Hypermedia Information Platforms: Requirements, Criteria, and Solutions

1. Hypermedia Information- and Communication Pattformsfor Universities and Industry Dr. Thomas Risse FB E-Technik/Informatik Hochschule Bremen Thomas Risse: Hypermedia Information and Communication Platforms

2. overview • status and starting point • requirements in university and industry • criteria for a technical solution • identical requirements ==> transfer of both know how and experiences • information management • results & conclusion & outlook Thomas Risse: Hypermedia Information and Communication Platforms

3. starting point information documentation, catalogues, programs, drivers, faq‘s, lecture notes, teaching/learning/training material, CBT applications, web pages, video, audio, animationen hypermedia information producer consumer Thomas Risse: Hypermedia Information and Communication Platforms

4. resultat: chaos • static links • dead links • orphans • unrecognisable: referential or organisatorial Thomas Risse: Hypermedia Information and Communication Platforms

5. cost/benefit hypermedia information documents like spaghetti, no versioning, one way communication,all or nothing access, ww search intended? producer consumer Thomas Risse: Hypermedia Information and Communication Platforms

6. deficits • lack of clearness, lucidity (detail/overview, context, topicality) • recherche? • lack of flexibility (only owner modifies) • little interactivity (read only, e-mail) • no user- and object-specific access rights • no collaboration support (shared editing) • costly maintenance and administration diagnosis: lost in hyperspace, goto syndrome, where to find what is looked for ... Thomas Risse: Hypermedia Information and Communication Platforms

7. requirements • structure instead of chaos • controlled access • interactivity • recherche • management tools • link-consistency Thomas Risse: Hypermedia Information and Communication Platforms

8. criteria • information system asastructured information base, providing hypermedia informationto specific users or user groups in a controlled way • communication system supporting collaboration (team work, cscw, work flow, group ware ... concepts) • client multi server architecture • browser supported interface (to minimize training) • platform independent (hardware, os, browser) • tools Thomas Risse: Hypermedia Information and Communication Platforms

9. transfer • Basic Support for Cooperative Work, GMD • Lotus Notes, IBM • Hyperwave, Hyperwave Information Management • Hyperwave keeps/manages documents and links in a data base • distributed data base on heterogeneous servers • users navigate in a virtual document hierarchy • user specific access (attributes) • bidirektional links guarantee link consistency • tools for administration, management, security, upload, backup Thomas Risse: Hypermedia Information and Communication Platforms

10. install, deployment • a system is only as useful as its tools: Hyperwave offers • upload, modify, link wizards • search wizard (attributes, full text, synonyms, variants,...) • query object wizard (subscriptions, agents) • rights wizard (views), back up wizard etc • collaborative authoring (multiple clusters, annotations) • multi linguality, diverse formats (alternative clusters) • version control, validity/expiration date • highly configurable (e.g. user preferences) Thomas Risse: Hypermedia Information and Communication Platforms

11. maintenance to be guaranteed/maintained: • lucid, obvious structure of the information base, extendable/enlargable in an apparent and unique way • topicality, release/expiring date • security (privacy) by adequate access rights (as open as possible, as strict as necessary) • security (usage) by logic consistency • data security by back up • accounting Thomas Risse: Hypermedia Information and Communication Platforms

12. example academic staff teching/learning material Risse RST RST old exams emulations rst.ps Thomas Risse: Hypermedia Information and Communication Platforms

13. example drivers drivers Linux CD-ROM CD-ROM Linux driver Thomas Risse: Hypermedia Information and Communication Platforms

14. conclusion results (in university) • WebLearn server: teaching/learning material, lecture notes, programs, virtual work shops for projects, working groups etc • see e.g. www.weblearn.hs-bremen.de/risse • higher education: teleteaching results (transferable to industry) • Hyperwave satisfies the technical criteria for information and communication systems • maintenance and user training are indispensable for productive, continous and sustained operation of information and communication systems Thomas Risse: Hypermedia Information and Communication Platforms