Journal of Digital Information (Texas Digital Library - TDL E-Journals)
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252 research outputs found
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A Personal Information and Knowledge Infrastructure Integrator
No full textThe Next Big Thing is being grown organically, cultivated by software developers and pruned by personal Weblog publishers. The rising Weblogging space of the Internet is looking more like traditional hypertext than the Web of the 1990s. The ways in which Weblogging has evolved beyond the previous limitations of the Web as hypertext, and the ways Weblogging is evolving towards common-use hypertext destined to play a critical role in everyday life, will be explored. We have a vision of a universal information management system built on extending the traditional hypertext framework. In our utopian future, everyone will use tools descended from today\u27s blogs to structure, search and share personal information, as well as to participate in shared discussion. We begin by expressing a vision of common-use hypertext for information management and interpersonal communication. This vision is grounded in the rapid evolution of Weblogs and known issues in information systems and hypertext. The practical implications of who will use these systems, and how, is expanded as usage scenarios for Weblogs now and in the future. After recapping the current issues facing the Weblogging community, we look to the long-range implementation issues with optimism. Our system is forward-looking yet realistic. The activities the system will support are extrapolated from recent developments in the online community, and most of the sketches of implementation are based on current approaches. It is of more than passing interest that the features we extrapolate were all described by Nelson as early hypertext ideals. Of particular interest is that the features are now being implemented because of perceived immediate need by communities of interest
proXimity: Walking the Link
No full textOur society is consistently told that the world is becoming increasingly connected, that the Internet can join physically disparate people by means of email, Web sites, and chatrooms, and that the one \u27must have\u27 is a personal domain name; in effect, that the virtual should be more respected than the physical. People are led to believe that computers, with the \u27net\u27 as their focus, are their portal to other worlds, their communication mechanism to remote peoples, \u27blogging\u27 their primary form of self expression. All this is in part true, but we think there are fundamental issues that are not addressed. The focus on only the virtual is skewing our perception to over-estimate the Web\u27s importance. The increased complexity inherent in all large systems will become too great for many users as the Web develops and grows. The local environment, often most pertinent to the user, is currently completely ignored with regard to dynamic information giving. The Web\u27s focus on information belies the fact that the world is also composed of physical artifacts. Therefore, we think that the next direction for the Web is the conjoining of the physical and virtual. We suggest that they must be connected because without a physical presence the virtual world cannot attain its full potential. To reduce the complexity and stress placed on the user, the Web should relate to the users\u27 physical location and real-world artifacts encountered to make meaningful choices about what information is currently useful or required. In effect, the user acquires a real-world centric view of the Web in which the Web conforms to reality, not reality to the Web. The primary goal of our system, \u27proXimity\u27, is to augment realities by giving hypertext, and thus the Web, a physical presence in the real world
The Next Big Thing: From Hypermedia to Datuments
No full textThe concept of a datument as a hyperdocument for transmitting and preserving the complete content of a piece of scientific work is introduced. Currently the scientific publishing process loses almost all of the information environment that the author creates or possesses. It is shown that datuments can record and reproduce experiments and act as a lossless way of publishing science. This is illustrated with specific examples drawn from scientific documents and molecular science, showing how a datument containing molecular coordinates can be viewed in various styles and how typical documents deriving from organic and physical chemistry and expressed in XML can be transformed using XSLT
WIED: A Web Modelling Language for Modelling Architectural-Level Information Flows
No full textThe ability to reliably and consistently develop systems that utilise Internet and Web technologies has become increasingly important. These systems are typically both functionally complex and information-rich, and have a number of unique characteristics that should imply specific changes to the development processes, methods and models that are adopted. One aspect that has received increasing attention is information modelling for these applications, particularly with respect to aspects such as navigation models and their relationships to the underlying content. These models have typically focussed on modelling at a relatively low-level, however, and have failed to address higher-level aspects, such as architectural and even business process modelling. The paper introduces a formal information modelling set which can be considered as a companion to to an existing modelling language - WebML - that facilitates information modelling at this higher level of abstraction. We argue that this modelling approach will provide a clearer connection between an understanding of business models and processes, and the lower-level designs typically represented in existing models
On Two Approaches to Software Repositories and Hypertext Functionality
No full textThis paper discusses the use of hypertext functionality in software engineering environments (SEEs). We discuss some of the outstanding problems in the construction and use of SEEs and software repositories, and show that by using hypertext it is possible to enhance their functionality. The integration of hypertext into this kind of software system poses several challenges in design and implementation, however. Two different approaches for implementing hypertext functionality are presented
Cooperative Hypermedia Management Systems
No full textThe benefits of including hypertext functionality in application systems have become widely accepted. Users expect applications to provide browsing and linking capabilities to augment search and command capabilities. Three approaches to providing such environments are feasible. The first two of these involve retrofitting hypertext functionality to third-party applications, and building an \u27open\u27 hypertext system that manages the integration of third-party applications with hypertext. The third approach involves building a task-oriented environment that enables a hypertext management system to be constructed, building block style, using third-party applications as building units that cooperate in the delivery of the required functionality. The paper argues that the last of these approaches, cooperative hypermedia management systems, is the most realistic. A model for such systems is described. Issues involved in designing and building such systems are discussed and examples presented
Networked Knowledge Representation and Exchange using UML and RDF
No full textThis paper proposes the use of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) as a language for modelling ontologies for Web resources and the knowledge contained within them. To provide a mechanism for serialising and processing object diagrams representing knowledge, a pair of XSLT stylesheets have been developed to map from XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) encodings of class diagrams to corresponding RDF schemas and to Java classes representing the concepts in the ontologies. The Java code includes methods for marshalling and unmarshalling object-oriented information between in-memory data structures and RDF serialisations of that information. This provides a convenient mechanism for Java applications to share knowledge on the Web
Interactional Digital Libraries: introduction to a special issue on Interactivity in Digital Libraries
No full textThe INVENT framework: Examining the role of information visualization in the reconceptualization of digital libraries
No full textThe objective of this paper is to show how information visualization can play an important and catalytic role in the reconceptualization of digital libraries as interactive knowledge environments. Information visualization has long been described as a beneficial and promising technology for digital libraries. Today, however, few digital libraries rely on information visualization concepts and techniques. This is because the research agenda has been dominated by first-generation challenges, such as digitization, organization, preservation, and facilitating access through conventional search and browse interfaces. As a result, digital libraries are still conceptualized as curated, networked, and searchable document repositories. But new research directions are reconceptualizing them as interactive knowledge environments. This paper re-examines the role of information visualization in this reconceptualization. It introduces a new conceptual framework for digital libraries called INVENT: INteractive Visual ENironmenTs. The INVENT framework emphasizes the importance of rich interaction with representations of information, especially visual representations, for supporting cognitive and knowledge work activities. There are six elements in the framework: digital objects, representations, activities, interactions, actors, and ecologies. This paper suggests that these elements should be conceptual cornerstones in the knowledge environment conceptualization of digital libraries