Rao Shen

Convergence of knowledge management and e-learning: the GetSmart experience

The National Science Digital Library (NSDL), launched in December 2002, is emerging as a center of innovation in digital libraries as applied to education. As a part of this extensive project, the GetSmart system was created to apply knowledge management techniques in a learning environment. The design of the system is based on an analysis of learning theory and the information search process. Its key notion is the integration of search tools and curriculum support with concept mapping. More than 100 students at the University of Arizona and Virginia Tech used the system in the fall of 2002. A database of more than one thousand student-prepared concept maps has been collected with more than forty thousand relationships expressed in semantic, graphical, node-link representations. Preliminary analysis of the collected data is revealing interesting knowledge representation patterns.

Enhancing usability in CITIDEL: multimodal, multilingual, and interactive visualization interfaces

We describe four usability-enhancing interfaces to CITIDEL aimed at improving the user experience and supporting personalized information access by targeted communities. These comprise: a multimodal interaction facility with capability for out-of-turn input, interactive visualizations for exploratory analysis, a translation center exposing multilingual interfaces, as well as traditional usability enhancements. Pilot studies demonstrate the resulting improvements in quality, as measured across a number of metrics.

Exploring digital libraries: integrating browsing, searching, and visualization

Exploring services for digital libraries (DLs) include two major paradigms, browsing and searching, as well as other services such as clustering and visualization. In this paper, we formalize and generalize DL exploring services within a DL theory. We develop theorems to indicate that browsing and searching can be converted or mapped to each other under certain conditions. The theorems guide the design and implementation of exploring services for an integrated archaeological DL, ETANA-DL. Its integrated browsing and searching can support users in moving seamlessly between these operations, minimizing context switching, and keeping users focused. It also integrates browsing and searching into a single visual interface for DL exploration. A user study to evaluate ETANA-DLs exploring services helped validate our hypotheses

An XML Log Standard and Tool for Digital Library Logging Analysis

Log analysis can be a primary source of knowledge about how digital library patrons actually use DL systems and services and how systems behave while trying to support user information seeking activities. Log recording and analysis allow evaluation assessment, and open opportunities to improvements and enhanced new services. In this paper, we propose an XML-based digital library log format standard that captures a rich, detailed set of system and user behaviors supported by current digital library services. The format is implemented in a generic log component tool, which can be plugged into any digital library system. The focus of the work is on interoperability, reusability, and completeness. Specifications, implementation details, and examples of use within the MARIAN digital library system are described.

Citiviz: A Visual User Interface to the CITIDEL System

The Digital Library (DL) field is one of the most promising areas of application for information visualization technology. In this paper, we propose a visual user interface tool kit for digital libraries, to deliver an overview of document sets, with support for interactive direct manipulation. Our system, Citiviz, employs a dynamic hyperbolic tree to display hierarchical relationships among documents, based on where their topics fit into the ACM classification system. Also, Citiviz provides an interactive, animated 2-dimensional scatter plot. With it, users may gain insight by changing various parameters, or may directly jump to a particular document based on its label or location. According to a preliminary evaluation, our system shows advantages in performance and user preference relative to traditional text based DL web interfaces.

Exploring the computing literature with visualization and stepping stones & pathways

An alternative interpretation of queries involves splitting a query into parts that cover different but connected aspects of the information needed.

Prototyping Digital Libraries Handling Heterogeneous Data Sources – The ETANA-DL Case Study

Information systems used in archaeology have several needs: interoperability among heterogeneous systems, making information available without significant delay, long-term preservation of data, and providing a suite of services to users. In this paper, we show how digital library techniques can be employed to provide solutions to three of these problems. We show this by describing a prototype for an archaeological Digital Library (ETANA-DL). First, ETANA-DL applies and extends the metadata harvesting approach to address some of the needs interoperability, rapid access to data, and data preservation. Second, we show that availability of a pool of components that implement common DL services has helped in rapidly creating the prototype, which was subsequently used for requirements elicitation. However, understanding complex archaeological information systems is a difficult task. Third, therefore, we describe our efforts to model these systems using the 5S framework, and show how the partially developed model has been used to implement complex services helping users carry out key tasks with the integrated data.

Java MARIAN: From an OPAC to a Modern Digital Library System

This paper describes the Java MARIAN system, its implementation, and its evolution from a C++ Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) to a modern and complete digital library system. We focus on design, architectural, and implementation issues including: support for storage, retrieval, and automatic generation of collections of semi-structured digital objects; uniform and powerful representations based on semantic networks, digital library specific datatypes, and weighted sets; rich communities of searchers and fusion modules; and support for distributed computation, multi-lingual retrieval, and personalization. We present applications and some use statistics.

Integration of complex archeology digital libraries: An ETANA-DL experience

In this paper, we formalize the digital library (DL) integration problem and propose an overall approach based on the 5S (streams, structures, spaces, scenarios, and societies) framework. We then apply that framework to integrate domain-specific (archeological) DLs, illustrating our solutions for key problems in DL integration. An integrated Archeological DL, ETANA-DL, is used as a case study to justify and evaluate our DL integration approach. More specifically, we develop a minimal metamodel for archeological DLs within the 5S theory. We implement the 5SSuite tool set to cover the process of union DL generation, including requirements gathering, conceptual modeling, rapid prototyping, and code generation. 5SSuite consists of 5SGraph, 5SGen, and SchemaMapper, each of which plays an important role in DL integration. We also propose an approach to integrated DLs based on the 5S formalism, which provides a systematic method to design and implement DL exploring services.

ETANA-DL: a digital library for integrated handling of heterogeneous archaeological data

Archaeologists have to deal with vast quantities of information, generated in both the field and laboratory. That information is heterogeneous in nature, and different projects have their own systems to store and use it. This adds to the challenges regarding collaborative research between such projects as well as information retrieval for other more general purposes. This paper describes our approach towards creating ETANA-DL, a digital library (DL) to help manage these vast quantities of information and to provide various kinds of services. The 5S framework for modeling a DL gives us an edge in understanding this vast and complex information space, as well as in designing and prototyping a DL to satisfy information needs of archaeologists and other user communities.