1
Zdravko Tyankov
INFO 110
04/05/200
The Social Summary Maker
(Conceptual Design)
Introduction:
There are many tasks that a researcher needs to go through in order to complete his work. Searching for online research material is on top of the list by importance and time consumption. Relevant research material can provide a solid ground for any project. But in order to find, whatever you’re looking for, you need to go through a long list of results that is usually returned from one of the major online search engines – Google or Yahoo. While it is possible, if you have the extra time, to go through and have a glimpse at many of those sources, usually there is a time constraint which you need to meet. In order to make the search for project material easier and more efficient I propose a new technology called ‘The Social Summary Maker’. First I’ll go over its basics and later on I’ll describe the ‘Social’ aspect that can be derived by the integration of Web 2.0 features.
“The Summary Maker” basics:
This technology in its raw form is able to take an online research material, which varies in length, analyze it and return a summary. The system basically provides a search engine, a way to analyze and summarize different kinds of written text and a way to save the results. A lot of customization options are provided. This allows the user to select a format and length for each individual or all summaries. Also the user can chose what information needs to be saved. A bibliography is usually always present. This makes it easier to go through and look through the summaries and the full articles when needed.
Use Case Description:
A researcher starts using the system for his new project. He goes into the system, enters the title of the research material that he’s looking for and presses “Search”. The system processes his input and returns results in the form - paper title, author, date of publication, source, and text type (full text or an excerpt). These are initially sorted by “Relevance Percentage” based on the text that he is searching for. The sorting method can be changed according to user’s preference. He skims through the entries and marks those that he believes are important for his research. Next the researcher needs to decide whether he wants to make a summary for each text or keep some of the excerpts that might have been returned. Next step is to select the size of the summaries. These options will be based on percentage of the original text. When all customizations, regarding the summaries, are done he has to click ‘Summarize’. The system processes the text and returns well formatted summaries for the selected articles. The final step is to decide if the user wants to save all summaries and links to a file, just to open the summaries or to open and print all summaries. A proper bibliography will be generated for each of these options. It will contain a link to the source of each article and basic information about it. The links will be usefully sorted in alphabetical order. In case that the information needs to be saved, it is written to a flat file.
Use Case Conclusions:
In just a couple of minutes ‘The Summary Maker’ provides a researcher with more than enough summarized information for his project. This system can save a lot of time and effort for novice and veteran researchers. This technology is entirely based on the Web 1.0 model. The user’s main goal is to find, access data and format the results. This read-only environment cannot provide a higher level of interaction to its users. Yes, it can serve its purpose as it is, but it can be so much better, if the Web 2.0 model is incorporated. From a system with centralized information it can become a system with highly-dynamic content, driven by its users.
Web 2.0 Introduction:
Web 2.0 is a buzz-word for everything that is currently getting popular on the web. There are many definitions for this model. While they all look different they seem to propose the same main idea – a set of services and technologies which allow the user to interact, share and actively participate in the formation of the web content. A major difference between the two models, Web 1.0 and Web 2.0, is that in the first one, users are looking for information and in the second one they’re looking for experience. The only way to keep up with users’ interests and likings is to let them drive the system. Look at Open-Source code software for example. A company offers the main structure for the software and creates a code base which allows the users to contribute, to invent and to add new features. The point is that the users, who’re using the system, know what they need. Therefore they work on those very things. This is what makes open-source so popular. Users can freely develop and incorporate their ideas in the programs they like.
There are many companies out there who provide closed-source software. Many of them are doing great as they are, but at some point they should also allow their users to create on their own. In essence you need to make a system flexible enough so it can allow its users to explore their ideas.
Web 2.0 is a read and write model which works through sharing. It offers visibility. Web content is dynamic and very interactive. This model adds a very important social aspect to web surfing. To a certain extent it places the grounds for a social revolution. Take Facebook or MySpace for example. These two web portals offer services which have changed the way people communicate online. They provide an environment for easy sharing of information and meeting up with friends from all over the world. There anyone can stay unique in his own way. These virtual societies are a place where people regularly gather and interact with each other. Web masters are no longer the only people to modify web content. Visitors have also become responsible for keeping web content up to date. This forms a collaborative effort to expand internet services and technologies.
Web 1.0 VS Web 2.0:
To emphasize on the difference between the two models I’d like to offer three examples:
Web 1.0 / Web 2.0DoubleClick / Google AdSense
Kodakexpress / Flickr
Akamai / BitTorrent
Source 1: #1 - O’Reilly, Tim – “What is Web 2.0”
Source 2: #4.1 – User: jutecht – “Web 2.0”
On one hand with “Double Click” the user has to select the advertisements to put on his website. On the other hand “Google AdSense” reads your site and then makes recommendations for advertisements based on its findings. This makes for a very refined way of dynamically changing the advertisements on your website. A change or expansion of the content will be reflected in the types of advertisements that are offered on your website.
On “KodakExpress” you can upload your photos and get them printed. That works well, but on “Flickr” all users upload and share photos. This makes for a very social community, in which people upload, share and evaluate photos. This adds a whole different level of interactivity. It makes users go back to Flickr on regular basis. In addition to that anyone can print any photo he likes.
The server based sharing solutions like “Akamai” provide high speed access to files and central websites which are in high-demand. They collect revenue from the visits to those websites. In order to expand a solution of this kind you need to buy more servers and upgrade the technology base very often in order to meet the ever rising requirements for speed and bandwidth. At the same time “BitTorrent”, a pioneer in the Peer-to-Peer network sharing, offers a cheap solution where every user’s computer works as a server. This approach decentralizes web content by separating each file in small fragments and allows people to download those fragments from different users. The high demand for a certain file makes it easier to access, because there are many users who provide bandwidth for it. This “demonstrates a key principle of Web 2.0: the service automatically gets better the more people use it.” (O’Reilly, Tim – “What is Web 2.0”).
“The Social Summary Maker” = “The Summary Maker” + Web 2.0:
Now imagine what a great system can be developed if we merge “The Summary Maker” with some of the key Web 2.0 features and services. It will be a new type of tool, one that can provide a high level of interaction, highly dynamic content and a solid environment for sharing and collaboration. In order to make a smooth transition from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 we’ll keep all of the main features and add new ones. Here are some of the additions:
Profiles:
For starters each user will be entitled to a profile. It will be created during the first use of the system. This profile is going to have three sections. First one contains some brief information about the user - username, real name, country of residence and preferred languages. Second one contains history of research topics that he’s worked on and his area of expertise. Third, and final one, includes the user’s personal rating and any critiques or comments sent by other users. All of the above information will be required upon registration but for the purpose of transparency the user will be given the option to keep it all private. This information will be very important for some of the internal actions that the system will need to perform in order to incorporate the various Web 2.0 features. Only the username and the personal rating will always be visible to everyone. They will be used as a user’s signature.
Comments, Critiques and Evaluations:
Each user’s profile will be inter-connected to the user’s contributions to the system in the form of comments, critiques and evaluations. When a user is done with his work on a given article or its summary, he’ll be asked to submit a brief survey about his experience with the system-generated material. Basically he’ll have to rate the relevance of the material and the importance to his work. In addition the researcher will have to state what project or area of study this material is relevant for. He can either enter the title of the project or some of the key terms that are used throughout the project. The final step of the evaluation will ask the user to recommend, if possible, this material to a specific area of study or another project. As an optional step the user will also able to enter comments or critiques on the article. These can prove useful for other users who might have to use the same material. All of this information will be stored in a well structured database. Later on it will be used for cross-referencing of material. Most often than not if a user finds an important research material based on another researcher’s review or critique, he is willing to spend 30 seconds to leave feedback on the that user’s profile. The client will be able to leave a comment and/or rate the user, whose recommendations he has used in his search. This will boost the personal ranking system and make it far more useful. All of the above features add a completely new aspect to the system. From a search engine with decentralized information it becomes a place where people can meet up, interact and share experience. This is a system that will be modified and updated by its users and for its users. This, on its own, is another one of the main ideas behind Web 2.0.
Cross-Referencing:
User input drives another feature of this new modern system - cross-referencing of various articles/summaries. In the previous paragraph I stated that each user will have to fill out a survey about his experience when he’s done with a given piece of material. The information from this survey will be used as basis for the creation of connections among various materials. This will also make way for system-generated recommendations based on what the user is looking for. Unfortunately people can be misleading at times and they may be unable to provide 100% correct information. Therefore the researcher will be given the option to disregard some or all of the recommendations that are presented to him. There will be four available options:
a)include all recommendations, both system and user made;
b)include partial recommendations, only from users with high personal rating;
c)include only system generated recommendations
d)disregard all recommendations and look for material on your own.
This service will start small and grow based on user demands. If given research material or topic is important to many people at the same time, it will be reviewed by more users and will allow many others to benefit from all evaluations, comments and critiques. This will push the system to make interconnections among a lot of topics and materials.
Online Deposit box:
To improve on online collaboration and sharing we’ll need a service which will allow all users to save their findings in an online deposit box. Saving everything on a flat file can be useful but it’s not very flexible. Why? Because it will basically require you to have a flash drive on you all the time or have you save all your research materials in a word file and send it to your e-mail box. The online deposit box will save the researchers’ work automatically and on regular basis. In order to save space it will be dealing only with the bibliography for a given search and the specifications for the summaries on all articles included in the bibliography. When a user decides to look through the material from two years ago, he’ll be able to load the bibliography that he’s used and make the system generate the summaries on the fly. Many of the most frequently used summaries will be saved on online servers. This will allow for faster loading times. Another major feature of the online deposit box will be the ability to share research material with others. Of course if a researcher wants his current work to be private, he’ll be given the opportunity to do that.
Conclusion:
“The Social Summary Maker” is a system which will save time and effort to many people who’re looking for research material online. Not only will it provide a fast way of finding relevant information but it will also give the means for analyzing, summarizing and saving of all findings. It will also allow the user to skim through a long list of returned articles and find those that he is interested in, just by looking at users’ comments, evaluations and critiques. In addition it has the potential of becoming a meeting place for people who tend to get involved in various online researches. Users’ contribution to the system will make it easier for everyone to find what they’re looking for in shorter periods of time. The evaluation of other researchers’ contributions will boost their personal ratings and allow for many of them to become valuable members of online research communities.
There are many other features, offered by the Web 2.0 model, which can make a difference in an online research community. Many new ones are probably being worked on as we speak. This makes me think that the faster all online systems move from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, the faster users and programmers will be able to collaborate on figuring out a way to get the online experience to an even higher level.
Bibliography:
#1 –O’Reilly, Tim – “What is Web 2.0”, posted on 30 Sep 2005
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#2 - Conry-Murray, Andrew - "5 Keys To Social Networking Success" - InformationWeek, posted on 28 Aug 2007
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2007/08/5_keys_to_socia.html
#3 – Wikipedia
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#4 – You Tube Videos:
#4.1 – User: jutecht - “Web 2.0” – posted on March 08, 2006
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#4.2 – User: WadaTripp - “Webvolution” – posted on May 04, 2007
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#4.3 – User: flexbeta - “What is Web 2.0?” – posted on September 10, 2006
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