The document summarizes a seminar on web information systems taught by Prof. Beat Signer. It provides an overview of topics to be covered in the seminar, including the history of hypertext, the world wide web, web 2.0, semantic web, cloud computing, and more. Students are asked to select three topics they are interested in and provide feedback on the seminar organization.

1. Seminar Web Information Systems
Technologies (SWIST)
Prof. Beat Signer
Department of Computer Science
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
http://vub.academia.edu/BeatSigner
2 December 2005

2. Seminar Organisation
 Prof. Beat Signer
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
10 F 721
+32 2 629 12 39
bsigner@vub.ac.be
 Dr. Sven Casteleyn
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
10 F 705
+32 2 629 37 54
Sven.Casteleyn@vub.ac.be
February 9, 2010 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 2

3. "As We May Think" (1945)
... When data of any sort are placed in
storage, they are filed alphabetically
or numerically, and information is
found (when it is) by tracing it down
from subclass to subclass. It can be in
only one place, unless duplicates are
used; one has to have rules as to which
path will locate it, and the rules are Vannevar Bush
cumbersome. Having found one
item, moreover, one has to emerge from
the system and re-enter on a
new path. The human mind does not work
that way. It operates by association.
...
February 9, 2010 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 3

4. "As We May Think" (1945) …
... It affords an immediate step,
however, to associative indexing, the
basic idea of which is a
provision whereby any item may be
caused at will to select immediately
and automatically another. This is the
essential feature of the memex. The
process of tying two items together is Vannevar Bush
the important thing. ...
Vannevar Bush, As We May Think,
Atlanic Monthly, July 1945
February 9, 2010 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 4

5. "As We May Think" (1945) …
 Bush's article 'As We My Think'
(1945) is often seen as
the “origin" of hypermedia
 Article introduces the Memex
 prototypical hypertext machine
 store and access information
Memex
 follow cross-references (trails)
between pieces of information (microfilms)
 trail blazers are those who find delight in
the task of establishing useful trails
February 9, 2010 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 5

6. Hypertext
 Ted Nelson
 coined the term hypertext
 founded project Xanadu in 1960
 Doug Engelbart
 started developing the NLS
(oN-Line System) in 1962
 NLS demonstrated in 1968
 Many academic research projects
and powerfull systems since then
February 9, 2010 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 6

7. World Wide Web (WWW)
 Invented at CERN
 Tim Berners-Lee and Robert
Cailliau
 started in 1989
 first release in 1991
 Not implementing many of
the features developed by the Tim Berners-Lee Robert Cailliau
hypertext community
 bidirectional links
 transclusion
 external links
 …
February 9, 2010 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 7

8. Web 2.0
 User becomes an author
and shares information
 tagging
 Wikis
 social networking
 mashups
 ..
 Not a new technology!
 Why did some of these
things not happen earlier?
 limitations of original WWW?
February 9, 2010 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 8

9. Semantic Web (Web 3.0)
 Add explicit semantics
to Web resources
 Machine-interpretable
Web
 Use of ontologies
 Potential reasoning over
Web resources
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:W3c-semantic-web-layers.svg]
February 9, 2010 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 9

10. Cloud Computing
Microsoft
Amazon
Google
Cloud
Yahoo
 The cloud hides technological details from the user
 accessed over the Internet (e.g. via web browser)
 customer no longer owns the physical infrastructure
 utility computing vs subscription-based services
February 9, 2010 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 10

11. Cross-media Information Systems
 Information moves from
digital to physical space
and vice versa
 e.g. paper-digital integration
 Multimodal interaction
 How should information
be stored and accessed?
 use of web technologies?
 desktop metaphor still EdFest project
appropriate?
 …
February 9, 2010 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 11

12. Web Information Systems
 Use the Web to access information stored in an
information system
 Use Web technologies to organise information stored in
an information system
 Use the Web as an information system
 In the seminar we investigate new trends, concepts and
technologies for web information systems
February 9, 2010 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 12

13. Seminar Topics
1. Web Science
 Web Science: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Understanding the Web,
James Hendler, Nigel Shadbolt, Wendy Hall, Tim Berners-Lee and
Daniel Weitzner, Communications of the ACM, 51(7), July 2008
2. Service-oriented Systems
 Why is the Web Loosely Coupled? A Multi-Faceted Metric for Service
Design, Cesare Pautasso and Erik Wilde, Proceedings of WWW 2009,
18th International World Wide Web Conference, Madrid, Spain, April
2009
3. Cloud Computing
 A Break in the Clouds: Towards a Cloud Definition, Luis M. Vaquero, Luis
Rodero-Merino, Juan Caceres and Maik Lindner, ACM SIGCOMM
Computer Communication Review, 39(1), January 2009
February 9, 2010 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 13

14. Seminar Topics ...
4. Semantic Wikis
 SweetWiki: A Semantic Wiki, Michel Buffa, Fabien Gando, Guillaume
Ereteo, Peter Sander and Catherine Faron, Web Semantics, 6(1),
February 2008
5. Web Search
 IRLbot: Scaling to 6 Billion Pages and Beyond, Hsin-Tsang Lee, Derek
Leonard, Xiaoming Wang and Dmitri Loguinov, Proceedings of WWW
2008, 17th International World Wide Web Conference, Beijing, China,
April 2008
6. Mashups
 Turning Web Applications into Mashup Components: Issues, Models,
and Solutions, Florian Daniel and Maristella Matera, Proceedings of
ICWE 2009, 9th International Conference on Web Engineering, San
Sebastián, Spain, June 2009
February 9, 2010 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 14

15. Seminar Topics ...
7. Service-oriented User Interfaces
 Adaptive Rich User Interfaces for Human Interaction in Business
Processes, Stefan Pietschmann, Martin Voigt and Klaus Meißner,
Proceedings of WISE 2009, 10th International Conference on Web
Information Systems Engineering, Poznan, Poland, October 2009
8. Hypermedia Data Structures
 A Comparison of Hyperstructures: Zzstructures, mSpaces, and
Polyarchies, Michael J. McGuffin and m. c. schraefel, Proceedings of
Hypertext 2004, 15th ACM Conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia,
Santa Cruz, USA, August 2004
February 9, 2010 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 15

16. Seminar Topics ...
9. Web 2.0 Accessibility
 Web 2.0: Blind to an Accessible New World, Joshua Hailpern, Loretta
Guarino-Reid, Richard Boardman and Srinivas Annam, Proceedings of
WWW 2009, 18th International World Wide Web Conference, Madrid,
Spain April 2009
10.Media Classification
 Mapping the World's Photos, David Crandall, Lars Backstrom,
Daniel Huttenlocher and Jon Kleinberg, Proceedings of WWW
2009, 18th International World Wide Web Conference, Madrid,
Spain, April 2009
11.Social Networking
 Tag-based Social Interest Discovery, Xin Li, Lei Guo and Yihong
Eric Zhao, Proceedings of WWW 2008, 17th International World
Wide Web Conference, Beijing, China, April 2008
February 9, 2010 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 16

17. Seminar Topics ...
 Topic assignment
 select 3 topics/papers from the presented list and mark them (with
A,B and C) according to your preferences
 send an email with your choices (e.g. 1A, 7B, 4C) to
bsigner@vub.ac.be before February 16
 each student will be assigned a paper to be presented in the
seminar and the final seminar schedule will be made available
February 9, 2010 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 17

18. Seminar Organisation
 Presentation should be 30 minutes long
 Structure of your presentation
 introduction of topic and problem statement (5-10 mins)
 proposed approach (15-20 mins)
 review (5 mins)
- critical analysis
- at least two positive and two negative points about the paper
 Send a draft of your presentation to your supervisor no
later than one week before the presentation and arrange
a meeting with your supervisor
 you will get feedback about the structure and content of your
presentation
February 9, 2010 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 18

19. Seminar Organisation …
 Second assignment (buddy)
 read the paper in detail
 prepare at least two questions
 open the discussion round
 Each student has to write a report about their presented
paper/topic
 same structure as presentation
 not longer than 5 pages
 send a draft to your supervisor to get some feedback
- arrange a meeting with your supervisor
 deadline for final report: 18.5.2009
February 9, 2010 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 19

20. Seminar Organisation …
 Final grade is based on
 presentation
 written report
 active participation
 Everybody is expected to have a look at each week's
papers before the lecture
 after each presentation we should have enough time for questions
and a discussion about the topic and content of the paper
 Schedule will be made available on PointCarré
 next lecture with first presentation: 16.3.2009
February 9, 2010 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 20

21. Some Tips for the Presentation
 Talk to the audience and not to your laptop screen
 do not read your talk
 Make use of available resources and tools (in addition to
PowerPoint) if appropriate
 overhead projector
 black board
 paper handouts
 laser pointer/highlighter
 ...
 A quick demo, movie or application screenshot can often
help to clarify an approach
February 9, 2010 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 21

22. Some Tips for the Presentation ...
 Content
 do no overload your slides with entire sentences
- the audience can not read overloaded slides and at the same time listen to you
 the slides should support your talk rather than being a script that
you read from the screen
 careful use of graphical features
- a fancy slide background might reduce the readability
- too many colours and different fonts can be distractive
- no "misuse" of animations or sounds
 make sure that you do not have too much content for the 30 mins
- rehearsal
February 9, 2010 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 22

23. Some Tips for the Presentation ...
 Presentation style
 the audience will be more attentive if they see that you are
motivated to give the presentation
 think about your body language
 Preparation
 a good preparation gives you more confidence and freedom
during your presentation
February 9, 2010 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 23

24. Questions?
February 9, 2010 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 24

25. References
 As We May Think, V. Bush., Atlantic Monthly,
176(1):101–108, July 1945
 Project Xanadu
 http://xanadu.com/
 NLS demo
 http://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/1968Demo.html
 Fundamental Concepts for Interactive Paper and Cross-
Media Information Spaces, Beat Signer, May 2008
February 9, 2010 Beat Signer - Department of Computer Science - bsigner@vub.ac.be 25