Beyond searching and browsing
This event took place on Thursday 17 March 2005 at 12:30
Tom Heath KMi, The Open University
The web provides a platform for users to perform many varied tasks; finding information, exploring new ideas, and communicating with others are just a few examples. However, not all tasks that users perform (or wish to perform) on the web are well supported by current tools and technologies. Interaction with web resources tends to be dominated by searching and browsing, and attempts to understand user actions on the web have focused mainly on these modes. Furthermore, the tools that support these modes, such as web browsers and search engines often take little account of the user, and the contexts in which they exist.
In this seminar I will briefly introduce scenarios of tasks performed online using current tools. These scenarios will be considered in the light of existing taxonomies of online actions, and I will introduce a new classification of the tasks people perform on the web. A case will be made that tools should take greater account of a user?s context if they are to aid task performance, and I will outline my proposals for task-focused Semantic Web tools that draw on a user?s social context.
Download PowerPoint Presentation (468Kb ZIP file)
This event took place on Thursday 17 March 2005 at 12:30
The web provides a platform for users to perform many varied tasks; finding information, exploring new ideas, and communicating with others are just a few examples. However, not all tasks that users perform (or wish to perform) on the web are well supported by current tools and technologies. Interaction with web resources tends to be dominated by searching and browsing, and attempts to understand user actions on the web have focused mainly on these modes. Furthermore, the tools that support these modes, such as web browsers and search engines often take little account of the user, and the contexts in which they exist.
In this seminar I will briefly introduce scenarios of tasks performed online using current tools. These scenarios will be considered in the light of existing taxonomies of online actions, and I will introduce a new classification of the tasks people perform on the web. A case will be made that tools should take greater account of a user?s context if they are to aid task performance, and I will outline my proposals for task-focused Semantic Web tools that draw on a user?s social context.
Download PowerPoint Presentation (468Kb ZIP file)
Future Internet
KnowledgeManagementMultimedia &
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HypermediaNew Media SystemsSemantic Web &
Knowledge ServicesSocial Software
Semantic Web and Knowledge Services is...
Our research in the Semantic Web area looks at the potentials of fusing together advances in a range of disciplines, and applying them in a systemic way to simplify the development of intelligent, knowledge-based web services and to facilitate human access and use of knowledge available on the web. For instance, we are exploring ways in which tnatural language interfaces can be used to facilitate access to data distributed over different repositories. We are also developing infrastructures to support rapid development and deployment of semantic web services, which can be used to create web applications on-the-fly. We are also investigating ways in which semantic technology can support learning on the web, through a combination of knowledge representation support, pedagogical theories and intelligent content aggregation mechanisms. Finally, we are also investigating the Semantic Web itself as a domain of analysis and performing large scale empirical studies to uncover data about the concrete epistemologies which can be found on the Semantic Web. This exciting new area of research gives us concrete insights on the different conceptualizations that are present on the Semantic Web by giving us the possibility to discover which are the most common viewpoints, which viewpoints are mutually inconsistent, to what extent different models agree or disagree, etc...
Our aim is to be at the forefront of both theoretical and practical developments on the Semantic Web not only by developing theories and models, but also by building concrete applications, for a variety of domains and user communities, including KMi and the Open University itself.
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