Dan E. Albertson

Influences of users' familiarity with visual search topics on interactive video digital libraries

A huge number of informal messages are posted every day in social network sites, blogs, and discussion forums. Emotions seem to be frequently important in these texts for expressing friendship, showing social support or as part of online arguments. Algorithms to identify sentiment and sentiment strength are needed to help understand the role of emotion in this informal communication and also to identify inappropriate or anomalous affective utterances, potentially associated with threatening behavior to the self or others. Nevertheless, existing sentiment detection algorithms tend to be commercially oriented, designed to identify opinions about products rather than user behaviors. This article partly fills this gap with a new algorithm, SentiStrength, to extract sentiment strength from informal English text, using new methods to exploit the de facto grammars and spelling styles of cyberspace. Applied to MySpace comments and with a lookup table of term sentiment strengths optimized by machine learning, SentiStrength is able to predict positive emotion with 60.6p accuracy and negative emotion with 72.8p accuracy, both based upon strength scales of 1–5. The former, but not the latter, is better than baseline and a wide range of general machine learning approaches.

Design criteria for video digital libraries: Categories of important features emerging from users’ responses

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report on a user-centred analysis of video digital libraries and to present users’ criteria based on concepts emerging directly from the responses of study participants. As a time-based and multi-channeled format, video warrants considerations for information delivery through interactive tools such as digital libraries. Design/methodology/approach – A survey method was used to collect open-ended responses from participants. Content analysis was performed on the responses, and categories then emerged to form the coding scheme where simple and weighted frequencies were calculated to obtain a ranked set of users’ criteria. Cohen’s κ was 0.87, indicative of high-level of inter-coder reliability. In the end, 81 participants contributed a total of 385 open-ended responses, which were all then analysed and coded. Findings – The emergent coding method and continuous refinements to the coding scheme ultimately produced 28 criteria (subcategories) under four primary categor...

Synthesizing visual digital library research to formulate a user-centered evaluation framework

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to synthesize prior user-centered research to develop and present a generalized framework for evaluating visual, i.e. both image and video digital libraries. The primary objectives include comprehensively examining the current state of visual digital library research to: develop a generalized framework applicable for designing user-centered evaluations of visual digital libraries; identify influential experimental factors warranting assessment evaluation as part of specific contexts; and provide examples of applied methods that have been used in research, demonstrating notable findings. Design/methodology/approach – The framework presented in the present study depicts a set of user-centered methodological considerations and examples, synthesized from a review of prior research that provides significant understanding of users and uses of visual information. Findings – Primary components for digital library evaluation, pertaining to user, interaction, system and domain...

Examining feedback in interactive video retrieval

This paper presents a user-centred video retrieval, or video digital library, study that examines different types of feedback. Separate user interface features, including one that collects and one that presents feedback, shape the evaluation of this study. Research questions were posed to examine both types of feedback and to measure the influence of certain factors on each. The experimental factors examined here, in association with feedback, included user actions, topic characteristics, search duration, levels of user satisfaction and domain familiarity. Laboratory-style search experiments employing 28 users from the field of science education were conducted, which asked the users to attempt six pre-designed search topics. Actions of the users and topic durations were recorded, and users were given a post-search questionnaire about the topics and their experiences and impressions of the experimental system. Results showed that users regularly requested feedback about a clip, beyond a keyframe, while searching, not browsing, and that requests varied significantly across certain topic categories. Findings also indicated that users’ requests for feedback were more general interactions and not associated with a search topic’s representation of the domain. On the other hand, users rarely contributed feedback about the relative importance of visual vs semantic qualities of search results in order to reformulate queries, regardless of any other experimental factor.

Designing for specialized visual domains: A preparatory qualitative analysis for a digital collection in the Book Arts

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the organization and design of a real-life digital collection for the field of Book Arts. This paper also examines the challenges in building digital libraries for visual domains with specialized user pools. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative study was conducted. An online survey asked participants from the field of Book Arts to provide free-text descriptions of randomized visual representatives taken from the collection using open-ended question and answer boxes. Themes extracted from the survey were coded and presented using basic statistical measures. Findings – The results of this study identified a set of specialized access points for items that were selected as being significant for Book Arts and perhaps other areas in the Fine Arts. Results informed retrieval of visual information for this domain along with user interface design and evaluation strategies. In addition, the survey used in this study demonstrated the ability to collect lon...

Examining user-driven factors for intentions to use video digital libraries

The purpose of the present study is to examine potential influences of certain user‐driven factors on the intentions to use or target video digital libraries. The overarching objective of the study is to present a validated research model which depicts such phenomenon between users and video digital libraries. A total of 229 respondents participated in an online survey, which included questions for seven distinct variables: retrieval functionality, user interface characteristics, user support, collection quality, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and intention to use. Multiple regression and correlation coefficient were used to analyze the collected survey data and test the hypotheses for validating the proposed research model. The preliminary results show that both perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness are determinant factors of users’ intention to use video digital library resources. In addition, retrieval functionality, user support, and collection quality significantly affected users’ perceived ease of use of digital library resources. Further study of additional variables is currently in progress in order to assess influential factors that affect use of digital video libraries and ultimate adoption of such tools.

Individual differences of science teachers and interactive video retrieval

Purpose This article aims to examine how the interactions and perceptions of users from a defined domain, i.e. science education, vary across different groups of teachers while retrieving video. Given the prevalence of digital resources in use in education today, it is critical to assess users’ perspectives and experiences for retrieving information across different contexts and individual user groups. Design/methodology/approach Interactive search experiments with 28 users were performed. A pre-experiment questionnaire collected the demographic information used to form groups for comparison in the present study. Users attempted six experimenter-developed topics using a prototype video retrieval system; experimental measures were recorded, including all actions, completion rates, errors and durations. Users rated their experiences and levels of satisfaction with different aspect of the system after each search topic. Data analyses included mean comparisons across the different groups. Findings A variety of influences emerged from the results, including significant variations among teachers’ interactions, levels of satisfaction and expectations across different groups of users. Research limitations/implications Understanding the interactions and perceptions when retrieving digital video provides insights for information professionals on how to better support the needs of different users. If systems are not taking into account users and context, there can be a mismatch between the needs of users and interactive systems, which can lead to low perceptions and further underuse of digital resources. Originality/value Although similar influences on digital libraries have been analysed in other contexts, they have not been directly assessed, as they specifically pertain to experiences with and perceptions of video.

How is image seeking and use studied: Theoretical models and research methods: Sponsored by: SIG VIS, SIG AH, SIG DL, and SIG USE

The digital revolution is associated with the proliferation of visual resources and with the increasing use of images in teaching, scholarly activities, communication, and everyday information practices. Visual information seeking and use is a growing area of research in information science. The panel discussion will focus on theoretical and methodological approaches to studying how users seek, select, apply, and organize visual information in a range of information and communication practices. The discussion about theory and research methodologies will be complemented by an example of an empirical study and an inquiry into implications of social media for image use research. The panel will contribute to a better understanding of the current state of image research and will engage the scholarly community in a debate about research methodology and theory development.