1. Objectives
The ADDRESS project will:




Define the architecture for supporting learner-centric services and third-party service
integration from a knowledge resource handling perspective. It is important to note that
the project will not develop a Learning Management System (LMS) but will collaborate
with vendors of existing systems.
Collaborate closely with a range of projects in Europe, Australia, the United States, and
South East Asia to develop common functional architecture to be promoted to a wider
public.
Conduct pilot implementations of the ADDRESS architecture to allow the validation of
the technical approach and to demonstrate the resulting system.
Participate in standards development processes at the global level, including contributing
to the development of public specifications of the common functions utilized so that these
can readily be adopted across the cultural heritage and eLearning communities.
These common functions developed across a range of projects will cover features such as:
authentication, authorization, enrolment, search, location and retrieval, digital rights management,
user preferences and profiling, payment and search gateways across services. While the
ADDRESS project will focus on the resource discovery and delivery aspects of this problem
space, the close collaboration and concerted activities taking place across the related projects will
ensure that all aspects are addressed within the context of a common architectural framework.
2. Technology
2.1 Brokerage Centered Architecture
The technical architecture outlined below represents a unique attempt to provide the arena of
large-scale resource discovery and retrieval with a set of key software components that are both
extensible (as new media types, protocols and record structures become available) and able to
link to existing applications such as Digital Library systems and Learning Management Systems.
The proposed architecture is centered around a middle-tier brokerage component which handles
the profiling of users and resources, using a conceptual framework original developed in the
PRIDE Project1 under the EU 4th Framework Programme2, and is able to interact with a range of
independent search agents, each designed to be protocol specific. The brokerage service will take
queries, along with a set of query targets, from the User Interface and pass query terms to
appropriate search agent through a defined interface (API or IDL3) and receive the results sets
from each, combining them and mapping key fields – where appropriate also adding functions
such as sorting, filtering, and the removal of duplicate entries. The results of this process will
then be passed back to the user interface component.
Within the brokerage component this will require the functionality to convert records from a wide
variety of formats and syntaxes to a canonical format, while at the same time retaining the
original record structure for future use as appropriate. The brokerage service need not only
identify the protocol to be used with a particular search target (in order to call the correct search
C. Project Description
1
agent) but also a range of profile information associated with that target which will allow accurate
query propagation. A profile database of this kind has already been successfully developed in the
EU 4th Framework UNIverse4 project. However, this database was designed to be specific to the
Z39.505 protocol and was based on an EXPLAIN6 schema. The design work involved in this
phase of the project will implement a similar schema that is generic enough to cope with a range
of possible protocols including common information and protocol specific extension.
The other main part of the profile database which will be developed is that containing
descriptions of the search targets and their content. It is this information that will be used by the
User Interface module to help guide users through the information landscape. As such, it will not
only contain descriptive information about the target itself but also details of the ways that targets
relate to each other as well as the ways in which users and groups of users relate to targets. In
this it will be possible to define “clusters” of search targets that are linked in a variety of ways.
The ways in which targets are linked may vary between individual users, groups of users or,
indeed, user context. For example, it may be useful for user see targets classified by sector,
geographic location and subject coverage amongst others. It is helping users navigate through the
n-dimensional information space that is one of the major challenges for the User interface
component.
A main advantage of this architecture is that it is easily extensible. It is currently planned to
develop search agents for (at least) Z39.50, XQL7, and LDAP8. However, the State of the Art
survey will identify new and emerging search protocols from a range of sources – such as the
World Wide Web consortium (e.g. DASL9) – and include important ones as part of the
development phase. In this way, the project will be able to interact with as broad a range of
search targets as possible, including web based and other resources via harvested metadata.
2.2 Digital Library and LMS Integration
Another key component of innovation present within the project is the integration of Digital
Library systems and Learning Management Systems (LMS). The emerging standards for
Learning Object Metadata10 (LOM) will allow local repositories of learning resources (in both
“raw” and “packaged” formats) to be searched alongside other repositories as shown in the
architecture diagram. This project will build on work undertaken in the EASEL.
As the use of ICT for training and education begins to catch up with the cultural heritage
community, then the scope for this level of integration will grow exponentially. The latest LMS
developments incorporating distance learning - where personalized learning programs can be
delivered over the web to support learning anytime, anywhere – are becoming so sophisticated
that they require the integration of various services covering delivery platforms, learner
information systems, enterprise MIS systems and content packaging distribution platforms. The
integration of the search, locate and deliver functions mentioned above will significantly advance
the richness of these eLearning services.
A key innovation proposed in this project is development of a Knowledge Packager which can
construct in real time packages of learning resources drawn from a range of repositories –
including both active and passive content. Where the metadata refers to a digital resource that
may be held in a number of different physical locations, linking will be facilitated by a locator
service that draws on OpenURL11 rules for resolution into proprietary physical locations based on
rights management rules.
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2.3 User Interface
Developing interoperable middleware and multi-layered architectures is a necessary but not
sufficient step to ensure natural and personalized access to large heterogeneous datasets. It is also
crucial to consider the user interface. ADDRESS will develop novel interfaces that enable users
to make sense of complex information landscapes and that are suitable for deployment in a
variety of public environments where citizens access cultural heritage information such as
libraries, museums and galleries. The approach of the project will integrate two key innovations.
3D information landscapes
The project will build on recent advances in interactive 3D visualization of databases.
Researchers have proposed various approaches to constructing 3D images of large datasets so that
users can easily and naturally browse and search them. A core aim of these techniques is to
exploit the power of human visual information processing in being able to spot patterns and
anomalies in images that might, in turn, reveal trends in the underlying data that would not
emerge from the use of traditional query languages. A second aim is to make these images
interactive so that users can gradually home in on key information by refining visual queries
within the information landscape. Such techniques have recently been applied to the design of
next generation interfaces to the Web.
The project will extend these approaches with new techniques for visualizing heterogeneous
datasets and, in particular, for interactive searching. One initial approach will be to extend and
refine the algorithms from the VR-VIBE12 system. To briefly summarize, one or more users
define multiple search queries that they can interactively position in a 3D landscape. Documents
that match these queries are then pulled into the landscape and are positioned within it according
to their relative strengths of attractions to the queries – a document that is attracted to only one
query will appear next to it in the 3D landscape, a document that is attracted to two queries will
appear somewhere between them and so on. Users interactively add, remove and reposition
queries so as to explore the search space and to gradually refine a complex search (in a way that
is not possible with the current generation of search engines that typically only display the results
of one query at a time). ADDRESS will refine this approach to cope with visualizing multiple
simultaneous datasets and also incorporating richer representations of meta-information to further
guide searching. It will also be possible to save useful frameworks of queries and associate them
with individual users so that they might be applied to other datasets at a later date, thereby
supporting personalized access to visualizations.
Tangible Interaction Surfaces
Although interactive 3D visualization techniques may potentially provide users with powerful
new techniques for searching and accessing large datasets, they also introduce further problems,
most notably difficulties with 3D navigation and manipulation. Interaction with complex 3D
spaces using a standard screen, mouse and keyboard may be difficult due to lack of display space
and problems with using 2D devices to perform 3D interactions. On the other hand, fully
immersive interfaces such as head-mounted displays and CAVEs are either clumsy or
impracticable for many applications due to their prohibitive size and cost.
C. Project Description
3
ADDRESS will develop solutions to these problems based around a combination of mediumsized projection surfaces (e.g., tabletop projections) combined with tangible interaction
techniques. The following figure shows two early examples of this approach. In the first (left),
two users are interacting with a purpose-built tabletop surface. They are using a number of
physical icons (phicons) to control a simple visualization. These are constructed as Perspex13
blocks that are covered with infrared reflective tape so that their positions can be tracked by an
infrared sensitive camera that is mounted above the table. By positioning the blocks and
removing and replacing various plugs from them, users are able to manipulate the display in a
simple and intuitive way. In the second (right), a map overview of a virtual world is projected
onto a horizontal surface. A virtual camera can then be placed in this map in order to bring up a
second, more detailed view of the 3D world on an adjacent vertical surface. A notable benefit of
these interfaces is that they are inherently collaborative – several users can naturally work
together to manipulate the display.
Two early examples of tangible interaction surfaces
ADDRESS will build on these technologies, extending them in several key areas. First, the
project will integrate these kinds of interactive surfaces with our 3D visualization software
described previously. Second, the project will explore the use of personalized phicons that
embody an individual’s query set or profile that they can carry with them wherever they go. For
example, the user might carry one or more radio frequency ID (RFID) tags with them. Any
interactive surface that they encountered would be able to read these tags and so immediately
introduce the users personal query set into the visualization (in the simplest case each tag could
be mapped to a single VR-VIBE style query that could instantly be loaded in and then positioned
on the table). Physical documents could also be tagged (using RFID tags or barcodes) so that the
placing them on the table would introduce their data into the visualization.
In summary, a key innovation in the ADDRESS user interface will be to combine advances in 3D
visualization and interactive surfaces to create displays that will make accessing complex
information landscapes inherently natural, collaborative and engaging. In particular, the
ADDRESS project intends that the displays implemented will be suitable for deployment in
public environments that are concerned with providing access to cultural heritage – museums,
galleries, exploratoriums and so forth.
C. Project Description
4
3. Collaboration
As the worlds of the web-based searching, digital libraries, and education continue to converge,
the need to define clear standards and protocols for information interchange becomes even more
critical. It will be increasingly rare for any organization to rely on a single vendor for it’s entire
infrastructure. It is therefore important that the components developed as part of the ADDRESS
project are able to interact not only with each other but with other components which make up the
Digital Library or Learning Management System ‘jigsaw’.
A central plank of the project is to interact with a range of actors worldwide to enable this level of
interoperability The following US and Australian projects have agreed to collaborate closely with
ADDRESS to work towards a common functional architecture:



COLIS (Australia)
SMETE14 (USA)
ADL Academic Co-Lab15 (USA)
The vehicle for this ongoing collaboration will be the IMS Digital Repositories working group.
Active members of the IMS consortium include Blackboard, Campus Pipeline, EDUCAUSE,
SCT, and WebCT Educational Technologies.
It is planned that other projects, including EU- and NSF-funded projects, will be identified to take
part in collaborative activities and to contribute to the process mentioned above as appropriate.
Potential EU projects will be identified through collaboration with the DELOS16 supporting
measure. Projects already identified as covering related areas include such as COVAX17 and
MIND18.
4. Project Management
4.1 Organization
The Project will be managed through a Project Board, which is chaired by the Project Director,
Neil Smith (FDI). All partners will nominate a senior member of their staff to membership of the
Board, who may if necessary send an alternate to meetings. Project staff may attend Board
meetings unless staff-confidential matters are under discussion. The Board will meet at intervals
no greater than six months. Project Board meetings will be scheduled to coincide with key
decision points within the project, and will be more frequent at key stages such as project start up
and as key software components are tested and delivered. Decisions of the Board are decisions of
the consortium and will be made by consensus or by vote under rules described in the Consortium
Agreement.
The Project will be divided into nine Work Packages, as outlined in the table below.
Management of each Work Package will be the responsibility of a named member of staff from
one of the consortium members. The Work Package leader will report progress to the Project
Director at least monthly during the timescale of the particular Work Package.
C. Project Description
5
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Work Package Title
Start End Deliverables
Project Management
1
30 D1,D2,D13
User Requirements Analysis and Standards Synchronization
1
27 D3
State-of-the-Art and Emerging Technologies Review
2
27 D5
Functional Architecture
6
30 D6
Digital Library – Development & Integration
9
22 D7
LMS – Development & Integration
11
23 D8
System Testing
23
25 D9
Formative Evaluation & User Trials
1
28 D4,D10
Dissemination
7
30 D11,D12,D13
The Project Board may set up sub-committees to address particular issues as appropriate. Any
such sub-committees will be established under terms of reference decided by the Project Board.
4.2 Responsibilities
The consortium is comprised of a combination of academic research institutions and commercial
organizations along with the newly established European branch of the IMS Global Learning
Consortium. Since the project is primarily about the development of innovative software
solutions, the structure of the consortium has a strong bias towards technical development. Of the
six partners, only IMS Europe will not be contributing to the software development process. The
consortium members are also, however, all leading players within their respective fields and are
well positioned to contribute to the standards development process in their own domains as well
as moving forward the state-of-the-art within their own particular specialties.
Fretwell Downing Informatics (FDI) and Giunti Ricera (GUI) assume joint responsibility for
technical architecture. The architecture envisages two main contexts in which the distributed
search and locate functionality may be applied: within the resource discovery function of a hybrid
library system and within a learning management system, packaging diverse resources together
with learning content. FDI are world leaders in the development of standards-based digital
library components. GUI are part of the Giunti Publishing Group, a leading European
educational publisher with a strong software development and publishing arm. Their combined
experience of leading edge collaborative research makes them ideally placed to fulfill this
important and challenging role within the consortium.
Index Data – world renowned for their work in the Z39.50 community – and the Internet Scout
Project at the University of Wisconsin – developers of the Isaac network for LDAP-based crosssearching repositories through the Common Indexing Protocol and publishers of the seminal
online resource discovery periodical, the Scout Report – will carry out development of new
search agents. The mixed reality lab of the University of Nottingham, leaders in the development
of innovative technologies for embedding visualization technologies in everyday applications,
will develop the user interface layer.
Underpinning the efforts of these partners, and the consortium as a whole, is IMS Europe. The
work of the IMS Global Learning Consortium, particularly in the United States, has had a
significant impact on the direction of development of the LMS market worldwide, and the newly
established subsidiary, IMS Europe, is leading an exciting new international working group on
digital repositories. The ADDRESS project is designed to contribute directly to the specification
C. Project Description
6
process of this working group. The working group will also provide the forum for collaboration
with other projects producing work in this area, including a project lead by Macquarie University
in Australia.
4.3 Deliverables
The following table outlines the planned ADDRESS deliverables. The project partners are
indicated as follows:
FDI
IMS
WIS
GIU
IND
UON
Fretwell-Downing Informatics
IMS Global Consortium – Europe
Internet Scout Project – Univ of Wisconsin
GIUNTI Ricerca
Index Data
University of Nottingham
UK
Netherlands
US
Italy
Denmark
UK
The lead for each deliverable is the first partner listed. Where the partner list is All, the lead
partner is IMS, except for D1 and D2, where the lead partner is FDI.
Deliverable
D1
D2
D3
D4
D5
D6
D7
D7.1
D7.2
D7.3
D7.4
Description
Consortium Agreement
Project Handbook
Requirements Specification
Evaluation Criteria
State-of-the-Art Review
Functional Architecture Specification
Digital Library Design Spec & Software
User Interface & Navigation
Middle Tier
Search Agents
Integrated Components
Type
Document
Document
Document
Document
Document
Document
Partners
All
All
IMS,WIS,GIU
GIU,WIS,IMS,UON
All
FDI,IMS,GIU
Doc+Soft
Doc+Soft
Doc+Soft
Doc+Soft
UON
FDI
WIS,IND
FDI,WIS,GIU,IND,UO
N
D8
D8.1
D8.2
D8.3
LMS Design Spec & Software
Knowledge Packager
LOM Repository
Integrated Components
Doc+Soft
Doc+Soft
Doc+Soft
Demonstration Scaffolding
Evaluation Report
Dissemination and Use Plan
Technology Implementation Plan
Project Final Report
Software
Document
Document
Document
Document
GIU,FDI
IMS,FDI,IND,UON
FDI,GIU,IMS,IND,UO
N
All
GIU,WIS,IMS,UON
All
All
All
D9
D10
D11
D12
D13
C. Project Description
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5. Evaluation
Evaluation of the ADDRESS system to determine its performance and utility and guide effective
design and implementation will be a critical portion of the project. Criteria to be considered
include cost effectiveness and ease of use and construction for course creators, and the
appropriateness of the resulting course offerings for learners. The evaluation process will be
conducted in three phases:
Following completion of the Functional Architecture work package, the resulting specification
will be circulated as a consultation document for feedback from relevant national, European, and
international bodies, as well as collaborating projects. Input from this process will provide
guidance when the design of the specific software components is undertaken.
When the design phase for the Digital Library and LMS software components is complete, the
design specifications will be submitted to selected reviewers, along with the appropriate
requirements specifications (generated previously), and the feedback gathered from these reviews
will be used to revise the design specifications and to guide the implementation of the
components.
Finally, when the system demonstration scaffolding is operational, it will be reviewed in its
entirety by at least one site, using a complete set of the ADDRESS requirements specifications as
a baseline. Other review sites will focus on specific sub-sets of the system, as appropriate to their
application and resources, for closer examination.
6. Sustainability
Where possible, the software built by the ADDRESS project will be assembled using an array of
well-established Internet development technologies such as XML, Dynamic HTML, and the Java
programming language. Because of this, the ability to maintain and extend that software beyond
the life of the project will be assured. In addition, as most of the software will be accessed
through a standard web browser, no continued development or support will be required to
maintain a high level of accessibility.
7. Description of the Consortium and Partners
The partners in the consortium are as follows:






Fretwell Downing Informatics (FDI) - UK
IMS Europe (IMS) - Netherlands
University of Wisconsin (WIS) - United States
GIUNTI Ricerca (GIU) - Italy
Index Data (IND) - Denmark
University of Nottingham (UON) - UK
Fretwell-Downing Informatics, UK
C. Project Description
8
Fretwell-Downing Informatics was formed in 1991 as part of the Fretwell-Downing Group’s
computing interests. Fretwell-Downing is an Oracle Business Alliance Partner, a Microsoft
Solutions Provider, a Netscape Alliance Partner, a member of DAVIC19 (Digital Audio-Visual
Council), an affiliate member of OMG20 (Object Management Group) and W3C (World Wide
Web Consortium).
The company has over 400 clients worldwide and works through overseas resellers to market and
develop national language versions of products. The company's largest client bases are in
education, vocational training, libraries, archives and information services (public & corporate).
As a result the company has high awareness of the potential demands of the 'information society'
on these professions and on their public and of the opportunities offered by wide area and
distributed systems technologies and integration. Around 40 IT experts and consultants are
employed.
IMS in Europe
IMS in Europe is a wholly owned subsidiary of the IMS Global Learning Consortium Inc, a nonstock, not for profit membership-corporation, organized under the General Corporation Law of
the State of Delaware, US. IMS in Europe is also a not for profit, membership organization based
in Amsterdam. In addition to IMS in Europe, the IMS Global Learning Consortium also has
centers in Australia and Singapore. IMS, in conjunction with its membership, defines and
delivers interoperable, XML-based specifications for exchanging learning content and
information about learners among learning system components. IMS members are implementing
and adopting these specifications to make learning easier and cheaper to deliver anywhere and
anytime, as well as to create new mechanisms, new contexts, and new products for education and
training. IMS specifications already are becoming worldwide de facto standards for defining
acquisition requirements and for delivering learning products and services.
IMS in Europe operates in an identical manner as its parent organization, recruiting its members
from the European region and focusing on specifications in areas of relevance to European
interests. In particular, IMS in Europe is forming a Digital Repositories working group, in which
publishers, cultural heritage organizations, and other stakeholders will collaborate on
specifications to enable the eLearning community to take advantage of the huge wealth of
resources already available.
Internet Scout Project -- University of Wisconsin --Madison
The Internet Scout Project grew out of experience dating back to1990 when the National Science
Foundation recognized the need to inform researchers and educators about the information and
tools that the Internet brought to them. Early projects included the Net-happenings mailing list
and the Scout Report both conceived and founded in the early 90’s as new services that informed
users about the best of the Internet. Today, almost three quarters of the top 100 research
universities in the U.S. either link to some part of the Internet Scout Project Website (reports or
archives) or have subscriptions to one or more of the reports. Over 60,000 national and
international researchers, students, professionals and lifelong learners subscribe to the Scout
Reports, and after accounting for pass-along rates and web hits, readership is estimated at
250,000.
The Internet Scout Project also maintains a strong research component. Current funded research
includes a software development project to design, build, and distribute a turnkey toolkit to help
collection developers create an online portal to gather, catalog and disseminate their disciplinespecific online resources. This toolkit uses a Dublin Core based metadata schema, supports
C. Project Description
9
resource annotation entry via XML, and will support resource highlight linking from other sites
via the Rich Site Summary21 (RSS) protocol.
A second project is aimed at developing a searchable distributed online resource metadata
repository using the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) for inter-node data exchange
and the Common Indexing Protocol (CIP) for query routing. A demonstration version of this
software, which links in metadata collections from the Lower Saxony State and University
Library in Goettingen, Germany as well as nodes in the US, can be found online on the Internet
Scout Project web site, listed below. A third project looks at developing international standards
and tools for harvesting metadata and searching distributed repositories. This effort is being done
in conjunction with the UK Office for Library and Networking (UKOLN) at the University of
Bath, the Institute for Learning and Research Technology (ILRT) at the University of Bristol in
the UK, and the Technical Knowledge Center & Library of Denmark (DTV).
Giunti Ricerca
GIUNTI Ricerca S.r.l. was founded in September 2000 as the spin off New Media Research
Center of Interactive Labs S.r.l., the professional publishing and courseware design and
development facility of the Giunti Publishing Group. GIUNTI Ricerca group together high-level
professionals as R&D project managers, project engineers, software developers and analysts. The
company operates at European level on advanced technologies for e-publishing, e-learning and
broadband multimedia communication. Our mission is to develop R&D projects for GIUNTI
Publishing Group, other third parties (other publishers, national and international companies,
public bodies) and to work in international consortia, co-funded by a range of bodies at the Italian
national and European level.
Today, the Multimedia Companies of the Giunti Group account for more than 10 million EUROs
turnover in 1998 with 30 employees and an average of 70 permanent external consultants from
the Publishing Group (Art Directors, Graphic designers, Content Authors, Audiovisuals Profs,
additional programmers). All Giunti Group facilities for authoring, contracting, design, printing
and distribution are constantly shared in Giunti electronic publishing activities carried forward at
GIUNTI Interactive Labs and other electronic companies.
Index Data
Index Data was founded in 1994. It is a consulting and software-development enterprise based in
Denmark, but providing services to organizations in several countries. As a business, ID has
come to specialize in training, decision support, and software development and integration
pertaining to the ANSI/NISO Z39.50 (ISO 23950) standard, and, more generally, to the support
of sophisticated, networked applications based on distributed information retrieval systems based
on de facto and de jure standards such as XML and the Dublin Core. In support of its consultancy
and development work, ID has developed a suite of software tools to facilitate the implementation
of the Z39.50 protocol. This software – most of which is made freely available to other
developers to nurture the market for Z39.50-based applications and services, and to attract
attention to our business – includes a baseline software library and API to implement Z39.50
clients and server systems; language mappings for many popular programming languages; and a
free-text indexing and document retrieval system supporting arbitrarily structured records..
University of Nottingham
The Mixed Reality Laboratory (MRL) at the University of Nottingham brings together leading
researchers from Computer Science, Engineering and Psychology to create new technologies that
merge the physical and digital worlds. The MRL is especially focused on the development and
application of mixed reality to support everyday life, especially new interface technologies for
embedding 3D graphics and virtual environments into everyday physical environments. Expertise
C. Project Description
10
in the MRL includes interface technologies, distributed software architectures and extensive
design with evaluation of advanced interfaces drawing on techniques from psychology and the
social science (including ethnographic techniques). The MRL is supported by a fully equipped
mixed reality studio that has been funded under a UK Joint Research Equipment Initiative (JREI)
grant of over £1 million and that is housed in a new building on the University’s £50 million
campus extension. The MRL is also a leading partner in the UK’s Equator initiative, a £10
million six-year program of research between eight UK universities to investigate “physical and
digital innovation in everyday life”.
8. Results from Prior NSF Support
Title of the project:
"Net Scout Internet Resource Discovery and Search Technologies"
NCR-9712163, $3,074,016 (Estimated), May 1,1997 – April 30,2001
Summary of the results of the completed work, including any contribution to the
development of human resources in science and engineering:
Ongoing Services
Scout Report: The Scout Report is a weekly publication that combines in one place descriptions
of new and newly discovered Internet resources and network tools, especially those of interest to
the primary audience, researchers, students, and educators. Each resource is carefully selected
according to our quality criteria
Subject-specific Scout Reports: The Scout Reports for Science &Engineering, Social Sciences &
Humanities, and Business &Economics are modeled after the Scout Report, but are designed for
discipline-specific audiences. The subject-specific Scout Reports add current awareness features
(conferences, funding, publications, etc.) to the type of content published in the Scout Report,
thus delivering information geared for academics and researchers biweekly in varying electronic
formats.
Scout Report Archives (formerly Signpost):A catalog of resources reviewed in the Scout Report
and subject-specific reports. Signpost was one of the first catalogs of Internet resources to
combine existing taxonomies such as the Library of Congress Classification Scheme and the
Library of Congress Subject Headings in concert with emerging standards such as the Dublin
Core to catalog and classify Internet resources. As of April 2001, the Scout Report Archives
contains approximately 11,000 records.
Services Initiated
Net-Happenings: Net-Happenings is an electronic mailing list, which distributes information on
new Internet resources, publications and conferences. Information is distributed as new resources
or current awareness news are announced, resulting in 40-60 posts each weekday. NetHappenings is now hosted by Classroom Connect.
KIDS Report: A publication produced by K-12 students as a resource to other K-12 students, The
KIDS Report was modeled after the Scout Report. It was a cooperative effort of twelve
C. Project Description
11
classrooms across the country. Students worked with their teachers or school librarians to select
and annotate all resources included in every issue of the KIDS Report. Now called Internet
Detectives, the project flourishes as part of the Madison, Wisconsin School District.
Scout Toolkit: The Scout Toolkit was built by collecting, organizing, and annotating a subset of
the most effective network information tools available to new users identify the network tools
most appropriate for their needs. Although still available on the Internet Scout Project site,
Toolkit is no longer being updated.
Research and Development
Information Infrastructure Evolution -The Isaac Network: The Internet Scout Project's Isaac
Network uses LDAP-based distributed cataloging, with CIP for indexing in order to enable enduser searches across geographically distributed collections from one interface.
Outreach
Net Scout Survey: In June of 1995,a professional survey was developed by the Wisconsin Survey
Research Laboratory and sent via email to all Scout Report readers to solicit their feedback on the
content, format and overall usefulness of the publication. Their responses have guided many of
the services developed by ISP.
The Project is currently undertaking a new readership survey with the help of the UW Survey
Center.
Publishing and Co-publishing: See below
Publications resulting from the NSF award
A. Tracy Wells, S. Calcari, and T. Koplow, Eds., The Amazing Internet Challenge: How
Leading Projects Use Library Skills to Organize the Web, (American Library Association
Editions),1999.
J. Solock and Wells, A. Tracy, “Scout Report Signpost,” in The Amazing Internet
Challenge: How Leading Project Use Library Skills to Organize the Web.(American Library
Association Editions),1999: 203-22.
Wells, A. Tracy, “Internet Scout Project: Promoting Resource Discovery for Research
and Discovery,” Reference and User Services Quarterly 38 (4)
<http://www.ala.org/rusa/rusq/rusq_toc.html#sum99>.
Plzak, R., E. Krol, and A. Tracy Wells, “FYI on Questions and Answers: Answers to
Commonly Asked New Internet User Questions ”;Internet Engineering Task Force; draft-ietfuswg-fyi4-00.txt, 1999.
Calcari, S. and A. Tracy Wells, and “New Tools for Collection Development: The
Internet Scout Project,” 1998,,Collection Management 23 (3):33-48
M. Roszkowski and C. Lukas, "A Distributed Architecture for Resource Discovery Using
Metadata," D-lib Magazine, June
1998,<http://www.dlib.org/dlib/june98/scout/06roszkowski.html>.
Glassel, A and A. Tracy Wells, "Scout Report Signpost: Design and Development for
Access to Cataloged Internet Resources."1998.Journal of Internet Cataloging 3 (1):15-45.
S. Calcari, A. Tracy Wells, and J. Solock, “The Internet Scout Project,” 1997 Library Hi Tech 15
(3-4),p.11-18.
C. Project Description
12
S. Calcari and J. Solock, “The Internet Scout Project: Filtering for Quality”, Choice
Magazine 34 (Association of College and Research Libraries, American Library
Association),August 1997 special Web edition,p.25-37.
Brief description of the available data, samples, physical collections and other related
research products not described elsewhere:
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/index.html
Title of the project:
"The IMesh Toolkit: An Architecture and Toolkit for Distributed Subject Gateways"
NCR-9906025, $480,166 (Estimated), October 1,1999 -September 30,2002
Summary of the results of the completed work, including any contribution to the
development of human resources in science and engineering:
Research and Development
Subject Gateway Requirements Review: A review and analysis of subject gateway requirements
has been produced, covering existing projects, API's and protocols pertinent for Internet subject
gateway development and integration. This review also discusses existing subject gateway
services and the technologies in use by those services.
Evaluation Plan: An IMesh Toolkit evaluation plan has been published, identifying all groups of
potential stakeholders in distributed subject gateway development, their interests and
representative members of each group. The evaluation plan also detailed a review of the toolkit
API, outlined a plan for identifying alpha and beta sites and conducting alpha and beta testing of
the toolkit reference implementation, and presented a schedule for the testing and deployment of
the toolkit API, reference implementation, and documentation, along with a breakdown of
collaborator's responsibilities.
Distributed Subject Gateway Technology Review: A review and analysis of existing protocols
and standards related to distributed subject gateway implementation has been produced. The
review covers existing and emerging searching and data exchange protocols and gives a point-bypoint overview of their use in existing subject gateway software.
Outreach
New Collaborators: In June of 2000,a meeting between the US and UK IMesh Toolkit developers
and DTV from Denmark was held to discuss possible integration of DTV's efforts into the IMesh
Toolkit. In August of 2000,DTV officially joined the IMesh Toolkit project and assumed
responsibility for a portion of the newly expanded IMeshTk architecture and reference
implementation.
IMesh Survey: A survey of Internet subject gateway developers, users and other interested parties
is currently under way. Information that the survey will collect includes breakdowns on
interoperability protocol usage, availability of hardware and operating system platforms among
prospective IMeshTk users and information on the distribution and usage of existing subject
gateway tools.
Publications Resulting from the NSF Award
C. Project Description
13
E.. Almasy, M. Hamilton, “IMeshTk --An Architecture and Toolkit for Distributed Subject
Gateways,” DLI2 All-Projects Meeting, June 2000
Brief description of the available data, samples, physical collections and other related
research products not described elsewhere:
http://clark.cs.wisc.edu/imeshtk/
C. Project Description
14
References
1
European Commission TAP Libraries Programme PRIDE Project
<http://www.viscount.org.uk/pride/>
2
European Union 4th Framework Programme
<http://europa.eu.int/comm./research/fp4.html>
3
IDL - The Interactive Data Language (Documentation Set)
<http://www.rsinc.com/idl/>
4
The UNIverse Project - A European Demonstration which Adds Value to the Virtual Union
Catalogue
paper delivered at the 64th IFLA General Conference August 16 - August 21, 1998
Suzanne Ward, UNIverse Project Officer
5
ANSI/NISO Z39.50-1995 Standard
<http://lcweb.loc.gov/z3950/agency/document.html>
6
UNIverse Project documentation page for EXPLAIN
<http://www.fdgroup.com/research/universe/d4-5-4.htm>
7
XQL (XML Query Language), August 1999
Editor: Jonathan Robie (Software AG)
<http://metalab.unc.edu/xql/xql-proposal.xml>
8
RFC 2251: Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (v3) (1997)
Wahl, M. et al.
<ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2251.txt>
9
DAV Searching and Locating (DASL)
Cover, Robin
<http://www.oasis-open.org/cover/dasl.html>
10
IEEE P1484.12/D4.0 Draft Standard for Learning Object Metadata
Learning Technology Standardization Committee of the IEEE.
<http://ltsc.ieee.org/doc/wg12/LOM_WD4.htm>
11
OpenURL Syntax Description [Draft version], 2000
Herbert Van de Sompel; Patrick Hochstenbach; Oren Beit-Arie
<http://sfx1.exlibris-usa.com/openurl/openurl.html>
12
VR-VIBE: A Virtual Environment for Co-operative Information Retrieval
Benford, S. D., Snowdon, D N., Greenhalgh, C M., Ingram, R J., Knox, I. Brown, C C.
Computer Graphics Forum, 14, (3), pp. 349-360, 1995, NCC Blackwell
[also Proc. Eurographics '95]
13
Perspex <http://www.perspex.co.uk/index_uk.htm>
14
National SMETE Digital Library Community Center
<http://www.smete.org/nsdl/index.html>
15
ADL Academic Co-Lab Project <http://www.wiadlcolab.org/>
16
DELOS <http://www.iei.pi.cnr.it/DELOS/>
17
COVAX (Contemporary Culture Virtual Archives in XML)
<http://www.covax.org>
18
METU Software Research and Development Center
MIND Interoperable Database Management Project
<http://www.srdc.metu.edu.tr/mind/>
19
Digital Audio Visual Council <http://www.davic.org/>
20
Object Management Group <http://www.omg.org/>
21
RDF Rich Site Summary (RSS)
Cover, Robin.
<http://www.oasis-open.org/cover/rss.html>
C. Project Description
15