Interactional Digital Libraries: introduction to a special issue on Interactivity in Digital Libraries

Anita Admin, Maliaca Oxnam

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Experimental User-Centered Evaluation of an Open Hypermedia System and Web Information Seeking Environments

Michail Salampasis, Konstantinos I. Diamantaras

This paper presents an experimental user-centered evaluation of two hypermedia system architectures, each representing a different interaction model and information-seeking environment. The first system is a hypermedia digital library based on the World Wide Web. This system represents an interaction model in which information seekers consistently use a single interface (i.e. a Web browser) to access different information seeking strategies (ISSs). The second system is a similar library (in terms of content and organisation) that is based on an agent-based Open Hypermedia System (OHS). This library encourages an interaction model in which multiple user interfaces and information seeking strategies may be used in a more parallel fashion. Several researchers have suggested that information seeking may be more effective in systems that allow the parallel use of multiple information seeking strategies. On the other hand, the ease of use of the simple click-and-go-to interaction model introduced by the Web and the consistency of its interface appears to be more attractive for most information seekers. The aim of this paper is to examine and discuss these hypotheses critically. Although general conclusions cannot be drawn from the experiment, the results present some useful indications. A first indication is that information seeking environments that support multiple seeking strategies through multiple interfaces may be more effective and efficient for some information seeking tasks. Also, results taken from a questionnaire given to users of the OHS indicate that complex interaction models may not be prohibitively difficult to use, even for inexperienced information seekers.

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Linked Active Content for Digital Libraries for Education

David Yaron, D. Jeff Milton, Rea Freeland

The goal of the CreateStudio development environment is to catalyze the creation of interactive learning experiences for digital libraries. CreateStudio supports creation of linked active content, which builds on the hypertext paradigm by extending it to support active content. This is done by allowing content to specify a dynamically loaded software viewer and by supporting links that pass messages between different viewers. By promoting separation of content from software, linked active content provides a powerful strategy for creating and organizing collections of active online learning experiences. For example, separating simulations and visualizations from other components enables them to be more easily repurposed to meet the needs of a diverse audience of educators and students. In addition, this strategy leads to an authoring paradigm that supports contributions from a more diverse audience, including especially those who have substantial classroom and pedagogical expertise but lack programming expertise. This is done by building on instructors' familiarity with simple Web design.

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Designing the User Interface for the Físchlár Digital Video Library

Hyowon Lee, Alan F. Smeaton

A framework for designing video content browsers that are based on browsing keyframes and are used in digital video libraries is presented. Based on a review of existing ideas and systems, we derive a design space to compare existing browser interfaces and to specify new interface ideas in a more systematic way. This design space is used to illustrate three distinctive video browser interfaces we have developed. Results and analysis of user testing on these browsers are also presented, informing refinements and further insights into video browser design. These browsers have been integrated into an experimental digital video library called Físchlár, currently widely used within our university campus. Obtaining usage information from this system allows us to develop some of the desirable features in future interfaces to digital video libraries.

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Active Netlib: An Active Mathematical Software Collection for Inquiry-based Computational Science and Engineering Education

Shirley Moore, A. J. Baker, Jack Dongarra, Christian Halloy, Chung Ng

The efficient application of scientific computing techniques requires specialized knowledge of numerical methods and their implementation in mathematical software libraries that many students, scientists and engineers, working beyond the already strenuous demands of their particular field, must struggle to achieve. Active Netlib addresses this problem by creating an active collection of executable mathematical software deployed on computational servers and accessible over the network from familiar desktop client interfaces. The Netlib mathematical software collection is being extended in a number of ways to support this project. The NetSolve client-server system provides an active interface to the contents of Netlib by constructing network-accessible objects with executable content from the software packages in Netlib. The NetSolve adaptive solver interface guides the user in selecting appropriate software, in setting parameters correctly, and in interpreting numerical results. In addition, Active Netlib provides mechanisms that enable resource users to become resource providers by dynamically uploading and deploying their own software applications, which are reviewed before becoming part of the moderated publicly available collection. It is hoped that Active Netlib will grow to be a worldwide collection of executable mathematical software, as well as scientific and engineering applications, that is both drawn upon and contributed to by researchers, educators and students.

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Federated Searching Interface Techniques for Heterogeneous OAI Repositories

Xiaoming Liu, Kurt Maly, Mohammad Zubair, Qiaoling Hong, Michael L. Nelson, Frances Knudson, Irma Holtkamp

Federating repositories by harvesting heterogeneous collections with varying degrees of metadata richness poses a number of challenging issues: (1) how to address the lack of uniform control for various metadata fields in terms of building a rich unified search interface, and (2) how easily new collections and freshly harvested data in existing repositories can be incorporated into the federation supporting a unified interface? This paper focuses on the approaches taken to address these issues in Arc, an Open Archives Initiative-compliant federated digital library. At present Arc contains over 1M metadata records from 75 data providers from various subject domains. Analysis of these heterogeneous collections indicates that controlled vocabularies and values are widely used in most repositories. Usage is extremely variable, however. In Arc we solve the problem by implementing an advanced searching interface that allows users to search and select in specific fields with data we construct from the harvested metadata, and also by an interactive search for the subject field. As the metadata records are incrementally harvested we address how to build these services over frequently-added new collections and harvested data. The initial result is promising, showing the benefits of immediate feedback to the user in enhancing the search experience as well as in increasing the precision of the user's search.

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Atmospheric Visualization Collection: Developments in the NSDL

Christopher Klaus, Keith Andrew, Gerald Mace

The Atmospheric Visualization Collection is one of the NSF National STEME Digital Library projects, which seek to develop the digital library through novel collaborative methods. This project is based on research-oriented data collected from the Department of Energy's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement program. It seeks to establish educational materials that are appropriate for all levels of learning while incorporating interactive assessment and development activities. Learning activities include online and offline tools for visualization and manipulation of atmospheric data, interfaces for independent learning, educational units that include streaming video and hypothesis testing, and code development opportunities.

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Virtual Telescopes in Education

Susan Hoban, Marie desJardins, Nora Farrell, Priyang Rathod, Joel Sachs, Suryakant Sansare, Yelena Yesha, John Keating, Bart Busschots, Johanna Means, Gilbert Clark, Louuis Mayo, Willard Smith

Virtual Telescopes in Education is providing the services required to operate a virtual observatory comprising distributed telescopes, including an interactive, constraint-based scheduling service, data and resource archive, proposal preparation and review environment, and a VTIE Journal. A major goal of VTIE is to elicit from learners questions about the nature of celestial objects and the physical processes that give rise to the spectacular imagery that catches their imaginations. Generation of constrained science questions will assist learners in the science process. To achieve interoperability with other NSDL resources, our approach follows the Open Archives Initiative and the W3C Semantic Web activity.

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Thematic Real-time Environmental Distributed Data Services (THREDDS): Incorporating Interactive Analysis Tools into NSDL

Ben Domenico, John Caron, Ethan Davis, Robb Kambic, Stefano Nativi

The overarching goal of Unidata's Thematic Real-time Environmental Distributed Data Services (THREDDS) is to provide students, educators and researchers with coherent access to a large collection of real-time and archived datasets from a variety of environmental data sources at a number of distributed server sites. The datasets will be conveniently accessible from a collection of THREDDS-enabled data analysis and display tools. THREDDS will provide real-time data delivery via reliable, event-driven "push" technology as well as transparent access to datasets using "pull" systems that make it possible to access data on remote servers as if they were on the user's own computer. The system will be built on a set of software components and data servers that are already in operation or under development. The heart of THREDDS is metadata contained in publishable inventories and catalogs (PICats). The creation, publication and distribution of PICats will be facilitated by the discovery system and services provided by DLESE. For example, sites receiving real-time environmental data can create PICats describing data products automatically as they arrive using decoders and crawlers. On the other hand, since PICats do not have to reside on the server with the data, researchers will be able to create PICats for online publications that point to datasets residing on several data servers. Similarly, educators will incorporate PICats of illustrative datasets into modules that also include tools for data analysis and visualization, and students will be able to use PICats to point to datasets related to their research projects, just as they now use URLs to point to relevant documents. This paper presents an overview of THREDDS and an update on the current status.

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Digital Archive Network for Anthropology

Jeffrey T. Clark, Brian M. Slator, James E. Landrum, III, Richard Frovarp, Aaron Bergstrom, Sanjay Ramaswamy, William Jockheck

The Digital Archive Network for Anthropology (DANA) is a federation of distributed, interoperable databases, each with specific content of value to archaeology, physical anthropology and ethnology. DANA will include two-dimensional imagery and accurate, three-dimensional models of material objects (i.e. artifacts and fossils). These models can be variously manipulated to be viewed from all angles, and are sufficiently precise to allow for a range of detailed measurements. This network will allow reliable, "anytime, anywhere" access to content and services for education and research. The project is currently funded by the National Science Digital Libraries (NSDL) program (NSF 2001), with the goal of developing and implementing a digital libraries collection for anthropological materials. This presentation describes the DANA project, with a focus on the real contributions and potential benefits that derive from the use of information technology to advance research and education in anthropology.

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