Knowledge Service Models of Digital Library in Distance Education Environment & Their Realization

Mingjie Li School of Information Management

Wuhan University Wuhan, China

lmjiewd@163.com

Mingjuan Li Institute of Science and Technology Information

Jiangsu University Zhenjiang, China

lmjuanwd@163.com

Abstract—Digital library (DL) follows four principles to provide knowledge service, i.e. user-driving principle, specialization principle, personalization principle, dynamic principle and integration principle. These principles make it possible to solve the actual problems in distance education. In this paper, the knowledge service models of DL in distance education environment are summed up into specialized service model based on subject knowledge base, content-based reference service model, personalized custom-made service model, and teamwork service model. A distance education-based knowledge service platform of DL is designed to integrate the above four models finally.

Keywords-knowledge service; digital library; distance education

I. INTRODUCTION Modern distance education is an organic system which

takes modern information technology as the media and integrates multiple modern information technologies and all kinds of educational resources. Generally, there are two distance education models: 1) completely-opened virtual universities throughout the world; 2) traditional universities whose walls and entity limitations are broken through by media to provide education services to society. The latter model has taken on a trend of integration of on-campus education and distance education, that is, the so called dual mode of distance education. Just as what the UNESCO predicted in 1997: Due to the development of web education and training, to some extent, all the universities will become dual-mode institutions of higher learning in the future [1]. In other words, in a rather long period of time, dual mode will be the main form of distance education. And this mode inevitably will face two bottle-neck problems: First, how to integrate on-campus resources for distance education? Second, how to provide seamless and identical service model for local university and distance education at the same time?

Digital library (DL) is not a single entity or repository but an Information Commons. It integrates information resources of different carriers and at different geographic locations to offer cross-regional and object-oriented knowledge-information-service. It attracts enormous learners by abundant learning resources and is actually a wide-radiated distance education center. It is characterized by digital resources, network access and distributed management and makes it possible to solve the challenges in dual mode of distance

education. As an indispensable campus resource, DL has been involved into distance education.

II. PRINCIPLES OF KNOWLEDGE SERVICE OF DL Knowledge service refers to a solution-oriented reference

service which takes users’ objectives as driving force and is involved into users’ learning and decision-making processes [2]. With open service model, it offers distributed and diversified dynamic resources by multiple methods such as system integration, service integration and teamwork. The way of DL’s integrating into distance education is mainly providing specialized and personalized knowledge service. The connotation of knowledge service decides the principles of knowledge service of DL.

• User-driving principle. The objects of distance education are learners who have certain objectives. While providing knowledge service, DL needs to form knowledge products understandable and usable by users through information extraction and reengineering according to users’ demands, and should perform quality assessment of the products, so as to provide all-around and complete solutions for users as much as possible.

• Specialization principle. In distance education, the knowledge needed by users taking up different occupations is generally specialized. Therefore, DL should organize and provide services in light of the demands for knowledge of concrete specialties to make sure that user’s decision-making process is followed up and corresponding service is provided, in order to enhance the level of knowledge service.

• Personalization principle. Modern distance education is in urgent need of the teaching platform with personalized service functions which largely decides the teaching quality of distance education. While knowledge service is just based on personalized service instead of public service [3]. That requires DL to provide knowledge service according to specific demands of users receiving distance education and to establish a corresponding knowledge service responsibility system throughout the service.

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• Dynamic principle. Knowledge service is available throughout the problem-solving process of users, and the formation of solutions is just a dynamic process in which information and knowledge are constantly inquired, analyzed and organized. That requires DL to organize dynamic and continuous service according to users’ demands rather than traditional information service based on fixed process or content.

• Integration principle. Knowledge service is based on integration, not relying on large and complete system or service. Thus, DL should rest on dynamic service, adopt open service model, and carry out collaboration of dynamic resource integration, system integration and service integration to improve the quality of knowledge service.

III. KNOWLEDGE SERVICE MODEL OF DL Modern distance education is characterized by teaching

separating from learning, open resources and autonomous learning. The knowledge service of DL not only well fits these basic characteristics, but also expands the functions of distance education, e.g. sharing and interoperability of learning resources, collaborative and interactive learning, etc. In distance education environment, the knowledge service models of DL can be divided into the following four types.

A. Specialized Service Model Based on Subject Knowledge Base The specialization principle of knowledge service of DL

calls for organizing or implementing knowledge service by specialty or subject. Subject knowledge base is a dynamically updatable database of valuable knowledge-information which is selected from certain information sources and is classified, recombined and edited according to the knowledge structure characteristics of users with the same knowledge demand. Subject knowledge base collects literature information resources of different subjects and specialties and compiles indexes by subject. The knowledge base adopts subject tree structure. Each subject can be unfolded into several parts which can be further divided layer by layer. Knowledge organization by subject tree approach facilitates step-by-step inquiry by classification system, which is well expandable and strictly systematical.

The establishment of citation link and knowledge element link between subject knowledge bases is an effective approach to in-depth development and utilization of knowledge-information resource. For example, citation links and cited-by links may be set up for databases of table of contents of journals, abstract base, full text database, foreign language database and multi-media video and audio base to make knowledge-information correlated with each other, then, users may acquire all the related knowledge of some subject through internet. Knowledge elements link one another to form knowledge element database. Knowledge element database may directly describe the content of knowledge and can automatically link all the digital literature information using knowledge elements to form knowledge network by index technology of full text database. By inserting knowledge element database into all kinds of databases and making

knowledge-information inside databases and among all kinds of databases closely correlated, all the databases, dominated by knowledge element database, the nervous system network, may become an organic whole with highly-integrated and interrelated contents.

B. Content-based Reference Service Model This service model is based on library reference service.

Compared to traditional reference service, those provided by DL as the support system of distance education should have the following functions:

1) Catalog direction and service guide with a broader range. For distance education learners utilizing DL in virtual environment, central or distributed DL should fully display its organizational framework and catalog index of collection and links and definitely instruct the approaches to all kinds of reference and research data as well as the objects and goals of all kinds of services. Specifically, to tell learners how to utilize DL in an efficient manner, how to put forward retrieval application for subjects and research projects, and how to obtain help in learning from invisible librarians in a friendly way, and to tell learners the limitations of digital collection and what is the impractical requirement.

2) Reference resource module for study assistance. For the sake of efficient learning of distance education learners, DL should provide vital web content guidance while expanding its basic collection.

• Reference module based on disciplines. That is, to create the online reference collection that is indexed, covering various academic website of multiple disciplines. Such websites may be devoted to general reference, social sciences, human culture and art, and science and technology, etc. The evaluation standards of these collections are: the accuracy, completeness and objectivity of contents, the specialization degree and authority of website managers, the reliability of host and the practicality for learners.

• Reference module based on main courses. This kind of core collection aims to further develop reference resources according to subjects, including encyclopedia, biography and family tree, news publishing, research center, patent companies, commercial communication and service agencies, etc.

• Valuable websites: securities companies, directories, industry reports, news websites, special news groups, virtual libraries, etc. In this field, websites with potential value should be selected from a sea of diversified and disorderly websites and then evaluated, and updating of mirrors image station and expansion of network collections should be performed continuously. With restricted network tools and search engine techniques, this work is full of challenges.

3) On-line reference services. Because of the curriculum setting, time is usually pressing for distance education learners to finish the homework or papers, that is, they bear great stress in acquiring full texts and references. Therefore, it is very necessary to allocate well-trained reference librarians to act as

study consultants and provide e-document transmission. Besides course teaching, some learners also demand to obtain opportunities for further development of academic levels, therefore, experienced research librarians should be arranged to provide relevant reference service by e-mail. The ratio of librarians to learners, in general, is about 1:1000 [4].

C. Personalized Custom-Made Service Model The quality of knowledge service is closely related to the

depth, width and effectiveness of library information resource system. In distance education environment, the user types of DL are very complex, users’ demands for knowledge-information are diversified, and their information acquisition skills differ greatly. The same user interface and service method can by no means meet these demands. Consequently, DL should provide different knowledge services in accordance with the concrete needs and study processes of users. To achieve this, DL must be able to conduct personalization processing of users’ knowledge demands, to help users analyze their retrieval requirements, optimize retrieval strategies and chose retrieval results according to users’ knowledge characteristics and the situation of utilizing the system, and to integrate personalized interfaces and other knowledge services utilized by users to form “My Library”. While users are connecting to the system, DL should provide to users dynamic custom-made “new book notification”, “selective dissemination of information”, “news service” and so on. Meanwhile, DL should be able to regularly and automatically provide personalized information services such as “My gateway”, “My link” and “My update” according to knowledge-information needed by users.

D. Teamwork Service Model The requirements on knowledge and abilities of teachers

and reference librarians involved in knowledge service are relatively high, and therefore knowledge service is often developed by teams including personnel skilled in multiple fields. There are two teamwork service methods: First, to organize and provide knowledge service by teamwork. The building of course and learning resources of distance education can never be simple moving of teaching materials, online TV, or multi-media, instead, a whole set of new teaching models conforming to network culture and rules of education must be created. In DL environment, teaching and learning have more and more characteristics of group behaviors rather than individual behaviors. Hence, the high integration of teaching materials and resources should be emphasized, especially remote and online study assistance. The setting of each curriculum should be jointly developed by teachers, system administrators and reference librarians, and reference librarians should participate in courseware development, giving reference resources and online study assistance [5]. Second, to involve learners into knowledge service teams. In ubiquitous knowledge environment, learners also may be creators and transmitters of knowledge. In distance education network, there are collaborative relationships between learners and teachers, learners and reference librarians, and learners and learners.

Figure 1. Knowledge service platform of DL in distance education environment

IV. KNOWLEDGE SERVICE PLATFORM OF DL The above four knowledge service models are not

independent from each other but are integrated in and realized by the knowledge service platform of DL. In distance education environment, DL may establish knowledge service platform oriented to distance education users (as shown in Figure 1) by portal component technique, navigation base technique, information push technique, intelligent agent technique, meta-search engine technique, data mining technique and interoperability technique, etc.

A. Subject Information Gateway Service Platform Subject Information Gateway (SIG) refers to a convenient

and unified information retrieval and service portal that integrates the information resources, tools and services of specific subjects [6]. As a novel information service platform, SIG flexibly integrates and reliably organize learning resources and knowledge services needed by users and links them in a seamless way. It organizes a distributed and chaotic information space into a convenient user information system and provides browsing and retrieval functions to meet users’ demands for information on scientific research and education. On this basis, it supports personalized integrated custom-made service.

SIG adopts standard metadata to give reliable and detailed description of knowledge resources and provides knowledge classification and subject indexing. Most SIGs have hierarchical tree browsing structure. Generally, SIG is designed as knowledge navigation base of special subjects or categories, which gathers nodes concerning a certain or some subjects, organizes them according to the principle of giving convenience to users, provides the situation of distribution of these resources to users, and guides them to find these resources. SIG adopts common C/S and B/S structures. By utilizing open data description formats (XML, DC, RDF, etc.) and data communication protocols (HTTP, OAI, SOAP, etc.), lateral integration of different SIGs and longitudinal integration of SIG and other application systems can be realized.

B. Personalized Information Push Platform Push technique is a release technology that automatically

pushes the data to users within a specific period of time according to their needs. It is an active information service technique based on active information service system on Internet. There are four approaches to information push: channel push, mail push, web page push and special purpose push.

Channel push is a popular model now and it defines some web pages as channels in browser. Readers may receive information that they are interested in just like they choose TV channels. Microsoft, Netscape and PointCast have channel definition formats (CDF). Mail push: relevant information is released to users in the list by e-mail. Only a web-based email delivery system is needed for this approach; Web page push: information is pushed to readers in a certain web page of some enterprise, organization or individual; Special purpose push: information is pushed to special readers by a special way of delivering information or special receiving software, e.g. confidential point-to-point delivery.

Before pushing personalized information to distance education learners, DL should first grasp their personal characters. DL may adopt Web access information mining technique to obtain users’ access logs on servers and automatically improve information organization and display on websites according to users’ retrieval habits and interests so that information push can be performed in a targeted manner.

C. Subject Librarian Knowledge Service Platform Subject librarian system has changed the passive service

method of traditional libraries. By establishing the mechanism of actively communicating with distance education learners, DL may organize learning resources in a targeted way and provide predictive knowledge service. The service model of subject librarians is based on network environment and digital resources, including such new services as MSN Messenger, BBC, Blog, Wiki, virtual learning community, special topic websites, collaborative service, etc. Subject librarian service platform is mainly composed of such core elements as subject librarians, teachers, learners, interactive space, information, and knowledge base. The online real-time communication between subject librarians and teachers and learners is realized through instant communication tools, and asynchronous communication and studying together are realized by tools like Blog and Wiki. Subject librarians collect, sort out, organize and integrate knowledge-information, recommend the results of analysis and evaluation through Blog, and establish relevant subject classes by Wiki; Teachers and students, teachers and teachers, students and students may exchange what they have learnt in teaching or learning or publish achievements of research on teaching. Actually, subject librarian knowledge service platform is a virtual learning community for joint participation of subject librarians, teachers and students, with distance education users as the center and Web2.0 technology as the means, and with three characteristics of multiple interactions, open access and collaborative learning.

D. Platform for Learning Resource Sharing and Interoperability Learning resource sharing: one learning object may be

utilized by multiple learning systems. System interoperability: multiple systems and components may exchange and utilize each other’s learning resources. In network environment, it has become an unremitting pursuit in distance education field to realize communication among different teaching management systems and sharing of learning resources (objects) so that all the elements of network education system can operate collaboratively to meet various demands of learners.

DL adopts data integration technique to organize heterogeneous data of system according to a certain rules for convenient and efficient access of users. The interoperability platform with interaction mechanism gives index guide for users to overcome difficulty in retrieval caused by scattered information and provides new knowledge products having been processed and ordered. DL efficiently integrates hardware platform, software platform and database platform. It provides a unified retrieval interface and interoperability among different databases. In such a manner users can quickly find digital knowledge and information needed without accessing different databases. DL can efficiently integrate network database resources and provide unified retrieval in databases of different structures. And users may search different databases with the same subject, and changing the access for many times is avoided. Therefore, high-degree and efficient integration of different databases is realized to connect the entire DL information resources.

V. CONCLUSIONS The integration of DL and distance education is a

significant topic of theoretical and practical research. This paper mainly discusses the principles of knowledge service of DL and four knowledge service models for distance education under the principles, namely, specialized service model based on subject knowledge base, content-based reference service model, personalized custom-made service model, and teamwork service model. The key point of realizing these models is to take distance education users as the center, set up subject information service platform, personalized information push platform, subject librarian knowledge service platform and platform for learning resource sharing and system interoperability, and properly integrate these platforms.

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