Les Carr

Trailblazing the literature of hypertext: author co-citation analysis (1989–1998)

This paper presents the analysis and modelling of two data sets associated with the literature of hypertext as represented by the ACM Hypertext conference series. This work explores new ways of organising and accessing the vast amount of interrelated information. The first data set, including all the full papers published in this series (1987 1998), is structured and visualised as a semantic space. This semantic space provides an access point for each paper in this collection. The second data set, containing author co-citation counts based on nine conferences in the series (1989 1998), is analysed and mapped in its entirety and in three evenly distributed sub-periods. Specialties  major research fronts in the field of hypertext  are identified based on the results of a factor analysis and corresponding author co-citation maps. The names of authors in these maps are linked to the bibliographical and citation summaries of these authors on the WWW.

Citation linking: improving access to online journals

The most innovative online journals are maturing rapidly and distinctive new features are emerging. Foremost among these features is the hypertext link, popularised by the World Wide Web and which will form the basis of a new, highly integrated scholarly literature. Journal integration in this instance seeks to recognise, extend and exploit relationships at the level of journal content-the papers-while maintaining some of the familiar contexts, in some cases journal identities, that define the content hierarchy and inform decision-making by readers. Links are a powerful tool for journal integration, most immediately in the form of citation linking. The paper reviews examples of citation linking in practice, and describes a new system, a link service, which is being developed to support novel and flexible linking mechanisms on the Web. One application of this link service is the Open Journal project, which is working with journal publishers to investigate the most effective ways of applying these powerful link types to enhance online journals.

Web Journals Publishing: A UK Perspective

The Pilot Site Licence Initiative (PSLI) and the Electronic Libraries (eLib) research programme have been catalysts for dramatic change in journals publishing in the UK. Covering over 30 publishers and over 20 other e-journals and e-journal research projects, this report marks the extent of the change and reflects on how e-journals will develop next.

The Software Sustainability Institute: Changing Research Software Attitudes and Practices

To effect change, the Software Sustainability Institute works with researchers, developers, funders, and infrastructure providers to identify and address key issues with research software.

The Microcosm Link Service and its Application to the World Wide Web

For some time now, designers of hypermedia systems have recognised the need to move away from closed systems to open environments which separate the link structure from the data in the system, and enable separate link and data processing. The main motivations behind this development are the need to reduce authoring effort in large-scale hypermedia applications and to make them more easily modifiable, customisable and extensible. Microcosm is one such open hypermedia system which has been developed at the University of Southampton. At the heart of Microcosm is the Link Service, which allows links maintained by the system to be applied to information native to third-party applications in the host environment. This paper describes the Microcosm system and discusses the benefits of combining its link service capabilities with the WWW distributed technology.

The impact of OAI-based search on access to research journal papers

Intuitively, if a product is useful and has both a priced and a free version its total usage rate would be expected to be higher than if there is only a priced version. Evidence is emerging that this is true for online research journal papers. Authors need accessible online sites in which to deposit their published papers, and users need a means of discovering and evaluating those papers. The Open Archives Initiative (OAI) has now produced free software packages for building OAI-compliant institutional archives and OAI search services, including a citation-ranked search and impact discovery service. New data from this service shows that higher usage of free papers leads directly to a higher number of citations and thus greater research impact. Institutional archives need far more papers to be deposited, and one way of bringing this about is to implement institutional and national policies mandating the self-archiving of all funded research output in open access archives. This paper outlines why such policies are beneficial to researchers, their institutions, funders, and to research itself.

Applying Open Hypertext Principles to the WWW

The concept of an open hypertext environment is now accepted as the best way to provide a flexible and extensible approach to the provision of hypertext functionality. Although very popular, the World Wide Web system created at CERN in Switzerland is a closed system, and suffers a number of drawbacks as a result. This paper describes how an open hypertext approach may benefit users and authors of World Wide Web material, and illustrates how the World Wide Web may be extended to provide a more open hypertext model.

Using HyperCard and Interactive Video in Education: An Application in Cell Biology

Interactive video seems to have much potential in education, particularly in areas where the use of visual material is essential to the understanding of the subject Finding effective ways of incorporating videodisc material into educational courses is not easy. Producing courseware for interactive video to intergrate with existing courses can be very expensive, particularly in terms of staff time This paper suggests an alternative model for the development of interactive video material for education using existing videodiscs and Apples HyperCard

A Scalable Architecture for Harvest-Based Digital Libraries - The ODU/Southampton Experiments

This paper discusses the requirements of current and emerging applications based on the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) and emphasizes the need for a common infrastructure to support them. Inspired by HTTP proxy, cache, gateway and web service concepts, a design for a scalable and reliable infrastructure that aims at satisfying these requirements is presented. Moreover it is shown how various applications can exploit the services included in the proposed infrastructure. The paper concludes by discussing the current status of several prototype implementations.

CS AKTiveSpace: Building a Semantic Web Application

In this paper we reflect on the lessons learned from deploying the award winning [1] Semantic Web application, CS AKTiveSpace. We look at issues in service orientation and modularisation, harvesting, and interaction design for supporting this 10million-triple-based application. We consider next steps for the application, based on these lessons, and propose a strategy for expanding and improving the services afforded by the application.