Towards personalization in digital libraries through ontologies

In this paper we describe a browsing and searching personalization system for digital libraries based on the use of ontologies for describing the relationships between all the elements which take part in a digital library scenario of use. The main goal of this project is to help the users of a digital library to improve their experience of use by means of two complementary strategies: first, by maintaining a complete history record of his or her browsing and searching activities, which is part of a navigational user profile which includes preferences and all the aspects related to community involvement; and second, by reusing all the knowledge which has been extracted from previous usage from other users with similar profiles. This can be accomplished in terms of narrowing and focusing the search results and browsing options through the use of a recommendation system which organizes such results in the most appropriate manner, using ontologies and concepts drawn from the semantic web field. The complete integration of the experience of use of a digital library in the learning process is also pursued. Both the usage and information organization can be also exploited to extract useful knowledge from the way users interact with a digital library, knowledge that can be used to improve several design aspects of the library, ranging from internal organization aspects to human factors and user interfaces. Although this project is still on an early development stage, it is possible to identify all the desired functionalities and requirements that are necessary to fully integrate the use of a digital library in an e-learning environment

Predicting web services performance from internet performance: an empirical study of resources and capabilities in e-business SMEs

Abstract: Purpose – Web services promise a step change in business-to-business application models and practices. But how do we measure web services' performance? Because web services are so new, and implementations so few, the purpose of this paper is to take internet performance as a proxy for web services performance. Design/methodology/approach – The authors surveyed 106 e-business SMEs to identify key drivers for internet performance, and then predicted web services performance. Findings – Surprisingly, it was found that while business resources and IT resources positively impact internet performance, dynamic capabilities do not. Also, there appear to be significant firm size effects. Originality/value – The implications of these findings for the strategic management of web services are discussed, and in particular, managers' need to balance resources and capabilities in volatile business environments