Adaptive System Design: Repurposing Museum Content for different User Groups UCLAPacific Bell Initia

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Adaptive System DesignRepurposing Museum
Content for different User GroupsUCLA/Pacific
Bell Initiative for 21st Century Literacies

• Howard Besser
• UCLA School of Education Information
• http//www.newliteracies.gseis.ucla.edu/
• http//www.gseis.ucla.edu/howard/

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Adaptive System DesignRepurposing Museum
Content for different User Groups-

• History, underlying problem/issue
• MOAC
• UCLA/CDL Approach using Adaptive Systems
• Repurposing Other Content

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History, underlying problem/issue

• Different ways in which we treat info for
  internal management vs. visitor access-

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Besser, Howard (1997). The Transformation of the
Museum and the way its Perceived, in Katherine
Jones-Garmil (ed.), The Wired Museum, Washington
American Association of Museums, pages 153-169
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Museum Online Archive of California (MOAC)

• Difficulty of merging records from very
  different museums
• Leverage external standards and
  software/processing development
• Adoption of EAD and Finding Aid approach
• Examples Limitations from MOAC sites-

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Examples Limitationsfrom MOAC sites-
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John Sutter (no results) Sutter (ambiguous
results)
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UCLA/Pacbell Approach Adaptive Systems

• Profiles for particular user groups (4th grade
  students, 12th graders, teachers, historians)
• Different user interface, navigation, and
  vocabulary for each user group
• Only some groups will see the full Finding Aid
  structure, but all will see brief context

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UCLA/Pacific Bell Initiative for 21st Century
Literacies

• The User
• Summit
• Policy
• Design Issues Adaptive Systems
• The Problem and Issues-

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21st Century Literacies

• Information Literacy
• Visual Literacy
• Media Literacy
• Cultural Literacy
• ...

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The Problem and Issues

• If we solve Access Problem (technology,
  bandwidth, training), other impediments to an
  informed citizenry still remain
• Need critical evaluation of resources
  (reliability, authoritativeness, thoroughness,
  recency)
• Need skills to pare down from information
  overload
• Need critical thinking skills
• Need to deal with different users having
  different backgrounds and capabilities

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Design Issues

• Examine factors that inhibit efficient and
  effective use of an information system
• Examine how best to design systems to match the
  literacy levels, technological capabilities, and
  other characteristics of the user
• Principles, Practices, and Guidelines for Good
  Design for Facilitating Access (screen design,
  searching navigation, metadata description,
  info structures organization, usability
  testing, )
• Build Adaptive Systems

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Possible Good Design Principles

• Dont disenfranchise users who have slow
  processors, older browsers, low bandwidth, visual
  impairment, etc.
• Clearly note the recency of any information
  resource
• Make sure that a user can easily determine what
  organization/agency created or contributed to an
  information resource

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Our Resources related toGood Design Principles

• Screen Design - The visual design of the screen
  can impact usability. Color, font, the use of
  images, and layout of screen elements are
  essential design components.
• Searching and Navigation - Ease of navigation and
  search/browsing options are critical components
  of usability.
• Metadata and Description - Good metadata and site
  description will help users find the appropriate
  website.
• Information Structures and Organization - How
  information is organized and categorized shapes
  access. For systems with an underlying searchable
  database, the structure of the database itself
  will determine the outcome of searches.
• Usability Testing - Includes resources on how to
  evaluate sites and on testing for usability.

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Build Adaptive Systems

• Build Systems that adapt the same back-end
  information to different user profiles (different
  knowledge bases, different technical
  capabilities, different cognitive structures)
• User profiles may include advanced researcher in
  a particular subject area, general undergraduate
  student, high school student,
• Different profiles will need different user
  interfaces, navigation, searching vocabulary,
  file formats and sizes, ...

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• Design
• User Interface
• Navigation
• Browse
• Search
• Efficient bandwidth use

User Profiles Combination of dimensions and
purpose

• Content
• Mark-up
• Various metadata
• Protection features

knowledge base
Technological capibilities

• Design functional examples
• Differing screen arrangements
• Differing functional options
• Vocabulary mapping
• Diminishing image size

Age
language/culture
Dimensions

• Purpose
• Casual user
• K12 student, lifelong learner
• Information/hobby
• Scholar/preservation
• Business
• (Colorado Dig Proj)
• Cultural tourist
• Casual user
• Scholar
• (CIMI)

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Adaptive Systemswhat theyll do

• Can serve different audiences (general public,
  purposeful inquirer cultural tourist, domain
  specialist)
• Each profile audience will
• see a level of discourse addressed to them
• experience a user interface appropriate to their
  profile
• use vocabulary they are familiar with
• Yet all will be using the same back-end set of
  information

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Adaptive Systemshow theyll work

• Passing search terms through a thesaurus to map
  specialist vocabulary to/from vernacular
• Adapting vocabulary from curatorial language into
  common discourse development of markup
  extensions to EAD/CIMI/CIDOC to allow description
  for different audiences
• In general, specialized users will experience
  more text-based interfaces, while general users
  will experience more graphic/visual interfaces

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Adaptive Systemsdevelopment plan

• Research and experimentation
• Profile several different user communities
• Create an additional information delivery system
  and compare user utility between it and prior
  system
• Demonstrate the utility of this approach (proof
  of concept) for further research and design

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Joint CDL/UCLA project

• Use OAC/MOAC and/or JARDA (concentrating on
  images and Finding Aids that include images)
• Profile and construct a series of different
  front-ends for different audiences
• Front-ends-
• Target Audiences-
• Evaluate

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Profile and construct a series of different
front-ends for different audiencesFront-ends to
include

• Screen design for searching and for display
• Browsing, probably with some high-level
  categorization/grouping
• Searching
• Possibly vocabulary mapped through thesauri

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Profile and construct a series of different
front-ends for different audiencesTarget
audiences might include

• 4th grade students
• 12th grade students
• 4th grade teachers
• 12th grade teachers
• University faculty
• Some people outside the history/social studies
  sector

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Adaptive Systems Tentative Timeline

• Winter 2002
• Explore literature on interface and searching
  issues (CO data, CIMI, kids)
• Begin working with 12th and 4th grade teachers
• Begin discussions with CDL programmers
• Spring 2002
• Pre-test various groups with conventional EAD
  interface
• Mock up and begin testing interface screens and
  searching strategies
• Summer 2002
• Preliminary implementation and pre-test
• Fall 2002
• Further implementation, full testing, and
  evaluation

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What does this all mean forMuseum Professionals?

• Feasibility of Adaptive Systems that deliver the
  same back-end info tailored to different sets of
  user needs

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Repurposing Other Content

• Content from Howards classes--
• http//www.gseis.ucla.edu/howard/repurposing.html

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Adaptive System DesignRepurposing Museum
Content for different User GroupsUCLA/Pacific
Bell Initiative for 21st Century Literacies

• Howard Besser
• UCLA School of Education Information
• http//www.newliteracies.gseis.ucla.edu/
• http//www.gseis.ucla.edu/howard/repurposing.html
  
• Besser, Howard (1997). The Transformation of the
  Museum and the way its Perceived, in Katherine
  Jones-Garmil (ed.), The Wired Museum, Washington
  American Association of Museums, pages 153-169

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