Digital Libraries:
The Networked Digital Library of
Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD)
and the Computer Science
Teaching Center (CSTC)
3rd Computer Science Workshop
Puebla, Mexico, June 10-12, 1998
Edward A. Fox
Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA
http://fox.cs.vt.edu fox@vt.edu
THANKS
 Hosts
for this Workshop
 NSF
– Funding since 1984: AI, Comp. Linguistics, DL,
Education, E-pub, HCI, IR, MM, Networking
 US
Dept. of Education (FIPSE)
 Contributors
– Adobe, CNI, CGS, CSGS, IBM, Microsoft, OCLC,
SURA, ...
– Collaborating universities (you too, soon, I hope!)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS / CONTEXT
NDLTD PIs:
Ed Fox - Computer Science (fox@vt.edu)
John Eaton - Graduate School (eaton@vt.edu)
Gail McMillan - Library (gailmac@vt.edu)
CSTC PIs:
Deborah Knox - The College of NJ
Scott Grissom - U. Illinois Springfield
(Rachelle Heller - GWU - CRIM)
Infrastructure:
Net.Work.Virginia (vBNS, Internet 2, LMDS,
Blacksburg Electronic Village, FDI)
A Complete Approach to
Advanced Network Access
Mid-Atlantic Crossroads
(MAX)
NET.WORK.VIRGINIA
Regional/National Leadership
Statewide Access
LMDS / Local NAPS
Virginia Tech
Last Mile
ESnet
Net.Work.Virginia Architecture
Backbone / Internet Gateway
vBNS
Internet2
Internet
SprintLink
Router
DS3
OC3
Sprint WTN
OC3
OC3
Sprint RIC
OC3
Sprint ROA
jmc 1/3/97
NET.WORK.VIRGINIA
222 Sites by Type and Bandwidth
May, 1998
Higher Education
K-12 Education
State Government
Localities / Libraries
DS-1 (1.544 Mbps)
DS-3 ( 45 Mbps)
OC-3 (155 Mbps)
Frame Relay - ATM (FRANI)
Faculty Development Initiative
Music
Art & Art History English
Religious History
Studies Philosophy
Women's
Studies
Black Studies
Newman Library
Information Systems
Educational Technologies
Chemistry
Physics Biochemistry
Biology Mathematics
Computer Science
Cyberschool
I and II
Communications
Political Science
Psychology
Sociology
Human Resources
University Honors
Education
Center for Excellence
in Undergraduate Teaching
URLs
Cyberschool
http://www.cyber.vt.edu
Cyberschool White Papers
http://www.cyber.vt.edu/wp
ACCESS Project
http://www.edtech.vt.edu/access
aTECH Project
http://juno.atech.vt.edu
LIT Project
http://athena.english.vt.edu/LIT/LIT.html
Digital
Libraries
Why
of global interest?
Why of interest in computing?
Definitions
NSF Digital Libraries Initiative
DLs: Why of Global Interest?
 National
projects can preserve antiquities and
heritage: cultural, historical, linguistic, scholarly
 Knowledge and information are essential to
economic and technological growth, education
 DL - a domain for international collaboration
–
–
–
–
wherein all can contribute and benefit
which leverages investment in networking
which provides useful content on Internet & WWW
which will tie nations and peoples together more
strongly and through deeper understanding
Why of Interest in Computing?
 Next
step in fields of DBMS, HT, IR, MM
 Efficiency requires advances in, e.g.,
– algorithms and data structures (ex., MPHF)
– networking (ex., HTTP-NG)
– OS (ex., support for streams)
 Effectiveness
requires advances in, e.g.,
– AI (ex., multilingual texts, user adaptation)
– HCI (ex., visualization, DLs embedded in activities)
 CS
Educ. can benefit; CS can aid Dist. Educ.
DLs: Definitions
 Super
information systems
 KDI with persistence, organization, usability
 Libraries extended to include collections of
digital objects and to provide expanded services
to distributed user communities without prior
limitations of space, time, physical instantiation
 Latest implementation of visions of Bush,
Licklider, Nelson, and previous scholars
 Systems, services, institutions, enterprises, and
projects of the digital library community
National Synchronization Home Page
http://dli.grainger.uiuc.edu/national.htm
DIGITAL LIBRARIES INITIATIVE
Funded through a joint initiative of:
National Science Foundation
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Stephen M. Griffin
Division of Information and Intelligent Systems
National Science Foundation
sgriffin@nsf.gov
Communications
(bandwidth, connectivity)
Locating Digital Libraries in Computing and
Communications Technology Space
Digital Libraries
technology
trajectory: intellectual
access to globally
distributed information
Computing (flops)
Digital content
less
more
Digital Libraries Initiative - Phase 2
Core Sponsors: NSF, DARPA, NLM, LoC, NASA, NEH
 ~$8-10 million/yr for 4-5 years (beginning FY98)
 sponsor a full-spectrum of activities
– fundamental research, content & collections development, domain applications,
testbeds, operational environments, new resources for education and preserving
America’s cultural heritage

address topics over entire DL lifecycle
– information creation, dissemination, access, use, preservation, impact, contexts

implement a modular, open program structure
– add new sponsors, performers, projects at any time
Program Goals: new DL research, technologies and applications to advance
the use of distributed, networked information of all types around the nation and the world
Digital Libraries Initiative - Phase 2
Planning Underway to Secure
Funding and Launch Full-Scale
Program of Support for
International Collaborative
Activities in Digital Libraries
Beginning in FY 1999
Goals for the Future
 Gather
information and build collections
(to understand the incompleteness of our knowledge)
• Create new communities
(to communicate and collaborate)
• Make technology disappear
(from our awareness and experience)
NDLTD
News,
Background/History
Vision, Benefits, Approach,
Possibilities
Concerns, Problems, Opposition
Solutions, Implementation,
Results, Plans
NEWS,
BACKGROUND/
HISTORY
ETDs Got Your Interest?
ETD Web Site
http://www.ndltd.org/
Graduate Students
U. Laval
Media
Chronicle
NPR
NY Times ...
What led to today’s situation?
 1987
mtg in Ann Arbor: UMI, VT, …
 1992 mtg in Washington: CNI, CGS, UMI, VT
and 10 universities with 3 reps each
 1993 mtg in Atlanta to start Monticello
Electronic Library (MEL): SURA, SOLINET
 1994 mtg in Blacksburg re ETD project: std of
PDF + SGML + multimedia objects
 1996 funding by SURA and US Dept. of
Education (FIPSE) for regional, national
projects (NDLTD)
University
Scholarly
Electronic
Pub. (1988)
Library
Cancellations
(1988)
Graduate
Education
ETD
Initiative
WWW
(1994)
Internet
(1984)
PDF
(1992)
SGML (1985)
Info.
Literacy
(1995)
DL (1994)
Multimedia
(1986)
What are we doing?
 Aiding
universities to enhance grad educ.,
publishing and IPR efforts: to help improve
the availability and content of theses and
dissertations
 Educating ALL future scholars so they can
publish electronically and effectively use
digital libraries (i.e., are Information
Literate and can be more expressive)
 Demonstrating how, for other organizations
VISION,
BENEFITS,
APPROACH,
POSSIBILITIES
A Digital Library Case Study
Electronic
theses and
dissertations (ETDs)
Submission:
http://etd.vt.edu
Collection:
http://www.theses.org
Networked Digital
Library of Theses and
Dissertations (NDLTD)
http://www.ndltd.org
(formerly “National”
because of Fed. funds,
before international
members started
joining)
Something for Everyone
Students
- contribute -> gain acclaim
Universities - join -> help your students,
gain increased DL experience + visibility
Researchers - use, encourage -> content
Publishers - liaise, support -> have more
knowledgeable authors + backup details
DL enthusiasts - adapt resources / ideas
-> have exemplary pilot / model project
What are the key ideas?
 People
can switch to electronic documents
– Becoming more expressive with hypermedia
 Mandating
ETDs will change all
future scholarship
 Scalability
– Empower authors to submit to DL, as a natural part
of the educational process
– Study workflow & apply automation, so
institutions streamline processing and build their
part of the DL
– Federate along most suitable cultural/political lines
Key Ideas:
Scalability
Networked infrastructure
University collaboration
Workflow, automation
Maximal access
Education is the rationale
8th graders vs. grads
Authors must submit
Standards
PDF, SGML, MM
MARC, DC, URNs
Federated search
What are the benefits?
 Save
students money
 Save handling, shelf space in libraries
 Build the Networked Digital Library of
Theses and Dissertations: with faster,
broader, and less expensive access
 Demonstrate how universities can
work together directly (vs. indirectly
through publishers or associations)
What are the long term goals?
 400K
US students / year getting grad
degrees are exposed / involved
 200K/yr rich hypermedia ETDs that
may turn into electronic portfolios
 Dramatic increase in knowledge
sharing: lit. reviews, bibliographies, …
 Services providing lifelong access for
students/researchers: browse, search,
prior searches, citation links, ...
Grad Student Assistant?
 Record
all work with NDLTD, return to
prior situation, prepare bibliography
 Powerful (multilingual, text, image)
searching, browsing (with categories),
following citation links
 Support collaboration with others in same
field: help with literature review, sharing
tools and data sets, applying their methods
 Undergraduate honors thesis: Todd Miller
Social Capital?
 Increase
local interchange among students,
faculty, library, graduate school
 Increase international understanding,
building many more invisible colleges,
with students more empowered
 Connect graduate researchers with
undergrads, who can access ETDs / them
 Facilitate direct university collaboration,
explicitly, in reshaping publishing world
How are ETDs being done at
Virginia Tech?
 Some
produced w. SGML (XML)
 Most produced using standard word
processing packages as PDF files
–
–
LaTeX class, outline fonts, Distiller
Word template, export to PDF (XML)
 Reviewed
by the Graduate School
 Cataloged and archived by the library
 Ds downloaded by UMI from server
Student Prepares Thesis or Dissertation
NDLTD
Literature
Computer Resources
Research
Student Defends and Finalizes ETD
My Thesis
ETD
Student Gets Committee Signatures
and Submits ETD
Signed
Grad School
Graduate School Approves ETD
Student is Graduated
Ph.D.
Library Catalogs ETD and New Students
Have Access to the New Research
WWW
NDLTD
Status of the Local Project
 Approved
by university governance
Spring 1996; required starting 1/1/97
 Submission & access software in place
 Submission workshops for students
(and faculty) occur often: beginner/adv.
 Faculty training as part of Faculty
Development Initiative
 Over 1000 ETDs in collection
Statistics
 30-40K
accesses/week to WWW site
 300K accesses of ETD HTML pages
– 80K downloads of PDF version of ETDs
– 5 most popular ETDs: 10K, 8K, 2800, 2500, ...
 Multimedia
content: about 65% have some
– 45% have images, 5% have movies
– 1 w. 85 VRML files, 1 w. 378M Director file
 See
details: http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/
 OCLC has about 3.5M TD MARC records
 UMI Dissertation Abstracts has 1.5M entries
Initial Stats
1996
Total successful requests:
Average successful requests per day:
Requests for .PDF files ( full ETDs):
Requests for .HTML file
Distinct hosts served
Total data transferred:
Average data transferred per day:
37,171
102
4,600
28,225
9,015
3,229M
9,038K
1997
247,573
685
72, 854
129,831
22,725
25,953M
73,574K
Popular Works 1996
458 Seevers, Gary L. Identification of Criteria for Delivery of Theological Education Through
Distance Education: An International Delphi Study (Ph.D., Educational Research and
Evaluation, April 1993; 1353Kb)
432 Hohauser, Robyn Lisa. The Social Construction of Technology: The Case of LSD (MS in
Science and Technology Studies, Feb. 1995; 244Kb)
390 Childress, Vincent William. The Effects of Technology Education, Science, and
Mathematics Integration Upon Eighth Grader's Technological Problem-Solving Ability (Ph.D.
in Vocational and Technical Education, July 1994; 285Kb)
310 Kuhn, William B. Design of Integrated, Low Power, Radio Receivers in BiCMOS
Technologies (Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, Dec. 1995; 2Mb)
287 Sprague, Milo D. A High Performance DSP Based System Architecture for Motor Drive
Control ( MS in Electrical Engineering, May 1993; 878Kb)
165 Wallace, Richard A. Regional Differences in the Treatment of Karl Marx by the Founders
of American Academic Sociology (MS in Sociology, Nov. 1993; 479Kb)
150 McKeel, Scott Andrew. Numerical Simulation of the Transition Region in Hypersonic
Flow (Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering, Feb. 1996; 3Mb)
Popular Works 1997
9920 Liu, Xiangdong. Analysis and Reduction of Moire Patterns inScanned Halftone Pictures
(Ph.D. in Computer Science, May 1996; 6.6Mb)
7656 Petrus, Paul. Novel Adaptive Array Algorithms and Their Impact on Cellular System
Capacity (Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, March 1997; 5Mb)
2781 Agnes, Gregory Stephen. Performance of Nonlinear Mechanical, Resonant-Shunted
Piezoelectric, and Electronic Vibration Absorbers for Multi-Degree-of-Freedom Structures
(Ph.D. in Engineering Mechanics, Sept. 1997; ? + 7926Kb)
2492 Gonzalez, Reinaldo J. Raman, Infrared, X-ray, and EELS Studies of Nanophase Titania
(Ph.D. in Physics, July 1996; 4607Kb)
1877 Shih, Po-Jen. On-Line Consolidation of Thermoplastic Composites (Ph.D. in Engineering
Mechanics, Feb. 1997; 3.3Mb)
1791 Saldanha, Kevin J. Performance Evaluation of DECT in Different Radio Environments
(MS in Electrical Engineering, Aug. 1996; 3.2Mb)
1431 DeVaux, David. A Tutorial on Authorware (MS in CS, April 1996; 2.3Mb)
1394 Kuhn, William B. Design of Integrated, Low Power, Radio Receivers in BiCMOS
Technologies (Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, Dec. 1995; 2518Kb)
International Use
 1996
 850
 608
 346
 713
 387
 463
 183


22
83
1997
2,922 United Kingdom
2,501 Australia
2,378 Germany
2,367 Canada
1,264 South Korea
1,161 France
1,130 Brazil
967 Thailand
958 Greece
Universities Visiting / Visited by
Virginia Tech Staff




















Auburn
CMU
Columbia
Drexel U.
Florida Int’l Univ.
Georgia Tech
Hong Kong
James Madison U.
MIT
(Nat’l Lib. Canada)
Nat’l Univ. Singapore
New York U.
Ohio State U.
Penn State
Rice Univ.
Rutgers Univ.
San Jose State U.
Stanford Univ.
Tech. Univ. Portugal
U. Alabama



















U. Alabama Birmingham
U. Arizona
U. CA Berkeley
U. CA Santa Barbara
U. Central Florida
U. Delaware
U. Denver (+CSU,CU Boulder)
UDLA (Puebla, Mexico)
U. Florida
U. Ill. Urbana Champaign
U. Massachusetts Amherst
U. Michigan
U. NC Charlotte
U. North Florida
U. Pennsylvania
U. Utah
U. Waterloo
Virginia Commonwealth U.
William & Mary
Universities Officially
Part of NDLTD
 U. Laval (Canada)
University
 U. Maine
Concordia University (IL)
 U. of New South Wales (AU)
Darmstadt U. of Tech. (GE)
 U. of South Florida
Florida Institute of Tech.
 U. of Tennessee, Knoxville
Michigan Tech
 U. of Tennessee, Memphis
Naval Postgraduate School
 U. of Virginia
North Carolina State U.
 U. Waterloo (Canada)
Rhodes U. (South Africa)
 U. Wisconsin - Madison
Rochester Institute of Tech.
 Vanderbilt U.
University of Florida
 Virginia Tech
University of Georgia
 West Virginia U.
University of Guelph (Can.)
 Wilfrid Laurier U. (Can.)
U. of Hawaii, Manoa
Plus: 1 in S. Korea, HQ of CIC, ...
Clemson
User Search Support
NDLTD World Federated Search
User
Interface
Virginia Tech ...
(univ)
UMI ...
(corporate)
CIC ...
(univ group)
Portugese NL ...
(national lib)
NATO ...
(regional)
Note: Above are illustrative, in some cases potential.
Interoperability Tests Planned
 Locally
developed federated search
 IBM DL: donated equipment
 Z39.50: OCLC SiteSearch / VT tailored s/w
– university libraries w. catalogs of freely shared
MARC records pointing to archival copies
– via URNs: handles & PURLs
 Dienst
/ NCSTRL - www.ncstrl.org: CS depts.,
DARPA, NSF, CNRI, Cornell - UVA is
working on extensions for ETDs - Portugal is
studying use for Europe - VT is working on
Dienst to Z39.50 gateway
Access Approaches
 Goal:
Maximize access and services,
e.g., by encouraging:
 UMI centralized services
 Distributed service: Dienst, Z39.50
 Regional services (e.g., CIC, MEL)
 Local servers with browse, search
From local catalogs to local archives
 WWW robot indexing and search services
–
Why might your university
want to be involved?
 To
improve graduate education /
better prepare your students
 To unlock university information
 To save money for students and for
the university / improve workflow
 To build an important digital library
supported by SURA, FIPSE
How can your university get
involved? (www.ndltd.org/join)
 Select
–
–
–
–
planning/implementation team
Graduate School
Library
Computing / Information Technology
Institutional Research / Educ. Tech.
 Send
us letter, give us contact names
 Adapt Virginia Tech solution
–
–
Build interest and consensus
Start trial / allow optional submission
Contact Our Project Team
Video Tape
E-mail
etd@ndltd.org
Phone Call
Visit
Convene Local Planning Group
ETD
Join NDLTD: Get a CD-ROM
WE JOIN
Signed Letter
ETD CD-ROM
Build Your ETD Site
ETD
Workshop/Training
Digital Library
Policies
Inspection/Approval
Type 1 Members
University Requires ETDs
 Adobe Acrobat
and/or SGML tools
 Automated submission & processing
 Archive/access through UMI,
(OCLC,) Virginia Tech, ...
 (Local) WWW site, publicity
 (Local) Assistance provided as
requested: email, phone, listserv(s)
Type 2 Members
University Agrees to Require ETDs
 Like
Type 1 but set date not reached
 Usually has an option or pilot
 May: wait for new AY; start with all who
enter after; …
 Build grass roots support
–
–
–
–
Advisory committee: representative? expert?
Champions to spread by word of mouth
Approval: Senates, Commissions, Deans, Students
Publicity to reach community
Types 3-7
3.
Part of university requires ETDs
4.
University allows ETDs
5.
University investigating, has pilot
6.
University consortium joins
7.
Non-university organization joins
CONCERNS,
PROBLEMS,
OPPOSITION
How does this relate to UMI?
 1987
UMI workshop to explore ETDs
 Support letter for US Dept. of Ed. proposal
 Steering & technical comm. membership
 Difference in focus: on education, theses
 ProQuest Direct pilot of scanning works
started 1/1/97
 Collaborating on:
–
–
accepting electronic author submissions
standards (e.g., representation), research
ETD Initiative (and UMI)
Students
Learn about
DL, EPub
TDs
become more
expressive
Universities
UMI
N. Amer. (T)Ds are
accessible, archived
Global TDs
become more
accessible,
archived
Some Barriers at Universities
 Lethargy;
Not invented here (esp. large univ’s)
 Anger with unfunded, added, required work
 Last straw: using more frustrating technology
 Lack of experience in working together:
graduate school, library, computing staff
 Lack of interest in (quality of) student work
 More loyalty to discipline than campus
 Unwillingness to accept responsibility for
growing financial problems with libraries
SOLUTIONS,
IMPLEMENTATION
Level 0 Involvement
RISK FREE - allow students
 Adobe Acrobat
in bookstore
 Submission allowed (e.g., J. Daniels)
 Archive/access through UMI, Virginia
Tech, ...
 (Local) WWW site, publicity
 (Local) Assistance provided as
requested: email, phone, listserv(s)
Level 1 Involvement = Level 0 +
LOW COST - help & encourage students
 Install
our software, change practices in
graduate school and library
 Train students
 Build grass roots support
–
–
–
–
Advisory committee: representative? expert?
Champions to spread by word of mouth
Approval: Senates, Commissions, Deans, Students
Publicity to reach community
Level 2 Involvement = Level 1 +
EVENTUAL FULL INVOLVEMENT
 Require
electronic submission
 Have firm arrangement with local library,
OCLC, VT and/or UMI re archival services
 Share MARC records, with URNs pointing
to archive copy
 (Stock laboratories)
 (Run servers: search, URN)
 (Launch evaluation program)
Support Services Developed
 CD/WWW
site with > 300M: student
guidelines, listservs, FAQs, press info,
multimedia training materials
 Automated submission system
 SGML DTD for ETDs, SGML to
HTML (web generator)
 Donations: Adobe, Microsoft
 Evaluation: instruments, analysis
Relationship with publishers
 Concern
of faculty and students that still
wish to publish books or journal articles,
voiced: campus, Chronicle, NPR, Times
 Solution: Approval Form gives students,
faculty choices on access, when to change
access condition; use IPR controls in DL
 Solution: by case, work with publishers and
publisher associations to increase access
–
–
AAP, AAUP
AAAS, ACM, ACS, Elsevier, ...
Some responses from publishers
 ACM:
need to acknowledge copyright
 Elsevier: need to acknowledge copyright
 IEEE-CS: endorse initiative
 AAAS: Science wants first publication
 Textbook publishers: different market,
manuscript significantly reworked
 General: restricting access to local campus
will not cause any problems
Plans
 Nurture
federation -> summer
workshop (now, in Memphis)
 Increase # members -> lower barriers
by supporting pilot efforts directly
 R&D in federated fashion
–
–
–
–
USF: writing
UVA / U.Mich.: SGML
Portugal: national library requirements
Singapore: multilingual support with UNICODE
Summary
 Sustainable,
Scalable: started in 1987,
growing, coupled with education
 Open: everyone welcome, mutually
agreed-upon standards, building
international collaborative community
 Content: valuable, high demand, aiming
toward completeness
 Usability: applying latest and future DL
research so can easily submit, utilize
NDLTD Future Work
 Working
with publishers to increase level of
access as much as possible
 Interoperability tests among universities and
with UMI to provide integrated services
 Study with testbed that emerges, to improve
information retrieval, browsing, interface,
and other types of user support
 Evaluation, improving learning experience,
spread to worldwide initiative, sustainable
support and coordination
CSTC
NCSTRL,
VT Grants
Vision, Benefits, Approach
Concerns, Problems
Solutions, Plans
NCSTRL: CS TECHNICAL
REPORTS
 CS
TR project supported by ARPA (Berkeley,
CMU, Cornell, MIT, Stanford)
 WATERS project for other departments led by
ODU, SUNY Buffalo, UVA, VPI&SU
summer 1995 to www.NCSTRL.org
(Networked CS Tech Report Library)
 Most large departments now have joined
 “Central” server: UVA, “backup”: VPI&SU
 1998 extension to preprint service, with LANL
 Merger
Virginia Tech GRANTS
 1991-1993
ENVISION project funded by NSF
 1993-1998 “Interactive Learning with a Digital
Library in CS” by NSF: http://ei.cs.vt.edu
(10M accesses to over 45 courses)
 1998-2000 “Computer Science Teaching
Center” by NSF and ACM Education Board:
http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~cstc/
“Curriculum Resources in
Interactive Multimedia” by NSF :
 1998-2000
http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~crim/
ENVISION
 A User-Centered
Database from the Computer
Science Literature (1991-93)
 Collected bib. data, converted to SGML
 Converted typesetter data to SGML
 Scanned thousands of page images
 MARIAN search engine (also applied to the
Virginia Tech library catalog) used as part of a
prototype object-based DL, with tailored
visualization interface (L. Nowell dissertation)
NSF Education Innovation (EI)
 NSF
“Interactive Learning with a Digital
Library in Computer Science” (1993-98)
 45 online courses, 100+K accesses/wk, plus:
DL courseware, overall EI project pages
 Tools: SWAN (visualization), QUIZIT
 Evaluation
– traditional
– network logging and analysis
– tools for visualization
QUIZIT (Lucio Tinoco)
 SGML generates
HTML & answer files
 MSQL supports records database
 Automated password request supported
 Password allows review of taken quizes
 Password allows selection of next quiz
 4 types of questions are supported
 Feedback provided if questions are missed
PAPERLESS COURSES
 CS1604:
Introduction to the Internet
 CS3604:
Professionalism in Computing
 CS4624:
Multimedia, Hypertext and
Information Access (MHIA)
 CS5604:
Information Storage and Retrieval
 CS6604:
Digital Libraries
EVALUATION: Log Analysis
 WWW
traffic logging, analysis, modeling,
simulation, prediction (G. Abdulla)
 Students with same grades learn by
knowing or by knowing how to search
 Regression predicts course’s traffic
 Modeling of hourly, daily, seasonal trends
 Understand users, plan future networks
MHIA Workshops
 ACM:
SIGIR’96, MM’96, SIGIR’97-DL’97;
IEEE CS: ICMCS’97, … (MM’98, Sept. in UK)
 Aim: Curriculum Guidelines for MHIA Area
 New Programs, ex. Euro EI Masters
 Reusable WWW Knowledge Modules
 New Courses, ex. Hypertext, IR, Multimedia
 Add-ons to Existing Courses (Comparative
Languages, DBMS, HCI, Networking, OS)
Vision, Benefits, Approach
 Instead
of building large, expensive multimedia
packages, that become obsolete and are difficult
to re-use, concentrate on small knowledge units.
 Learners
benefit from having well-crafted
modules that have been reviewed and tested.
 Use
digital libraries to build a powerful base of
support for learners, upon which a variety of
courses, self-study tutorials & reference resources
can be built. (See NSF SMETE-Lib Study at
http://www.dlib.org/smete/public/smete-public.html)
Concerns, Problems
 Motivating
educators to create modules that can
be used elsewhere is difficult without a suitable
reward structure and an infrastructure of testing,
packaging, discovery, reuse, and evaluation.
 There
is a disconnect between researchers
preparing exciting demonstrations for
conferences and instructors interesting in
helping students grasp underlying concepts and
innovations in their area.
Solutions, Plans
 CSTC
will have a variety of focused centers so
that different types of resources can be
collected, tested, and suitably packaged:
– laboratory exercises, activities, assignments
– visualizations and visualization tools
– interactive multimedia resources (CRIM)
 ACM
has been approached to launch a digital
library “Transactions in Courseware and
Education in Computing” to provide an ongoing
infrastructure for CSTC.
CONCLUSIONS
 Digital
libraries may provide powerful support for
learners if properly developed and supported by
suitable, scalable, sustainable infrastructure.
 NDLTD will have a dramatic impact on graduate
education if institutions participate, which is a
“win-win situation”.
 CSTC and CRIM will help us explore how
learning about computing can be enhanced by a
large number of well-crafted modules that illustrate
key concepts and can be “glued” together in a
variety of fashions to suit local needs.
COLLABORATION !
 NDLTD,
CSTC, CRIM, NCSTRL, …
– Join and help build the collections
– Use the collections and their resources
– Help enhance the technology through R&D

Help solve key DL problems
– Become a center (recall USF/English role in KDI)
– Connect with library/publishing world in Mexico
– Connect with preservation/dissemination in Mexico
– Work on testbed, system, or HCI aspects (DLI2)