Information access and personalization (WP2)

Cluster homepage | List of publications

Cluster objectives

Information stored in digital libraries needs to be accessed, integrated and individualized for any user anytime and anywhere in possibly multiple comprehensive and efficient ways. Within Delos, Information Access in Digital Libraries is studied from three different aspects:

• Information Access: interaction with a single information provider
  Information stored in a source comes in different types and formats, each one with its own characteristics and particularities. Organization of data within an individual source and efficient and effective search are the key issues and are actually highly interrelated to each other. Different approaches exist but there is a general trend towards richer representations and languages both at the structural and at the semantic level.
• Information Integration: interaction with multiple information providers
  Integrated access of different sources presents specialized problems due to information heterogeneity, redundancy etc. Issues such as source selection and results fusion must be considered under different possible settings. Data provenance is often crucial to the trust that is placed in data, hence it should be managed based on sound formulation.
• Personalization: customization of information and interaction to user
  Different users have different characteristics and preferences concerning the information they are interested in seeing when accessing a digital library. Even users sharing a common information need may expect different results, different functionality or different interface. Moreover, the relevant contents and interface of a digital library may be dependent on other factors as well, e.g. device or network-specific.

The cluster's objectives with respect to the aforementioned aspects are the following:

1. Promotion of knowledge about available practices in the fields of information access and personalization in digital libraries is the first goal pursued. This will lead to a uniform understanding of problems among researchers.

2. Construction of a common, comprehensive framework for information access and personalization approaches is essential. This framework is intended to serve as a reference point for the DL area and to stimulate research.

3. Promotion of research on new information access and personalization models and methodologies.

Cluster activities

The cluster's activities with respect to information access, integration and personalization are very coarsely organised into the following categories:

- Collection, study, and comparison of models, languages and algorithms for data, metadata, and queries with respect to information access and integration

- Collection, study, and comparison of user-profile models and various forms of content and interaction personalization

- Integration of the most effective approaches to information access, integration, and personalization and derivation of new ones

- Development of toolkits and systems for purposes of re-use and demonstration of proposed methods and models

Expected results

The expected results of the above activities include the provision of theoretical framework and understanding concerning the three major problem areas of the cluster's charter, i.e., Information Access, Information Integration and Personalization. This will further facilitate cooperation among individual research groups leading to the development of prototype systems and toolkits with the purpose of integration, improvement and evaluation of existing approaches. Finally novel techniques will be devised, advancing the state of the art in the respective areas.

Cluster report in DELOS Newsletter, Issue 1, April 2004
  
Cluster report in DELOS Newsletter, Issue 2, October 2004
  
Cluster report in DELOS Newsletter, Issue 3, June 2005

Cluster coordinator

Yannis Ioannidis
University of Athens