daffodil effective support for using digital libraries

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

DAFFODILEffective Support for Using Digital

Libraries

Norbert Fuhr

University of Duisburg-Essen,

Germany

*Supported by DFG as part of the Research Programme V3D2

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

Daffodil concepts

1. Strategic information access support

2. Levels of system support

3. Digital library life cycle

4. Collaboration

5. User-friendly integrated desktop

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

1. Strategic information access support

Levels of search activities (Bates 1990): 1. Move: Low-level search function

(e.g. type in search term, view retrieved document)

2. Tactic: several moves to further a search(e.g. broaden/narrow a query)

3. Stratagem: set of actions on a single domain(citation database, tables of contents of journals)

4. Strategy: complete plan for satisfying an information need

(e.g. subject search, browse relevant journals, find referenced articles)

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

System architecture

Strategic support in 4 layers

Federated digital libraries of different types

User-Interface

Strategies

Tactics

Moves

Stratagems

DLDLDL

Moves – Tactics – Stratagems – Strategies – GUI

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

Moves

Distributed search of data from different Digital Libraries & Web sourcesProvide homogenous access to data and functions~15 sources accessed

User-Interface

Strategies

Tactics

Moves

Stratagems

DLDLDL

Moves – Tactics – Stratagems – Strategies – GUI

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

Resultlist

Moves – Tactics – Stratagems – Strategies – GUI

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

Combined detail view

Moves – Tactics – Stratagems – Strategies – GUI

Attributes

Links

internal

external

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

Tactics

User-Interface

Strategies

Tactics

Moves

Stratagems

DLDLDL

Combine services

Speed up search

Redefine query

Moves – Tactics – Stratagems – Strategies – GUI

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

Extract from Result List

Moves – Tactics – Stratagems – Strategies – GUI

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

Stratagems

Cover an information domain

Combine all retrieved information & links

User-Interface

Strategies

Tactics

Moves

Stratagems

DLDLDL

Moves – Tactics – Stratagems – Strategies – GUI

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

Stratagems on the Desktop

– Subject Search– Author networks– Citation Search– Journal/Conference Run

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

Author network based stratagems:

1. Author network browse

2. Ranking a document result set using author centrality

Author Networks

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

Citation Search: Reference Tracking A relevant document is

dragged to the tool for citation tracking

Documents that cite or are cited are retrieved

Browsing, Inspection and Navigaton

Drag and Drop

Can be performed iteratively

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

Strategy

Complex plan to fullfill a specific task

User-Interface

Strategies

Tactics

Moves

Stratagems

DLDLDL

Moves – Tactics – Stratagems – Strategies – GUI

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

2. Levels of system support

0. Rigid system behavior

1. Adaptive system

2. Proactive system

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

Adaptivity

1. Agents collect informationLibrary agents: content and technical aspects of connected DLsUser agents: behavior of single users/user group

2. Agents change system behavior based on collected info

Library agents: select preferred DLs,…User agents: offer preferred functions,…

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

Proactivity

Agents act without explicit invocation

Implemented as event-condition-action rules, e.g.– when query result is empty, broaden query– suggest related keywords for query– when author name is ambiguous, display

possible completions

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

Proactivity

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

3. Digital library life cycleResource selection

Organizing items

Evaluation of results

Knowledge generation

Retrieving items

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

Collate

Save all digital objects in a structured personal digital library

Awareness: – Keep an eye on my topics– focused crawling (BINGO!)

Discover – Retrieve – Collate – Interpret – Re-Present

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

Collate

Personal library:Store Objects

• Document Metadata• Fulltexts• Authors• Journals, Conferences• Hyperlinks, Bookmarks• Query formulations

Discover – Retrieve – Collate – Interpret – Re-Present

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

Personal Library

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

Interpret

Annotations to DL objects

Creation of links between DL objects

Discover – Retrieve – Collate – Interpret – Re-Present

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

Re-Present

(support generation of new information)

Export folders from personal library

Discover – Retrieve – Collate – Interpret – Re-Present

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

Private

Group

Private

Public

Group

Private

4. Collaboration

Discover – Retrieve – Collate – Interpret – Re-Present

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

Discover – Retrieve – Collate – Interpret – Re-Present

New objects(by other users/

due to profile)

Notification mechanisms(visual markers/

email)

Collation and awareness

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

Collaborate interpretation

Annotation threads

Discover – Retrieve – Collate – Interpret – Re-Present

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

Recommendation

Recommended digital objects through collaboration: – What do others have for me? – Who are the others?– How did others search?

Discover – Retrieve – Collate – Interpret – Re-Present

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

5. User-friendly integrated desktop

Integrate distributed services and software agents in consistent manner

Provide tool chains to enable users to combine services

Ensure flexible workflow with free choice of starting point

Hide complexity

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

Desktop

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

Search Search Domain

Specification

Filter Settings and Query Composition

Integrated Result Lists with Draggable Objects

Navigation

Detail Inspection

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

6. Evaluation

Evaluation with 28 subjectsMethods: questionnaire, logging, videoTasks of different complexityMajor results: – Only for very simple tasks (known item

retrieval), other methods may be faster– Complex tasks are supported very

effectively

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

7. Summary

Daffodil concepts• Strategic information access support• Levels of system support• Digital library life cycle• Collaboration• User-friendly integrated desktop

User Store

Interaction

UnderstandingQueries

Massaging Results &

User Annotation

Transformations

Discovery

AutomaticCapture

InterpretiveCapture

ManagingPersonalLibraries

DWIM

CognitiveCompletion

Chunking

Representational Model of Common Elements

Collaboration

[Larsen & Wactlar: Summary of NSF WS on Future Directions for DLs, 2003]

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Distributed Agents for User-Friendly Access of Digital Libraries

Outlook

Further research– Support strategies– Path model: define/learn successful usage

patterns– New application domains:

• additional object types, • support re-present stage

Application for large user communities

Try Daffodil: http://www.daffodil.de