This research is an effort to test our hypothesis that a software agent based architecture will provide a better response time and will be more maintainable and reusable than the present J2EE based architecture of DLNET (Digital Library Network for Engineering and Technology). We have taken a portion of the complete DLNET application for our study, namely the Content Review Process, as our test bed. In this work, we have explored the use of software agents in the current setup of DLNET for the first time, specifically for the Content Review part of the application and tried to evaluate the performance of the resulting application. Our work is a novel approach of doing content review using software agent architecture. The proposed system is an automated process that will asynchronously look for suitable reviewers based on content (the input) and create logs for the administrator to view and analyze. In the first part of the thesis we develop a new system that is parallel to the existing DLNET Content Review Process. In the second part, we compare the newly developed Content Review Process with the baseline (old Content review Process) by designing comparison tests and measuring instruments. This part of the thesis includes the selection of dependent variables, design of various measurement instruments, execution of the quasi-experiments and analysis of the empirical results of comparisons tests. The quasi-experiments are done to measure the response time, maintainability, scalability, correctness, reliability and reusability of the two systems. The results show that the proposed software agent based system gives better response time (an improvement ranging from 57% to 82%) and is more maintainable (an improvement ranging from 16% to 67%) and more reusable (an improvement ranging from 1% to 26%). The improvement in the response time may be attributed to the fact that the agent based systems are inherently multithreaded while the existing content review system is a serial application. Both the systems, however, give comparable results for other dependent variables. / Master of Science

Archeological research embracing complex Information Technology techniques can result in vast quantities of heterogeneous information from different sites in different formats. ETANA-DL is an Archeological Digital Library (DL), providing services suited for the archeological domain. With a growing collection of records in the DL, it is a challenge to present them in an organized and meaningful way. We have designed a new visual browsing interface called ETANA-CMV that aims to provide users a richer and more insightful browsing experience. ETANA-CMV allows users to navigate through the records in ETANA-DL that are multidimensional, hierarchical, and categorical in nature. ETANA-CMV was designed to be scalable, flexible, and easy to learn. This interface employs a data cube based browsing index to counter performance issues that usually limit the interactivity of visual browsing interfaces to DLs. The interface has been integrated with the existing Browse Interface and the search service in ETANA-DL. Formative evaluation of the new visual interface led to several improvements in the interface. It appears that users were able to detect trends in the DL collections more accurately using visualization based strategies than with the existing textual browse interface. / Master of Science

Schema mapping is a challenging problem. It has come to the fore in recent years; there are important applications like database schema integration and, more recently, digital library (DL) merging of heterogeneous data. With Schema Mapper we demonstrate a semi-automatic tool for schema integration that combines a novel visual interface with an algorithm-based recommendation engine. We use ETANA-DL, a digital library developed to support integration of data from Near Eastern archaeology sites, as we explore integrating new collections. Schemas are visualized as hyperbolic trees, thus allowing more schema nodes to be displayed at one time. Matches to selections are recommended to the user, which makes the mapping operation easier and faster. Once the user has completed the mapping operation, a wrapper (XSLT Style Sheet) is created automatically with the mappings which can be applied to transform source XML files into target XML files. Schema Mapper allows editing the target schema as part of the process of incremental enrichment of the target schema. This involves operations like adding a node as a child, renaming a node, and deleting a node. The changes to the target schema also can be logged to disk. Schema Mapper has been applied to integrate the Megiddo Collection successfully into the ETANA-DL Union Catalog. It also has been applied for data-level mapping, to ensure consistency of data representation to the users who access the information through services provided by the DL. Formative evaluation and a preliminary comparison with MapForce suggest that Schema Mapper may be usefully employed for schema mapping. / Master of Science

The high demand for building digital libraries by non-experts requires a simplified modeling process and rapid generation of digital libraries. To enable rapid generation, digital libraries should be modeled with descriptive languages. A visual modeling tool would be helpful to non-experts so they may model a digital library without knowing the theoretical foundations and the syntactical details of the descriptive language. In this thesis, we describe the design and implementation of a domain-specific visual modeling tool, 5SGraph, aimed at modeling digital libraries. 5SGraph is based on a metamodel that describes digital libraries using the 5S theory. The output from 5SGraph is a digital library model that is an instance of the metamodel, expressed in the 5S description language (5SL). 5SGraph presents the metamodel in a structured toolbox, and provides a top-down visual building environment for designers. The visual proximity of the metamodel and instance model facilitates requirements gathering and simplifies the modeling process. Furthermore, 5SGraph maintains semantic constraints specified by the 5S metamodel and enforces these constraints over the instance model to ensure semantic consistency and correctness. 5SGraph enables component reuse to reduce the time and efforts of designers. The results from a pilot usability test confirm the usefulness of 5SGraph. / Master of Science

With the enormous amount of information being created digitally or converted to digital formats and made available through Digital Libraries (DLs), there is a strong demand for building tailored DL services to attend the preferences and needs of diverse targeted communities. However,construction and adaptation of such services takes significant effort when not assisted by methodologies, tools, and environments that support the complete life cycle of DL development,including requirements gathering, conceptual modeling, rapid prototyping, and code generation/reuse. With current systems, these activities are only partially supported, generally in an uncorrelated way that may lead to inconsistencies and incompleteness. Moreover, such existing approaches are not buttressed by comprehensive and formal foundations and theories. To address these issues we describe the development, implementation, and deployment of a new generic digital library generator yielding implementations of digital library services from models of DL "societies" and "scenarios". The distinct aspects of our solution are: 1) an approach based on a formal, theoretical framework; 2) use of state-of-the-art database and software engineering techniques such as domain-specific declarative languages, scenario-synthesis, and componentized and model-driven architectures; 3) analysis centered on scenario-based design and DL societal relationships; 4) automatic transformations and mappings from scenarios to workflow designs and from these to Java implementations; and 5) special attention paid to issues of simplicity of implementation, modularity, reusability, and extensibility. We demonstrate the feasibility of the approach through a number of examples. / Master of Science

This study explored and described decision factors related to technology adoption. The research used diffusion of innovations and communities of practice (CoP) theoretical frameworks and a case study of Web services technology in the digital library (DL) environment to develop an understanding of the decision-making process. A qualitative case study approach was used to investigate the research problems and data were collected through semi-structured interviews, documentary evidence (e.g., meeting minutes), and a comprehensive member check. The research conducted face-to-face and phone interviews with seven respondents with different job titles (administraive vs. technical) from five different DL programs selected based on distinctive characteristics such as size of the DL program. Findings of the research suggested that the decision-making process is a complex process in which a number of factors are considered when making technology adoption decisions. These factors are categorized as organizational, individual, and technology specific factors. Further, data showed that DL CoPs played an important role in enabling staff members of a DL program to access up-to-date and experienced-based knowledge, provided a distributed problem solving and learning environment, facilitating informal communication and collaborative activities, and informing the decision-making process.

State digital libraries are manifestations of the diffusion of technology that has provided both access to and delivery of digital content. Whether the content is being accessed and used equitably in K-12 schools has not been assessed. Determining patterns of the diffusion of use across socioeconomic groups in K-12 schools may help measure the success of existing efforts to provide equitable access and use of digital content, and help guide policies and implementation to more effectively address remaining disparities. This study examined use of the Connecticut Digital Library (ICONN) in K-12 schools in Connecticut by determining annual patterns of use per school/district over a four-year period, using transaction log search statistics. The data were analyzed in the paradigm that Rogers (2003) describes as the first and second dimensions of the consequences of an innovation - the overall growth and the equality of the diffusion to individuals within an intended audience --- in this case, students in K-12 schools. Data were compared by school district and the established socioeconomic District Reference Groups (DRGs) defined by the Connecticut State Board of Education. At the time of this study, ICONN used aggregate data (total searches) for K-12 schools, but did not have relevant data on diffusion within the public schools in Connecticut related to district or DRGs.

This study investigates a semi-automatic method for creation of topical labels representing the topical concepts in information objects. The method is called rotated latent semantic indexing (rLSI). rLSI has found application in text mining but has not been used for topical labels generation in digital libraries (DLs). The present study proposes a theoretical model and an evaluation framework which are based on the LSA theory of meaning and investigates rLSI in a DL environment. The proposed evaluation framework for rLSI topical labels is focused on human-information search behavior and satisfaction measures. The experimental systems that utilize those topical labels were built for the purposes of evaluating user satisfaction with the search process. A new instrument was developed for this study and the experiment showed high reliability of the measurement scales and confirmed the construct validity. Data was collected through the information search tasks performed by 122 participants using two experimental systems. A quantitative method of analysis, partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), was used to test a set of research hypotheses and to answer research questions. The results showed a not significant, indirect effect of topical label type on both guidance and satisfaction. The conclusion of the study is that topical labels generated using rLSI provide the same levels of alignment, guidance, and satisfaction with the search process as topical labels created by the professional indexers using best practices.

Advances in Internet technologies have made it seemingly possible and easy to create digital collections, repositories and libraries. However, supporting diverse information uses that facilitate interaction beyond searching and browsing is in the early stages. Interactive digital libraries, or interactional digital libraries as we prefer to call them, are still evolving. This special issue tries to bring together work that is being done to incorporate interactivity in digital libraries.

The "digital library" (DL) is a communication technology that has the potential to improve communication by removing temporal and geographic barriers and by introducing interactivity. This research focused on the adoption of digital libraries for electronic theses and dissertations (ETD-DL) at universities worldwide. ETD-DLs provide a means for universities to learn about implementing digital libraries in a networked environment.This research used diffusion of innovation theory to explore what has influenced ETD-DL adoption among Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) member universities. Communication channels were categorized as being either interpersonal or mediated. The perceived importance of these channels was assessed both within and between organizations. Although ETD-DL adoption is an organizational level decision it has implications for both the university and members of the university community. In some cases, these outcomes may be in conflict; for example, what is best for the organization may result in complications for an individual. Therefore the perceived importance of two innovation attributes, relative advantage and compatibility, were examined at both the collective and individual level.This study employed a web-based survey to collect data from the 133 universities in 26 countries that were NDLTD members in December 2002. Respondents were members of the university's "ETD Committee" and represented academic administrators, faculty, librarians, and computer systemsspecialists. Surveys were received from 95 respondents representing 65 universities in 14 countries. Twenty-one of these universities were outside the United States. Universities were from countries with a wide range of economic development.Results provide insights into university attitudes towards a technological innovation for knowledge dissemination. For example, results suggest that interpersonal channels of communication are more important than mediated channels within the organization. Additionally, interpersonal channels are more important for communication within the organization than between organizations. However, mediated channels of communication are more important for those universities that have decided to adopt the ETD-DL but have not yet implemented the union catalog or self-archiving options. There were also significant differences in the importance attributed to these channels by individuals in different jobs. The results also suggest strategies that could encourage development of digital libraries within a social system.