Research Overview Michael Bieber Information Systems Department College of Computing Sciences New Jersey Institute of Technology [email protected] .

Research Overview

Michael Bieber

Information Systems Department

College of Computing Sciences

New Jersey Institute of [email protected]

http://www-ec.njit.edu

Research Overview

• Dynamic Hypermedia Engine

• Digital Library Service Integration

• Relationship Analysis

• Educational Research: Collaborative Examination

• Virtual Communities

Dynamic Hypermedia Engine

Automatically add links and other “hypermedia” services to applications:

• comments

• guided tours

• structural search (based on links and relationships instead of keywords)

• others...

Buzzword compatible: – Java, Servlets, RMI, XML, XHTML, RDF, etc.

Shipping I nformation

http : / /www.nj i t .edu/purchasing /shipping-info rmat ion.htm

251 Requisition Header - Shipping and Text STRATEGIC SUPPLIES INTERN'L 71 UNION AVE Screen: Vend: V0000304390 PR: R010294 Inv: Line:

Deliver-to Address FOB: Name: MICHAEL BIEBER Rte: Org: NJIT, CIS DEPARTMENT Delivery Service: UPS Addr: 323 ML KING BLVD Delivery Date: 03-12-2000

City: NEWARK St: NJ Zip: 07102 Country: USA Phone: 973 596 2681 Ext: Requisition Codes: 58 128 PUX ZY2 Requisition Text:

Document Notes: NSample Screen from Purchasing System:all text with no links...






Document Notes: NDHE automatically generates anchorsas the screen is created






Document Notes: NDHE produces a list of possible linkswhen the user chooses an anchor

V0000304390

Vendor Details

Vendor Reliability

Vendor Agreements

Other Possible Vendors

Your Purchasing History

All Screens with this Vendor

Dynamic Hypermedia Engine

• Links generated based on application structure, not search or lexical analysis

– You cannot do a search on the display text “$127,322.12” to find related information…

– But you can find relationships for the element Sales[1997]

$85,101.99$127,322.12

1997 Expenses1997 Sales

Looking for Collaboration

• Applications to integrate with DHE

• Field study sites

Research Overview






• Digital Library: Multimedia Document Services

Service Modules

Repositories

Doc

Doc

Integrationlinking related

documents

DSLI Architecture

Service Modules

Repositories

Doc

Doc

Disc

Disc


• Asynchronous Discussion Tools(Groupware)

IntegrationDiscussinga document

DSLI Architecture

Service Modules

Repositories

Doc

Doc

Disc

Disc

H/ M

H/M

Proc

Proc

Dec'n

Dec'n

CKS

CKS

...

...


• Asynchronous Discussion Tools • Hypermedia Services

• Processes/Workflows • Decision Analysis Support

• Conceptual Knowledge Structures

• Others...

DSLI Architecture

All Integrated through theDynamic Hypermedia Engine


• Digital library services to integrate into this infrastructure

• Collections to integrate, so they can use the various digital library services

Research Overview






Relationship Analysis (RA)

– Motivation: What to link?

– RA: a systematic analysis methodology based on relationships

– RA provides analysts with a deeper understanding of a system or information domain

– The relationships “discovered” can be implemented as links (automatically by DHE)

Relationship Taxonomy

Internal

External

GenericRelationship

Self

Whole-part/Composition

Comparison

Association/Dependency

Generalization/Specialization

CharacteristicDescriptiveOccurrence

Configuration/AggregationMembership/Grouping

Classification/Instantiation

EquivalenceSimilar/Dissimilar

OrderingActivityInfluenceIntentionalSocio-organizationalTemporalSpatial

Relationship Taxonomy

Internal

External

GenericRelationship

Self

Whole-part/Composition

Comparison

Association/Dependency

Generalization/Specialization

CharacteristicDescriptiveOccurrence

Configuration/AggregationMembership/Grouping

Classification/Instantiation

EquivalenceSimilar/Dissimilar

OrderingActivityInfluenceIntentionalSocio-organizationalTemporalSpatial

RA: Sample Analysis Questions(replace “item” by “vendor”)

• Activity Relationships– Who uses this item, and how?– What are this item’s inputs and outputs; what does it produce?– What is required to use this item?– Who is involved with this item?

• Intentional Relationships (“meaning/opinions”)– Which goals, issues and arguments involve this item?– What are the policies, positions or statements on this item?– What comments and opinions have been expressed about this item?– What are the constraints, limitations, priorities and options for this item?– What rationale exists for this item?

Vendor Relationships(possible links resulting from an RA analysis)

• Vendor details (address, contact, customer service, Web site)

• Reliability (on-time, complete orders, quality, service)

• Vendor agreements & discounts

• Who else has used this vendor

• Purchasing history with this vendor(mine, others)

• All application screens with this vendor

• All documents concerning this vendor

• Annotations/comments on this vendor

• Policies regarding this vendor

• Rationale for using this vendor in the past

• What people typically buy from this vendor

• Which vendors generally give better deals than this one

• Alternatives to this vendor

• Social considerations regarding this vendor

• Vendor’s parent company and subsidiaries

• Vendor’s partnerships and agreements with other companies

• Instructions: how to choose a vendor; how to evaluate a vendor


• Domains/Complex Systems to analyze using Relationship Analysis

• Field study sites

Research Overview






Collaborative Examinations

Jia Shen, NJITStarr Roxanne Hiltz, NJIT

Kung-E Cheng, Rutgers University Yooncheong Cho, Rutgers University

Michael Bieber, NJIT

1. Why?

• To reduce the instructor’s own work load

• To test a new method of conducting exams

2. A form of collaborative learning

• Previous research is limited

Collaborative Exam

Exam Procedures

Traditional exam:

•3-hour, in-class, 3-4 essay questions, 6 pages of notes

Collaborative exam:• Students compose questions• Students select questions (eliminated in spring 00)• Students answer selected questions• Students grade questions• Ph.d. intermediate grading• Professor assigns final grade and handles disputes

Issues• Need to see behind anonymity• Grading guidelines and grade inflation• Consistent grading

• Trade-offs for students- drawn-out process vs. concentrated- access to everything vs. limited access to notes- we couldn’t justify the process to the students fully

• Trade-offs for professors- limited but harder grading vs. easier grading- drawn-out process vs. concentrated- much more administration


• Other courses that would like to use a similar approach, or which we can contrast to our collaborative examinations

Research Overview






Knowledge Sharing and Learningin Virtual Communities

Michael Bieber1 Ricki Goldman1

Roxanne Hiltz1 Il Im1

Ravi Paul1 Jenny Preece2 Ron Rice3

Ted Stohr4 Murray Turoff1

1New Jersey Institute of Technology 3Rutgers University (SCILS)2University of Maryland, Baltimore County 4Stevens Technical University

MotivationWhy do people participate in virtual communities?

– to attract customers/clients– for amusement– to socialize; find comfort (medical communities)– to network, build contacts– to improve what you do (job, personal)– find information/solve problems/learn from others

==> collaboration, knowledge-sharing and learning underlies most of these directly or indirectly

Research Question: How best to support this?

Goal

Increasing

people’s effectiveness

by helping them

share knowledge and learn

through virtual communities

Example Tasks (of individuals)for an academic research community

• learning about the community domain

• learning about relevant people in the community

• teaching a course

• finding materials on a research topic

• mentoring members in research or learning

• developing software using community research

• developing/selling software to serve community

Example Community Tasks of an academic research community

• running a conference

• conducting elections

• writing newsletter / submitting to the newsletter

• making the budget

• proposing & running a task force

• recruiting new society members

Approach

• Concept Building regarding knowledge and learning within virtual communities

• Study testbed communities

• Prototype tools

• Prototype procedures

• Evaluate– virtual communities– learning and effectiveness– the prototype tools and procedures

Community Knowledge Resides in...

• documents (published papers, reports, photos, videos, lesson plans, syllabi, etc.)

• discussions• decisions• conceptual models

• formal educational modules

• workflows/processes• people’s expertise

• links/relationships among all these

Service Modules

Repositories

Doc

Doc

Disc

Disc

H/ M

H/M

Proc

Proc

Dec'n

Dec'n

CKS

CKS

...

...


• Asynchronous Discussion Tools • Hypermedia Services

• Processes/Workflows • Decision Analysis Support

• Conceptual Knowledge Structures

• Others...

CommunityServices Architecture

All Integrated through theDynamic Hypermedia Engine

Evaluation

• focus on individual-level and community-level

• Pilots and assessment on actual communities

• Action Research: work actively with participants

• Propositions/hypotheses and measures• Formative Evaluation to assess/improve tools

(requirements analysis, usability testing)

• Summative Evaluation to assess usage, impacts, satisfaction(direct observation, interviews, surveys, usage profiles)


• Looking for testbed communities

Research Overview Michael Bieber Information Systems Department College of Computing Sciences New Jersey Institute of Technology [email protected] .

Documents