|
 |
|
|
 Horizon Information Portal 2.03 is a powerful product. But there is much more that we want to do to extend and enhance it. Our top five objectives with Horizon Information Portal are:
Authentication Services As mentioned earlier, the Horizon Information Portal will be built on the same Java platform as Horizon. As such, it will be able to leverage the LDAP database. Users will only need to log in once to have access to everything they are authorized to access. Of course, a user can also come in as a guest, but then we can't tune the portal to that person. Link to LDAP in Staff Enhancements. >> Read more about LDAP Directory Support. Because LDAP is a standard, it is possible to integrated the user directory information with other systems, such as student registration databases and learning management systems. Many libraries complain that it is sometimes difficult to authenticate "walk-ins". One library customer of ours in Texas has over 50 "Maria Sanchez's". How do they know they have the right one? Adding a picture ID can help. So can a digital photo shown on the user record within the Circulation modules. Another technology many libraries are interested in is the smart card. A 'Smart card' is a credit card sized plastic card that contains a 'silicon computer chip' with the ability to store, process and output electronic data in a highly secure manner. The smart card is very much like the magnetic stripe card you would find in your wallet today, but with a greatly improved level of security and functionality. For example, smart cards could be used to pay late fees, or pay for the use of library printers or other library resources. Smart cards are also useful for the user - they remember user names and passwords, can fill out online forms, and can store many credit card numbers securely. Dynix plans to provide support for many vendors supplying smart cards to the library community. Personalization Services Personalization is one of the more important new technologies that became prevalent with the growth of the Internet. The goal with personalization is to make Horizon Information Portal better at serving the unique needs of individual users. Horizon 2.03 has some personalization and version 3.0 adds quite a bit more, such as specifying the primary location, what sources of information need to be in the user's default search, and how they want to be notified (we'll talk more about this next in SDI). But we want to go much further with personalization. Link to 3.0 page in Announced Products Section. First of all, all personalization features will be "opt-in" oriented. If the user does not want to give any information, or does not want selected personalization features, they will be able to turn them off. Dynix will work to provide methods for various levels of user personalization that can tailor the system, but not enable the library system to know the identity of the user. This will be an optional setup for the library to enable in Horizon. (It may also require the user to maintain "anonymous email addresses.") When a new user signs up with the library portal, one of the first options they will have will be a customization wizard. This tool will ask them simple questions, and then tune the portal to meet their needs. Based on their age, personal areas of interest, preferred language, how comfortable they are with technology and what services they want, Horizon Information Portal will be able to pre-configure the user's portal experience. An emerging Internet technology is the notion of "continuous preference learning." This technology will allow Horizon Information Portal to learn more what the user likes and wants by observing their typical activities inside the portal. One example is the concept of popping up a window occasionally with a question "More of this? Yes No". User answers are feed into the personalization engine to continue to "tune" the portal to the individual. This will give your portal more of the functionality of Amazon. Wireless Device Support We are on the verge of a wireless explosion. There will be many wireless device form factors, from wireless PDAs to Internet-capable mobile phones. Some wireless devices will use the faster 802.11b (and future 802.11 wireless standards). Many cities, universities, schools and airports are or will be creating wireless "hot spots" for wireless LAN devices to quickly connect to the Internet. Other wireless devices will use mobile phone networks equipped with ever faster data connectivity over 2.5G and 3G networks, enabling good Internet surfing performance from these small screen devices. Dynix plans to support the popular wireless devices both for users accessing the Horizon Information Portal. The Portal will adapt itself to the different devices, based on their screen size. While smaller mobile device screens may not "see" as much for each page, the goal will be to provide full functionality to a user with any type device. They will be able to search all library resources (internal and external), put limits on browsing, view and change preferences, place holds, and check out full text of an online database through an OpenURL link. Enhanced Searching The Horizon Digital Library provides powerful searching tools, especially Concept Searching. Concept Searching employs a 1.6 million semantic database of English words to allow for easy searching of synonyms, antonyms and any relevant words to the keyword entered into a search. For example, if a person typed in the word "legal", scanned text-based images with the word "law" in them will also show up in the search results. Dynix will be expanding this Concept Searching to support for the entire Horizon Information Portal and for multiple languages, such as Spanish, French, German and Chinese. In addition, there are new search tools being created in the Internet world to search other forms of digital content, such as digital audio, digital video, images and graphics. Dynix will license these search technologies and integrate them with the Horizon Digital Library. Some of this content can be easily searched with metadata tags, but the tools will also search through the actual digital content itself. Groxis Grokker One example of a powerful new research tool was announced in April 2003 through a relationship between Dynix and Groxis, whereby Dynix to resell a family of Grokker products that will be tightly integrate with Horizon Information Portal. Grokker leverages principles from graph theory to improve the way people manage and process search results. Grokker quickly converts Bib data, digital library documents, and online search results into a contextually relevant, graphical knowledge map. Search results become a series of circles within circles, with each concentric circle representing a topic and subtopic that is sorted by size and color and based on relevancy. A user can then dig deeper into the results until the desired information is found.  Once integrated with Horizon Information Portal, Grokker will allow library users increased ease of access to a library's resources, including online subscription databases, by streamlining large collections of information into graphically based information maps. Users will also enjoy increased organization, provided by Grokker's ability to consolidate multiple data sources into a single body of information. They will be able to quickly save, edit, and share information maps for collaboration or future reference. Grokker will be available in multiple versions - an Internet browser Java applet, a Windows desktop and a Macintosh desktop version - with more variations to follow.  Click image to see a screenshot of Grokker in Horizon Information Portal. Enhanced SDI Another hot area in library portals is Selective Dissemination of Information or SDI. Users want to receive notifications about new things in the library that interests them. SDI allows users to define categories or keywords that interests them. Then when new Items meet the criteria of the user, the user is sent a notification. Dynix plans to introduce SDI support in Horizon Information Portal 3.0. But we want to go beyond that. Dynix plans to add an SDI Rules Engine that extends beyond basic SDI. This engine will create an intelligent agent for the user based on a set of rules they will define through a simple UI. The rules will be able to look at more than just categories or keywords. It will allow users to define not only what information they want, but when they want it and how they want to receive it. It will allow users to put priorities on notifications. For example, a student may be working on a report. They need information for their report ASAP. They may have searched specific information sources for information about their subject. They could quickly define rules to continue the search, looking at additional sources, or continuing the search on the same sources. Because time is of the essence in this scenario, when new information is found, they could be notified on a wireless device they carry with them with an embedded link. Clicking on the link, they are taking back to the search results as defined by their search rules. Horizon Information Portal will be able to send notifications via email, SMS, and other means to a wide variety of devices. SRW Horizon Consolidated Searching provides the ability to search through many online databases concurrently. For Horizon Consolidated Searching to work, it often needs custom translators, and special authentication process for each individual online database. Reliability has also proven to be a challenge for the entire library community with consolidated or federated searching. Sometimes translators break, or online vendors "change" their interface. There is a new standard in the works to resolve these problems. Called Search/Retrieve Web Services or SRW, this standard will make concurrent consolidated searching across an unlimited number of distributed databases a true reality. SRW builds on the Z39.50 standard - in fact, it is being developed by the same group that did Z39.50 called ZING, and is part of the Library of Congress. SRW goes beyond Z39.50 and today's custom translators and overcomes the current limitations of Z39.50. SRW is based on a new Internet standard called Web Services. Web Services uses an XML-based protocol called SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) to support application to application communications over distributed networks like the Internet. Web Services is designed for strong interoperability and is being widely adopted throughout the Internet world. In fact, right now Web Services is the hottest standard in the Internet. Some of the key things that SRW will resolve are the current problems with authentication. In addition, many online databases need custom translators to really get them to work. This means the library must purchase a special translator for every online database. With SRW, this won't be necessary anymore. Because Web Services is designed for high performance application to application communication, the Horizon Information Portal will be able to establish a session with online databases, do quick authentication and then deliver fast and reliable information back to the portal. In addition, Z39.50 supports only a single schema of data. SRW will support multiple schemas concurrently, including Dublin Core, Onix, Mods and MarcXML. SRW adds a new concept of a query language, called Common Query Language (CQL), allowing for powerful search requests. Dynix is already in development of a future version of Horizon Information Portal with SRW support. (http://www.loc.gov/z3950/agency/zing/srw/) |
 - HOME - SEARCH - CONTACT US  - About Us - What's New - Dynix Institute - Dynix Stories - Library Solutions - Products & Services - Download Collateral    Dynix Corporate Overview Brochure | ||||||||||||
