that they can best display with their knowledge of intrinsic capabilities and constraints imposed on them by the devices that they run on. The data store returns the most appropriate version of a resource in response to browser requests, thus allowing maintainers of libraries to add, modify and remove resources without any changes to the structure, presentation or document pointers in the digital library.

Managing change on the web

Increasingly, digital libraries are being defined that collect pointers to World-Wide Web based resources rather than hold the resources themselves. Maintaining these collections is challenging due to distributed document ownership and high fluidity. Typically a collection’s maintainer has to assess the relevance of changes with little system aid. In this paper, we describe the Walden’s Paths Path Manager, which assists a maintainer in discovering when relevant changes occur to linked resources. The approach and system design was informed by a study of how humans perceive changes of Web pages. The study indicated that structural changes are key in determining the overall change and that presentation changes are considered irrelevant

An exploration of space-time constraints on contextual information in image-based testing interfaces

Abstract. Digital image collection interface layouts vary in the nature and degree of contextual information they provide to their users, thus enabling or impeding specific tasks. We are exploring image presentation techniques to support image-centric cognitive tasks in the context of cardiovascular systems research and education. To investigate the effect of image layout on user performance, we conducted an experimental evaluation of three image layouts for three representative tasks in this domain. The layouts varied the spatial and temporal presentation of images, thus providing different contextual information to the test subjects. Our results indicate that the degree of contextual information provided by the image layouts affected user performance, as did their research expertise. These results will inform the design of user interfaces for performing image-focused cognitive tasks as well as the development of interfaces for training novice researchers.