Information needs in technical work settings and their implications for the design of computer tools

We interviewed information workers in multiple technical areas of a large, diverse company, and we describe some of the unsatisfied information needs we observed during our study. Two clusters of issues are described. The first covers how loosely coupled work groups use and share information. We show the need to structure information for multiple, partly unanticipated uses. We show how the construction of information compounds helps users accomplish some of this restructuring, and we explain how structuring flexibility is also required because of temperamental differences among users. The second cluster of issues revolves around collections of tightly coupled work groups. We show that information shared within such groups differs from information shared across group boundaries. We present the barriers to sharing which we saw operating both within groups and outside, and we explain the function of resource and contact broker which evolved in the settings we examined. For each of these issues we propose implications for information tool design.     

Mediating Group Dynamics through Tabletop Interface Design

A Stanford University research group explores how design alternatives for tabletop interfaces can impact group dynamics to promote effective teamwork. They built and evaluated a series of novel prototypes that explore Multi-User Coordination Policies and cooperative gesturing, encouraging equitable participation in educational tasks and supporting social skills development for special-needs populations.     

Using distributed objects for digital library interoperability

Information repositories are just one of many services tomorrow's digital libraries might offer. Other services include automated news summarization, trend analysis across news repositories, and copyright-related facilities. This distributed collection of services has the potential to be enormously helpful in performing information-intensive tasks. It could also turn such tasks into confusing, frustrating annoyances by forcing programmers and users to learn many interfaces and by confronting users with the bewildering details of fee-based services that were previously only accessible to professional librarians. The Stanford Digital Library project is addressing the problem of interoperability, which is particularly important because standardization efforts are lagging behind the development of digital library services. The authors used CORBA to implement information-access and payment protocols. These protocols provide the interface uniformity necessary for interoperability, while leaving implementers a large amount of leeway to optimize performance and to provide choices in service performance profiles. The authors' initial experience indicates that a distributed object framework does give clients and servers the flexibility to manage their communication and processing resources effectively     

WebBase: a repository of Web pages

In this paper, we study the problem of constructing and maintaining a large shared repository of Web pages. We discuss the unique characteristics of such a repository, propose an architecture, and identify its functional modules. We focus on the storage manager module, and illustrate how traditional techniques for storage and indexing can be tailored to meet the requirements of a Web repository. To evaluate design alternatives, we also present experimental results from a prototype repository called WebBase, that is currently being developed at Stanford University.     

Boolean query mapping across heterogeneous information sources

Searching over heterogeneous information sources is difficult because of the nonuniform query languages. Our approach is to allow a user to compose Boolean queries in one rich front end language. For each user query and target source, we transform the user query into a subsuming query that can be supported by the source but that may return extra documents. The results are then processed by a filter query to yield the correct final result. We introduce the architecture and associated algorithms for generating the supported subsuming queries and filters. We show that generated subsuming queries return a minimal number of documents; we also discuss how minimal cost filters can be obtained. We have implemented prototype versions of these algorithms and demonstrated them on heterogeneous Boolean systems     

Using distributed objects to build the Stanford digital libraryInfobus

For digital libraries to thrive, the providers of information processing services must be able to evolve their systems autonomously. However, as the complexity of their offerings increases, software tools more sophisticated than existing Web facilities are needed. Distributed object technology may be the answer. The availability of high-volume, increasingly sophisticated information is making the need for metadata facilities more urgent. Traditional, library-based approaches break down when used in an advanced digital library. More modular mechanisms are needed, and the CORBA system is one approach. Digital libraries are affected at a deep technical level by the widely differing user traditions of Web users and library patrons. The challenge and opportunity of digital libraries will be the synthesis of these traditions. The authors set out to create a technical infrastructure to support the construction of digital libraries. In their view, a digital library comprises widely distributed resources that can be maintained autonomously by different organizations and will not require adherence to uniform interfaces