Current Projects

The Scholar's Box: An Overview

The Interactive University aims to engage the academic core of the campus -- faculty, academic departments, organized research units, libraries, and research museums -- in using technology to structure content so that it can add value to teaching, research, and public service. A key means of structuring content will be to create and use XML-based digital objects. The IU is building the Berkeley Open Learning Environment (B-OLE) for the sharing and creating of digital objects both on and off the campus.

A key component of the B-OLE is the Scholar's Box that will enable faculty, students, and the public to create, manipulate, annotate, and share personal collections of digital cultural objects gathered from multiple digital repositories -- core activities in both scholarship and teaching. In creating ideas, developing presentations, sifting through evidence, researching papers, or compiling readers, scholars build de facto collections from which they create their desired product. Gathering, manipulating, organizing, annotating, and sharing personal collections of cultural objects is also a core activity that can support many teaching and learning practices and styles. Ideally, the Scholar's Box would enable users to draw upon multiple sources in seamless, integrated ways regardless of underlying protocols and data/metadata encoding schemes.

Architecture and design of the Scholar's Box

We seek an architecture that is flexible, extensible, and portable to support the functionality of the Scholar's Box. In developing the Scholar's Box we will build concrete applications and an abstraction framework from which any concrete implementation can be built.

Currently, we are writing a functional specification of the Scholar's Box which will describe the functionality of the Scholar's Box, the architecture needed to support that functionality, and technical wiring for implementing the architecture.

Prototyping of the Scholar's Box

While creating the architecture and design of the Scholar's Box, we are also developing prototypes. We aim to touch on a broad range of architectural issues first and then deepen functionality of various pieces.

We are currently working on a web-based image album interface that allows users to access and collect images (with metadata). Images are to come from various collections (primarily METS based sources). The user can make albums and do simple annotations of these images in the slide show. Specifically, some sources of images that we are considering include: California Digital Library, UCB Library and Art Museum, Amazon, METS repositories.

After getting the image-based prototype working, the next step would be to generalize album interface to gather HTML chunks, parts of METS objects, bibliographic references and URLs.

Collaboration with the California Digital Library

We are about to launch a joint project between the California Digital Library (CDL) and the Interactive University Project (IU) to explore approaches for opening the resources of the CDL to current and new audiences via second generation web technologies, especially through the Scholar's Box. In this project, we will explore connections between the CDL, its end-users, and key educational technologies that can mediate between the two. We aim to serve current scholarly audiences, public audiences (K-12 teachers and students, specifically) and, ultimately, a broad end-user community, maximizing third party use of CDL services while minimizing costs to the CDL.

Specifically, during this next year, we will:

Write a preliminary high-level analysis of CDL and second generation web approaches.

Prototype the most promising CDL services.

Explore a range of intermediary tools and technologies (e.g., Scholar’s Box and other tools).

Produce end-user case studies/demonstrations of how these new services can be used by faculty and K-12 teachers.

Work on practical semantic interoperability

Ideally, the Scholar's Box would enable users to draw upon multiple sources in seamless, integrated ways regardless of underlying protocols and data/metadata encoding schemes. Creating the full spectrum of interoperability required for such functionality remains an extremely challenging and multifaceted research problem. Among the various aspects of interoperability, the problem of semantic interoperability, "integrating resources that were developed using different vocabularies and different perspectives on the data" [3], has been of special interest to the IU.

For a new project "Enhancing Interoperability between Digital Libraries and Educational Technology via XML Crosswalks", recently funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, we will explore how semantic interoperability (the accurate translation of meaning) in the following four domains can be enhanced through the use of XSLT-based crosswalks between key XML specifications: 1) digital libraries and repositories (METS); 2) educational technologies and learning management systems (SCORM, IMS-Content Packaging (IMS-CP), and IMS-Metadata (IMS-MD)); 3) web syndication and portal technologies (RSS); and 4) desktop applications and structured content authoring tools. (e.g., Microsoft Office 11).

We will carry out this work in close collaboration with an Advisory Board of domain experts from the library and educational technology communities.
Our work on semantic interoperability deepens work that we are currently completing for "Creating and sharing content for teaching and learning", an e-Berkeley Innovation Project for 2002-2003.

The opinions or statements expressed herein should not be taken as a position of or endorsement by the University of California, Berkeley. Nor should the opinions or statements expressed herein be taken as a position of or endorsement of the University of California, Berkeley. Links on these pages to commercial sites do not represent endorsement by the University of California or its affiliates.

IU Technology Architecture Lodge Random and not so random thoughts from Raymond Yee, primarily on the scholarly and educational use of the Web, libraries, educational technology, and information management

Home Print friendly version Scholar's Box Essay Series Current Projects Presentations and Papers Work on Educational Technology Interop RY's wiki RY's personal blog About This Site About Raymond Yee Interactive University Contact RY My blogroll RSS 2.0 feed for this site				Current Projects Posted by Raymond Yee, 3/18/03 at 4:28:02 PM. Current Projects The Scholar's Box: An Overview The Interactive University aims to engage the academic core of the campus -- faculty, academic departments, organized research units, libraries, and research museums -- in using technology to structure content so that it can add value to teaching, research, and public service. A key means of structuring content will be to create and use XML-based digital objects. The IU is building the Berkeley Open Learning Environment (B-OLE) for the sharing and creating of digital objects both on and off the campus. A key component of the B-OLE is the Scholar's Box that will enable faculty, students, and the public to create, manipulate, annotate, and share personal collections of digital cultural objects gathered from multiple digital repositories -- core activities in both scholarship and teaching. In creating ideas, developing presentations, sifting through evidence, researching papers, or compiling readers, scholars build de facto collections from which they create their desired product. Gathering, manipulating, organizing, annotating, and sharing personal collections of cultural objects is also a core activity that can support many teaching and learning practices and styles. Ideally, the Scholar's Box would enable users to draw upon multiple sources in seamless, integrated ways regardless of underlying protocols and data/metadata encoding schemes. Architecture and design of the Scholar's Box We seek an architecture that is flexible, extensible, and portable to support the functionality of the Scholar's Box. In developing the Scholar's Box we will build concrete applications and an abstraction framework from which any concrete implementation can be built. Currently, we are writing a functional specification of the Scholar's Box which will describe the functionality of the Scholar's Box, the architecture needed to support that functionality, and technical wiring for implementing the architecture. Prototyping of the Scholar's Box While creating the architecture and design of the Scholar's Box, we are also developing prototypes. We aim to touch on a broad range of architectural issues first and then deepen functionality of various pieces. We are currently working on a web-based image album interface that allows users to access and collect images (with metadata). Images are to come from various collections (primarily METS based sources). The user can make albums and do simple annotations of these images in the slide show. Specifically, some sources of images that we are considering include: California Digital Library, UCB Library and Art Museum, Amazon, METS repositories. After getting the image-based prototype working, the next step would be to generalize album interface to gather HTML chunks, parts of METS objects, bibliographic references and URLs. Collaboration with the California Digital Library We are about to launch a joint project between the California Digital Library (CDL) and the Interactive University Project (IU) to explore approaches for opening the resources of the CDL to current and new audiences via second generation web technologies, especially through the Scholar's Box. In this project, we will explore connections between the CDL, its end-users, and key educational technologies that can mediate between the two. We aim to serve current scholarly audiences, public audiences (K-12 teachers and students, specifically) and, ultimately, a broad end-user community, maximizing third party use of CDL services while minimizing costs to the CDL. Specifically, during this next year, we will: Write a preliminary high-level analysis of CDL and second generation web approaches. Prototype the most promising CDL services. Explore a range of intermediary tools and technologies (e.g., Scholar’s Box and other tools). Produce end-user case studies/demonstrations of how these new services can be used by faculty and K-12 teachers. Work on practical semantic interoperability Ideally, the Scholar's Box would enable users to draw upon multiple sources in seamless, integrated ways regardless of underlying protocols and data/metadata encoding schemes. Creating the full spectrum of interoperability required for such functionality remains an extremely challenging and multifaceted research problem. Among the various aspects of interoperability, the problem of semantic interoperability, "integrating resources that were developed using different vocabularies and different perspectives on the data" [3], has been of special interest to the IU. For a new project "Enhancing Interoperability between Digital Libraries and Educational Technology via XML Crosswalks", recently funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, we will explore how semantic interoperability (the accurate translation of meaning) in the following four domains can be enhanced through the use of XSLT-based crosswalks between key XML specifications: 1) digital libraries and repositories (METS); 2) educational technologies and learning management systems (SCORM, IMS-Content Packaging (IMS-CP), and IMS-Metadata (IMS-MD)); 3) web syndication and portal technologies (RSS); and 4) desktop applications and structured content authoring tools. (e.g., Microsoft Office 11). We will carry out this work in close collaboration with an Advisory Board of domain experts from the library and educational technology communities. Our work on semantic interoperability deepens work that we are currently completing for "Creating and sharing content for teaching and learning", an e-Berkeley Innovation Project for 2002-2003. E-architecture on the Berkeley campus I continue as a member of the UCB E-Architecture Working Group, helping to shape a technical architecture for the campus.
Last update: Tuesday, March 18, 2003 at 4:37:22 PM. This site is using the Vanilla Manila 1999 theme. The opinions or statements expressed herein should not be taken as a position of or endorsement by the University of California, Berkeley. Nor should the opinions or statements expressed herein be taken as a position of or endorsement of the University of California, Berkeley. Links on these pages to commercial sites do not represent endorsement by the University of California or its affiliates.