the swisscast information push service a multidisciplinary research, a multifaceted experience...

The SwissCast information push service

A multidisciplinary research, a multifaceted experience

Riccardo MazzaUSI - Faculty of Communication Sciences of the Università della Svizzera Italiana Lugano - Switzerland

e-mail: [email protected]

2SIGIR99 - Workshop on Customized Information Delivery - Berkeley August 19 th 1999

Overview

IntroductionA brief presentation of the SwissCast projectImplementation of the serviceNext steps & conclusion


Project Goals Gathering and delivering information using

Internet as communication medium Analyzing the communication needs for

information providers and users Integrating existing technologies Developing a stable and functional prototype

as a basis for further studies Designing a user-oriented graphical interface Testing and assessing the application with

selected groups of users


Main competencies involved

Communication theory specialist Task: analysis of information providers’ and users’

communicational needs, in order to offer only relevant communication

Visual communication specialist Task: design user-oriented graphical interface

Information technologies expert Task: implement the application

Information system manager Task: run the application

True interdisciplinary research team


Use push service as an information brokerage service

Definition of push service:

push is the automatic delivery of information to user’s desktop; content is organised by topic defined by a publisher and users receive information according to their own pre-defined profile.

Push service carried out by a third part

Information brokerage service


Information brokerage activities

Defining the application areaDefining who are the target users (and their

needs)Selecting reliable information sourcesClassifying, filtering and editing information,

accordingly to a suitable classification scheme and layout

Delivering personalised information according to users profiles

Notifying users if new content is available


Overview

IntroductionA brief presentation of the SwissCast

projectImplementation of the serviceNext steps & conclusion


Project’s details Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) - Swiss

Priority Program (SPP) Information and Communications Structures

Organisations involved: University of Svizzera Italiana - Faculty of Communication

Sciences - Lugano (Switzerland) University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland - Lugano

Ongoing project: Start date: October 1st 1997 / end date: March 31st 2000

Project heads Prof. Maurizio Decina (USI) - Requérant Principal Prof. Eddo Rigotti (USI) - Corequérant Dr. Fiorenzo Scaroni (SUP) - Corequérant


Two application areas

Research Areaproject partner:

R&D University Office (USI/SUPSI)

Pharmaceutical Areaproject partners:

VIA Marketing & Promotion S.A. - Lugano Pfizer AG - Zurich other 2 minor pharmaceutical company based in Ticino

canton of Switzerland


Overview

IntroductionA brief presentation of the SwissCast project Implementation of the serviceNext steps & conclusion


ImplementationSwissCast is an application with threecomponents:

1 - information gathering2 - classification3 - delivering/casting

User 1 user 2 user n

Information Provider

Document

Repository

Gathering

Classification

Delivery

Information Provider


Information gathering

Inserted directly by providers via web forms with a common web browser

Gathered by a set of agent from: databases accessed via Telnet (EU-Cordis - CCL

version) gateways from remote corporate databases

(Actamed DB)

From WWW pages resources harvested using a web robot

Active Providers

Passive Providers

Information can be inserted into SwissCast using 3 modalities:


ClassificationSemantic mapping of available information,

accordingly to a keyword scheme. This is done: manually by Active information providers, when they

insert new information items automatically, using a semantic conversion map, for

corporate databases manually by an editorial board, for the resources

harvested from WWW

IMPORTANT ISSUE: In doing it, human expertise can be helped by automatic tools, but never substituted


Classification schema adoptedResearch Area

Subject Classification Code by Cordis (EU R&D Information Service)

Pharmaceutical Area MSH - Medical Subject Headings by the U.S. National

Library of Medicine.

The same classification schema is used both for documents and profiles

Matching documents against users’ profiles, done using boolean operators working on the keyword schema


Delivery

Notification via E-mail message (push method) list of matched document

Personal Web page (pull method) read document through a common Web browser


Personalised information dissemination

Each user has a set of ‘static’ profiles, describing his own interests

Three main customisation items: subject related (e.g. programming languages,

research founding info, etc.) type related (event, news, grant, tender) time related (notification frequency: day, week, …)

Combination of push (e-mail) and pull (personal Web pages) technologies

Search archive facilities (fulltext, class)


User interface

Interaction with the system completely web-based, including service’s management & document input

Main features: easy to use for novice users strong and effective visual presence doesn’t need special hardware requirements (no Java,

DHTM, etc.) poor in graphics element, in order to speed up the

downloading process contextual on-line help


What’s currently on-line

Full functional prototype, already used in the field of research information delivering http://swisscast.ti-edu.ch:8002/

Under testing in the field of pharmaceutical information http://swisscast.ti-edu.ch:8001/


AssessmentOngoing project: the test phase started in

June ’99 which currently involves 70 different professional users

First impressions by users (to be confirmed by assessment results): the service gives useful information for their activities found relevant documents for their profiles very easy to use

In the near future: having a semi-structured interview with a representative

sample of end users via an electronic form or via a personal interview


Overview

IntroductionA brief presentation of the SwissCast projectImplementation of the serviceNext steps & conclusion


Next stepsAssessment activitiesFor the broker: study of smart technologies

to help the service manager automatic pre-classification of information (currently the

major bottleneck) automatic text summarization ...

For the user: study of ‘dynamic’ user profiles relevance feedback automatic ranking …

Multi-language support


Some (provisory) results

Push service works well only for specific information needs

For classification activities, human expertise can be helped by automatic tools, but never substituted

Technological tools are essential, but can not work without communicational and visual competencies

Professionals needs certification and reliability of information sources

User interfaces as easy as possible


Conclusion

Developed a stable and functional prototype actively used by researcher

Good impression by usersCommunicational theories and studies

applied to a real application Prototype ready for further studiesTest bed for a true interdisciplinary

research team


More info and access to the service

Project Websitehttp://swisscast.ti-edu.ch/

E-mail (help, info, questions, …)[email protected]

Access to the service - Research areahttp://swisscast.ti-edu.ch:8002/

Access to the service - Pharmaceutical areahttp://swisscast.ti-edu.ch:8001/

the swisscast information push service a multidisciplinary research, a multifaceted experience...

Documents

personalised information

availablesigir99 workshop

communication needs

users profilesnotifying

communication mediumanalyzing

target users

application areadefining

users communicational