Friday, November 21, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
greenstone...ALMOST THERE!
I feel like I am SO CLOSE to having greenstone up and running on my mac.
As near as I can tell, the only thing I still need to do is add the following directive to the httpd.conf file:
ScriptAlias /gsdl/cgi-bin "/opt/greenstone/cgi-bin"
Options None
AllowOverride None
Alias /gsdl "/opt/greenstone"
Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
So here's my question...where is the httpd.conf file, and how do I add this directive to it? Help!
As near as I can tell, the only thing I still need to do is add the following directive to the httpd.conf file:
ScriptAlias /gsdl/cgi-bin "/opt/greenstone/cgi-bin"
Options None
AllowOverride None
Alias /gsdl "/opt/greenstone"
Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
So here's my question...where is the httpd.conf file, and how do I add this directive to it? Help!
week 11 readings
Arms:
viewpoint analysis, a technique from software development. The idea is to identify the various stakeholders in a system and view the system from each of their viewpoints.
Before computer networks, an emphasis on the organizational viewpoint was natural. When libraries were defined by their buildings, an individual patron used a very small number of libraries, perhaps the local public library or a university library.
Interoperability research assumes that there are many digital libraries: the challenge is how to encourage collaboration among independent digital libraries with differing missions and resources
From the user's viewpoint, technology is irrelevant and organizations are of secondary importance. Separate organizations, each with their own identity, can easily become an obstacle.
For the past decade, many people have carried out research and development on separate digital libraries and technical interoperability among them. As the early work matures, it would be easy for digital libraries research to become inbred, focusing on detailed refinement of the same agenda. Alternatively, we can think of the digital library from the user's viewpoint
About twenty years ago, independent computer networks began to merge into the single unified Internet that we take for granted today. Perhaps now is the time for digital libraries to strive for the same transition, to a single Digital Library
Roush:
The digitization of the world's enormous store of library books--an effort dating to the early 1990s in the United Kingdom, the United States, and elsewhere--has been a slow, expensive, and underfunded process.
Google's efforts and others like it will force libraries and librarians to reëxamine their core principles -- including their commitment to spreading knowledge freely
some librarians are very concerned about the terms of access and are very concerned that a commercial entity will have control over materials that libraries have collected
libraries, which allow many readers to use the same book, have always enjoyed something of an exemption from copyright law. Now the mass digitization of library books threatens to make their content just as portable -- or piracy prone, depending on one's point of view -- as digital music.
libraries in the United States are gaining users, despite the advent of the Web, and that libraries are being constructed or renovated at an unprecedented rate (architect Rem Koolhaas's Seattle Central Library, for example, is the new jewel of that city's downtown)
Digitization itself, of course, is no small challenge. Scanning the pages of brittle old books at high speed without damaging them is a problem that's still being addressed, as is the question of how to store and preserve their content once it's in digital form. The Google initiative has also amplified a long-standing debate among librarians, authors, publishers, and technologists over how to guarantee the fullest possible access to digitized books, including those still under copyright
Optical character recognition (OCR) technology cannot yet interpret handwritten script, so exposing the content of these books to today's search engines requires typing their texts into separate files linked to the original images
digitization machines: a fleet of proprietary robotic cameras, still under development, that will turn the digitization of printed books into a true assembly-line process and, in theory, lower the cost to about $10 per book, compared to a minimum of $30 per book today.
Google will give each participating library a copy of the books it has digitized while keeping another for itself. Initially, Google will use its copy to augment its existing Google Print program, which mixes relevant snippets from recently published books into the usual results returned by its Web search tool.
may do whatever it likes with the digital scans of its own holdings -- as long as it doesn't share them with companies that could use them to compete with Google. Such limitations may prove uncomfortable, but most librarians say they can live with them.
free and open access is exactly what public libraries, as storehouses of printed books and periodicals, have traditionally provided. But the very fact that digital files are so much easier to share than physical books (which scares publishers just as MP3 file sharing scares record companies) could lead to limits on redistribution that prevent libraries from giving patrons as much access to their digital collections as they would like.
idea that there are some things you can exploit for commercial purposes for a certain amount of time, and then you play the open game
American Library Association is one of the loudest advocates of proposed legislation to reinforce the "fair use" provisions of federal copyright law, which entitle the public to republish portions of copyrighted works for purposes of commentary or criticism
Mass digitization may eventually force a redefinition of fair use, some librarians believe. The more public-domain literature that appears on the Web through Google Print, the greater the likelihood that citizens will demand an equitable but low-cost way to view the much larger mass of copyrighted books.
Social Aspects of Digital Libraries:
digital libraries represent a set of significant social problems that require human and technological resources to solve.
Digital libraries are a set of electronic resources and associated technical capabilities for creating, searching, and using information. In this sense they are an extension and enhancement of information storage and retrieval systems that manipulate digital data in any medium (text, images, sounds; static or dynamic images) and exist in distributed networks.
Digital libraries are constructed -- collected and organized -- by a community of users, and their functional capabilities support the information needs and uses of that community. They are a component of communities in which individuals and groups interact with each other, using data, information, and knowledge resources and systems.
While it is possible to build systems independent of human activities that will satisfy technical specifications, systems that work for people must be based on analyses of learning and other life activities. Empirical research on users should be influencing design in three ways: (1) by discovering which functionalities user communities regard as priorities; (2) by developing basic analytical categories that influence the design of system architecture; and (3) by generating integrated design processes that include empirical research and user community participation throughout the design cycle.
three themes:
Among the better understood topics at this level are the relationship between work practices and the design of systems and user interfaces; evolution, implementation, and evaluation of information technologies, especially in organizations; and user perceptions of and participation in development. A substantial body of work extending over several decades has demonstrated enduring inequities in the distribution of and access to information and related technologies across social groups.
Heterogeneous populations and applications:
Institutions/cultural objects of study
Information literacy skills:
Designing for richness:
Studies of situated use:
Design world/Content world interface:
Tools for content creators:
Making artifacts useful within a community:
Making artifacts useful to multiple communities:
Dynamic artifacts:
Hybrid digital libraries:
Professional practices and principles:
Human vs. automated indexing:
Legacy data
Hierarchies of description
Portability:
Artifactual relationships
Level of representation
Community-based development tools
Multiple interfaces
Social interfaces:
Mediating interaction:
Intelligent agents, user models:
Information presentation
Open architecture:
Development methods:
Tools for accessing and filtering information:
Participatory design:
Studying new activities
Levels of evaluation:
Iterative methods
Tailoring methods:
recommending that research be conducted on these themes, that scholars from multiple disciplines be encouraged to develop joint projects, that scholars and practitioners work together, and that digital libraries be developed and evaluated in operational, as well as experimental, work environments.
viewpoint analysis, a technique from software development. The idea is to identify the various stakeholders in a system and view the system from each of their viewpoints.
Before computer networks, an emphasis on the organizational viewpoint was natural. When libraries were defined by their buildings, an individual patron used a very small number of libraries, perhaps the local public library or a university library.
Interoperability research assumes that there are many digital libraries: the challenge is how to encourage collaboration among independent digital libraries with differing missions and resources
From the user's viewpoint, technology is irrelevant and organizations are of secondary importance. Separate organizations, each with their own identity, can easily become an obstacle.
For the past decade, many people have carried out research and development on separate digital libraries and technical interoperability among them. As the early work matures, it would be easy for digital libraries research to become inbred, focusing on detailed refinement of the same agenda. Alternatively, we can think of the digital library from the user's viewpoint
About twenty years ago, independent computer networks began to merge into the single unified Internet that we take for granted today. Perhaps now is the time for digital libraries to strive for the same transition, to a single Digital Library
Roush:
The digitization of the world's enormous store of library books--an effort dating to the early 1990s in the United Kingdom, the United States, and elsewhere--has been a slow, expensive, and underfunded process.
Google's efforts and others like it will force libraries and librarians to reëxamine their core principles -- including their commitment to spreading knowledge freely
some librarians are very concerned about the terms of access and are very concerned that a commercial entity will have control over materials that libraries have collected
libraries, which allow many readers to use the same book, have always enjoyed something of an exemption from copyright law. Now the mass digitization of library books threatens to make their content just as portable -- or piracy prone, depending on one's point of view -- as digital music.
libraries in the United States are gaining users, despite the advent of the Web, and that libraries are being constructed or renovated at an unprecedented rate (architect Rem Koolhaas's Seattle Central Library, for example, is the new jewel of that city's downtown)
Digitization itself, of course, is no small challenge. Scanning the pages of brittle old books at high speed without damaging them is a problem that's still being addressed, as is the question of how to store and preserve their content once it's in digital form. The Google initiative has also amplified a long-standing debate among librarians, authors, publishers, and technologists over how to guarantee the fullest possible access to digitized books, including those still under copyright
Optical character recognition (OCR) technology cannot yet interpret handwritten script, so exposing the content of these books to today's search engines requires typing their texts into separate files linked to the original images
digitization machines: a fleet of proprietary robotic cameras, still under development, that will turn the digitization of printed books into a true assembly-line process and, in theory, lower the cost to about $10 per book, compared to a minimum of $30 per book today.
Google will give each participating library a copy of the books it has digitized while keeping another for itself. Initially, Google will use its copy to augment its existing Google Print program, which mixes relevant snippets from recently published books into the usual results returned by its Web search tool.
may do whatever it likes with the digital scans of its own holdings -- as long as it doesn't share them with companies that could use them to compete with Google. Such limitations may prove uncomfortable, but most librarians say they can live with them.
free and open access is exactly what public libraries, as storehouses of printed books and periodicals, have traditionally provided. But the very fact that digital files are so much easier to share than physical books (which scares publishers just as MP3 file sharing scares record companies) could lead to limits on redistribution that prevent libraries from giving patrons as much access to their digital collections as they would like.
idea that there are some things you can exploit for commercial purposes for a certain amount of time, and then you play the open game
American Library Association is one of the loudest advocates of proposed legislation to reinforce the "fair use" provisions of federal copyright law, which entitle the public to republish portions of copyrighted works for purposes of commentary or criticism
Mass digitization may eventually force a redefinition of fair use, some librarians believe. The more public-domain literature that appears on the Web through Google Print, the greater the likelihood that citizens will demand an equitable but low-cost way to view the much larger mass of copyrighted books.
Social Aspects of Digital Libraries:
digital libraries represent a set of significant social problems that require human and technological resources to solve.
Digital libraries are a set of electronic resources and associated technical capabilities for creating, searching, and using information. In this sense they are an extension and enhancement of information storage and retrieval systems that manipulate digital data in any medium (text, images, sounds; static or dynamic images) and exist in distributed networks.
Digital libraries are constructed -- collected and organized -- by a community of users, and their functional capabilities support the information needs and uses of that community. They are a component of communities in which individuals and groups interact with each other, using data, information, and knowledge resources and systems.
While it is possible to build systems independent of human activities that will satisfy technical specifications, systems that work for people must be based on analyses of learning and other life activities. Empirical research on users should be influencing design in three ways: (1) by discovering which functionalities user communities regard as priorities; (2) by developing basic analytical categories that influence the design of system architecture; and (3) by generating integrated design processes that include empirical research and user community participation throughout the design cycle.
three themes:
- Human-centered research issues: a focus on people, both as individual users and as members of groups and communities, communicators, creators, users, learners, or managers of information. We are concerned with groups and communities as units of analysis as well as with individual users.
- Artifact-centered research issues: a focus on creating, organizing, representing, storing, and retrieving the artifacts of human communication.
- Systems-centered research issues: a focus on digital libraries as systems that enable interaction with these artifacts and that support related communication processes.
Among the better understood topics at this level are the relationship between work practices and the design of systems and user interfaces; evolution, implementation, and evaluation of information technologies, especially in organizations; and user perceptions of and participation in development. A substantial body of work extending over several decades has demonstrated enduring inequities in the distribution of and access to information and related technologies across social groups.
Heterogeneous populations and applications:
Institutions/cultural objects of study
Information literacy skills:
Designing for richness:
Studies of situated use:
Design world/Content world interface:
Tools for content creators:
Making artifacts useful within a community:
Making artifacts useful to multiple communities:
Dynamic artifacts:
Hybrid digital libraries:
Professional practices and principles:
Human vs. automated indexing:
Legacy data
Hierarchies of description
Portability:
Artifactual relationships
Level of representation
Community-based development tools
Multiple interfaces
Social interfaces:
Mediating interaction:
Intelligent agents, user models:
Information presentation
Open architecture:
Development methods:
Tools for accessing and filtering information:
Participatory design:
Studying new activities
Levels of evaluation:
Iterative methods
Tailoring methods:
recommending that research be conducted on these themes, that scholars from multiple disciplines be encouraged to develop joint projects, that scholars and practitioners work together, and that digital libraries be developed and evaluated in operational, as well as experimental, work environments.
week 10 muddiest point
Is there any chance that we could have some sort of lab session and go over how to use Greenstone in the lab?
Friday, November 7, 2008
reading notes, week 10
Arms ch. 8
In discussing the usability of a computer system, it is easy to focus on the design of the interface between the user and the computer, but usability is a property of the total system. All the components must work together smoothly to create an effective and convenient digital library, for both the patrons, and for the librarians and systems administrators.
In any computer system, the user interface is built on a conceptual model that describes the manner in which the system is used.
The introduction of browsers, notably Mosaic in 1993, provided a stimulus to the quality of user interfaces for networked applications.
Mobile code gives the designer of a web site the ability to create web pages that incorporate computer programs
Interface design is partly an art, but a number of general principles have emerged from recent research. Consistency is important to users, in appearance, controls, and function. Users need feedback; they need to understand what the computer system is doing and why they see certain results. They should be able to interrupt or reverse actions. Error handling should be simple and easy to comprehend. Skilled users should be offered shortcuts, while beginners have simple, well-defined options. Above all the user should feel in control.
Research into functional design provides designers with choices about what functions belong on which of the various computers and the relationships between them.
A presentation profile is an interesting concept which has recently emerged. Managers of a digital library associate guidelines with stored information. The guidelines suggest how the objects might be presented to the user. For example, the profile might recommend two ways to render an object, offering a choice of a small file size or the full detail.
Few computer systems are completely reliable and digital libraries depend upon many subsystems scattered across the Internet
Kling and Elliott
"Systems usability" refers to how well people can exploit a computer system's intended functionality. Usability can characterize any aspect of the ways that people interact with a system, even its installation and maintenance.
wo key forms of DL usability - interface and organizational. The interface dimensions are centered around an individual's effective acclimation to a user interface, while the organizational dimensions are concerned with how computer systems can be effectively integrated into work practices of specific organizations.
interface usability dimensions:
"Design for usability" is a new term that refers to the design of computer systems so that they can be effectively integrated into the work practices of specific organizations.
The usability engineering life cycle model includes these stages proposed as a paradigm for companies to follow:
Saracevic:
Usability has been used widely in digital library evaluation, but there is no uniform definition of
what does it cover in digital library context. Usability is a very general criterion that covers a lot
of ground and includes many specific criteria – it is a meta term. ISO defines usability “as the
extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with
effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use"
users have many difficulties with digital libraries, such as:
– they usually do not fully understand them
– they hold different conception of a digital library from operators or designers
– they lack familiarity with the range of capabilities, content and interactions
provided by a digital library.
– they often engage in blind alley interactions
in use, more often than not, digital library users and digital libraries are in an
adversarial position
The ultimate evaluation of digital libraries will revolve around assessing transformation of their
context – determining possible enhancing changes in institutions, learning, scholarly publishing,
disciplines, small worlds and ultimately society due to digital libraries.
Sheiderman and Plaisant
Human-Computer Interaction
Requirements analysis:
1- ascertain user needs
2- ensure proper readability
3-context of use & appropriate standardization, integration, consistency, portability
evaluation:
1- time to learn
2- speed of performance
3- rate of errors by user
4- retention over time
5- subjective satisfaction
motivations:
1- life-critical systems
2- industrial/commercial
3- office/home/entertainment
4- exploratory/creative/collaborative
5- sociotechnical
Universal Usability:
1- Variations in physical abilities & physical workplaces
2- diverse cognitive & perceptual abilities
3- personality differences
4- cultural & international diversity
5- users with disabilities
6- older adult users
7- designing for/with children
8- hardware and software diversity
In discussing the usability of a computer system, it is easy to focus on the design of the interface between the user and the computer, but usability is a property of the total system. All the components must work together smoothly to create an effective and convenient digital library, for both the patrons, and for the librarians and systems administrators.
In any computer system, the user interface is built on a conceptual model that describes the manner in which the system is used.
The introduction of browsers, notably Mosaic in 1993, provided a stimulus to the quality of user interfaces for networked applications.
Mobile code gives the designer of a web site the ability to create web pages that incorporate computer programs
Interface design is partly an art, but a number of general principles have emerged from recent research. Consistency is important to users, in appearance, controls, and function. Users need feedback; they need to understand what the computer system is doing and why they see certain results. They should be able to interrupt or reverse actions. Error handling should be simple and easy to comprehend. Skilled users should be offered shortcuts, while beginners have simple, well-defined options. Above all the user should feel in control.
Research into functional design provides designers with choices about what functions belong on which of the various computers and the relationships between them.
A presentation profile is an interesting concept which has recently emerged. Managers of a digital library associate guidelines with stored information. The guidelines suggest how the objects might be presented to the user. For example, the profile might recommend two ways to render an object, offering a choice of a small file size or the full detail.
Few computer systems are completely reliable and digital libraries depend upon many subsystems scattered across the Internet
Kling and Elliott
"Systems usability" refers to how well people can exploit a computer system's intended functionality. Usability can characterize any aspect of the ways that people interact with a system, even its installation and maintenance.
wo key forms of DL usability - interface and organizational. The interface dimensions are centered around an individual's effective acclimation to a user interface, while the organizational dimensions are concerned with how computer systems can be effectively integrated into work practices of specific organizations.
interface usability dimensions:
1. Learnability - Ease of learning such that the user can quickly begin using it.
2. Efficiency - Ability of user to use the system with high level of productivity.
3. Memorability - Capability of user to easily remember how to use the system after not using it for some period.
4. Errors - System should have low error rate with few user errors and easy recovery from them. Also no catastrophic errors.
organizational usability dimensions include:
1. Accessibility - Ease with which people can locate specific computer systems, gain physical access and electronic access to their electronic corpuses. This dimension refers to both physical proximity and administrative/social restrictions on using specific systems.
2. Compatibility - Level of compatibility of file transfers from system to system.
3. Integrability into work practices - How smoothly the system fits into a person or group's work practices.
4. Social-organizational expertise - The extent to which people can obtain training and consulting to learn to use systems and can find help with problems in usage.
A great deal of people's satisfaction is influenced by the size and content of the corpus of a DL service"Design for usability" is a new term that refers to the design of computer systems so that they can be effectively integrated into the work practices of specific organizations.
The usability engineering life cycle model includes these stages proposed as a paradigm for companies to follow:
1. Know the user - Study intended users and use of the product. At a minimum, visit customer site to study user's current and desired tasks, and to understand the evolution of the user and the job.
2. Competitive analysis - Analyze existing products according to usability guidelines and perform user tests with products.
3. Setting usability goals - Establish minimal acceptable level of usability and estimate the financial impact on cost of users' time.
4. Parallel design - Use several designers to explore different design alternatives before deciding on one final design.
5. Participatory design - Include end-users throughout design phase.
6. Coordinated design of the total interface - Maintain consistency across screen layouts, documentation, on-line help systems, and tutorials.
7. Apply guidelines and heuristic analysis - Select user interface guideline appropriate for situation.
8. Prototyping - Build prototype to pretest on end-users.
9. Empirical testing - Test end-users on specific usability attributes.
10. Iterative design - Capture design rationale through iterative testing and design.
11. Collect feedback from field use - Gather usability work from field studies for future design.
The organizationally sensitive model of "design for usability" is a new model. It refers to the design of computer systems so that they can be effectively integrated into the work practices of specific organizations. It goes beyond the focus on user interfaces. "Design for usability" includes the infrastructure of computing resources which are necessary for supporting and accommodating people as they learn to maintain and use systems. "Design for usability" encourages system designers either to accommodate to end-users' mix of skills, work practices, and resources or to try to alter them
Saracevic:
Usability has been used widely in digital library evaluation, but there is no uniform definition of
what does it cover in digital library context. Usability is a very general criterion that covers a lot
of ground and includes many specific criteria – it is a meta term. ISO defines usability “as the
extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with
effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use"
users have many difficulties with digital libraries, such as:
– they usually do not fully understand them
– they hold different conception of a digital library from operators or designers
– they lack familiarity with the range of capabilities, content and interactions
provided by a digital library.
– they often engage in blind alley interactions
in use, more often than not, digital library users and digital libraries are in an
adversarial position
The ultimate evaluation of digital libraries will revolve around assessing transformation of their
context – determining possible enhancing changes in institutions, learning, scholarly publishing,
disciplines, small worlds and ultimately society due to digital libraries.
Sheiderman and Plaisant
Human-Computer Interaction
Requirements analysis:
1- ascertain user needs
2- ensure proper readability
3-context of use & appropriate standardization, integration, consistency, portability
evaluation:
1- time to learn
2- speed of performance
3- rate of errors by user
4- retention over time
5- subjective satisfaction
motivations:
1- life-critical systems
2- industrial/commercial
3- office/home/entertainment
4- exploratory/creative/collaborative
5- sociotechnical
Universal Usability:
1- Variations in physical abilities & physical workplaces
2- diverse cognitive & perceptual abilities
3- personality differences
4- cultural & international diversity
5- users with disabilities
6- older adult users
7- designing for/with children
8- hardware and software diversity
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