by Simon McLeish and Laura Johnson
(to be read in conjunction with Diagrams 1-5)
Contents
Part ONE - Commentary on Diagrams
Diagram 1
Diagram 2
Diagram 3
Diagram 4
Diagram 5
Part TWO - Technical Details
Table Items - features
of the PIE
PART ONE - HeadLine PIE - description and commentary to accompany diagrams (1-5)
Laura Johnson - March 18th 1999
This is a write-up of how we envisage the (Personal Information Environment) PIE will work (to be read in conjunction with the technical details in part two, and the diagrams). Please note that firstly these are just ideas about how the system might work, and secondly that this is not intended to influence the look and feel of the system, rather to illustrate the points in SM's document and to show how the user might navigate through the system to reach resources.
Notes for pages
Links are underlined in red, things that are fixed are indicated in
Green, and highlighting is used to show where on the system the user 'is'
i.e. what page.
Click the links on the word Diagram for illustrations (very
rough at this stage)
The first time the user logs in they may need to provide some basic
information about him/herself to assist with resource selection and profiling
(some/all of this info may be obtainable from institutional MIS data in
which case this first screen will be unnecessary or simplified). This screen
will ask for the user's name, institution, course, year of study and status
(i.e. undergraduate, postgraduate, taught course) and will use this info
to provide access to the right products (i.e. in order to avoid presenting
resources that the user is not entitled to use) and in the right subject
areas (although the user will be able to select material from other subjects
if he/she wants).
On subsequent logins the user will only need to provide user name and password.
The first time the user logs into HL they'll be presented with a page based around their subject area
(for preparation it seems that 1 page will be set up for each broad subject area, combining everything that HL can offer in that area; links to resources, exam papers, course home page etc. - this shouldn't be too time consuming to create, as the resources will have some subject classification so most of this work can be automated hopefully).
When the user logs in, the system will present a page centred on the user's main area of study - taken from the information that the user provided (or gleaned from MIS data).
In the example shown on diagram 2 the user is an economics student, so resources are centred on this subject area.
NB this page is NOT CUSTOMISABLE by the user but IS CUSTOMISABLE
by the institution.
Top of page
The top of the page has the HL logo and institutional logo (which links to its homepage) as well as a clear title showing where the user is.
Left hand column
Links to other pages within HeadLine
Down the left hand side of the page are links:
Other links
Again down the left hand column, links would be provided to material not created by HL but relevant to that subject, usually from within the institution and with existing web resources: e.g. exam papers in that subject area, reading lists, timetable information, coursepacks etc.
Finally there'd be a link to the library catalogue
Centre of the page
In the main body of the page would be resources organised into groups - e.g. at the top New Resources, then perhaps News, Journals, Collections and then Grey Lit. These would all be resources deemed relevant for a student of economics and would be presented in a logical order.
Buttons to the side of each resource:
ü (checkbox) would allow the user to select resources for including them in a search,
è (arrow) to add this resource or link to the user's profile in their My HeadLine page
? for more information about the resource or help
T to find out when training is available for this resource (or to book a place on training)
Each resource will also be a link which is to the method of access for this resource, so if it's hard copy then it will be a link to the appropriate map on SHERLOC or if it's an electronic resource the link will open this resource on the desktop.
Bottom of page
Link to institutional home page and link to exit (on all pages).
Diagram 3 - Institutional Resources page
The idea of this page is to offer access to ALL resources offered through the HL service, and to act as a source page for users to select items for their own 'My HeadLine' page.
NB this page is NOT CUSTOMISABLE by the user but IS CUSTOMISABLE by the institution.
Top of page
This will be just the same as in the previous diagram, except with a different heading, showing where the user is.
Left hand column
This will be like the previous page, although the LSE page will be highlighted (as that's where the user is) and the link to Economics page will be the next one.
Relevant course materials will no longer be down the left column although links to main course info pages may be (i.e. the upper level with all subjects) not sure about this bit.
The main section
This will be split into 3 sections:
1. subject classifications - a browseable subject tree, users can then select the subject they're interested in and then click the link at the right of the page to view resources in this area. This facility will also help users to define what they want, so that if they can't think of the right subject area, the tree might help them. They canclick on each subject term to get narrower or broader terms (is this correct?)
2.List of all resources This will be a list of all resources available at that institution with some filtering due to the users' location or rights (perhaps greying out the ones that are not available at this location, and crossing out the ones that this user cannot use due to licence restrictions). This list can be used to browse and access resources, or to choose resources to search in or add to My HeadLine
3. Institutional Webpages this will provide links to the library
webpages, catalogue etc. and institutional pages which may be of use to
users (in any discipline).
This page is the completely customisable personal page for each user - when the user first logs in this page will look rather like his or her subject page, based on their profile but with the option to remove or add options (the items on the subject page are all non-customisable).
NB this page IS CUSTOMISABLE by the user and IS CUSTOMISABLE by the institution (not sure if this is right? Maybe the institution can customise it at first, but once the user is using it then it should be kept the same?)
Top of page, Left hand column and bottom
All the same as previous pages with appropriate headings and links.
Resources
These will be laid out like the ones in the subject page but with slightly different options
EDIT - edit this section of My HeadLine (e.g. edit My News section to select the news sources I want)
X remove this item from my profile
ü Checkbox - search within this item
Suggested/likely sections to group resources are:
This page is linked to from the Search icon found on all other HL pages.
NB this page is NOT CUSTOMISABLE by the user but IS CUSTOMISABLE by the institution.
Top, side etc. are all the same as previously, except there is no longer a search icon on the side of the page.
The main search text box is at the top of the page, users can enter a simple search term here and press Search to go.
Then as they move down the page they get the option of more complex searching, e.g. the next box allows them to specify fields to search in (the main text box reamains the only place where the text is entered) so if they write 'Econlit' here and click on Title then they'll be searching for Econlit in the Title field.
The next drop down list allows the user to narrow the search down by type of material, e.g. journals, new info, news items etc.
And the next box allows the user to widen the search to other databases (and the WWW).
The final feature, the subject classification section allows the user
to browse subject terms and to include these in the search - hence if they
look for journals and then click 'finance and accounting' in the subject
tree (leaving the text box blank) they'll get a list of journals in this
subject area.
Part TWO - Technical
Details
By Simon McLeish
This is an adaptation of the modular format that most of the online portal pages use.
Each page consists of items, which may themselves contain other items. The layout of the page is determined by an institution when a HeadLine system is installed (by editing HTML-like files); the contents of each page – which items are included and their attributes – are determined by customisation. The page has an associated group of users who are allowed to customise it. (This means we need to ensure that each user is a member of a group consisting just of themselves.)
An item is basically something which can be seen by a user. An item has attributes, contents and functions. Attributes are information about the item, functions produce different items, and contents are other items listed within the item. Each item can appear 0 (1 if mandatory) or more times within any item of which it is one of the valid contents.
| Type | Attributes | Contents | Functions | Parents |
| Add/remove from search | List of resources, Resource, Subject element | |||
| Boolean search system | help links | |||
| CAS search | Title | Search results | Update now (produces Search results item), Edit (produces customise item) | CAS search list, Page |
| CAS search list | Title | CAS search | Page | |
| Customise | Make changes | Page | ||
| Exit | Page | |||
| Field | Title | Field list | ||
| Field list | Title | Field, Help links | Search facility | |
| Group list | Title | List of resources, help links | Search facility | |
| Help | Title | Help links (to parents/children in hierarchical help system), Help text (or Question, Answer if FAQ format to be used), Search (restricted to search help pages) | Help links, Resource | |
| Help links | Help, Search (restricted to search help pages) | Follow link (returns help page) | Boolean search system, Field list, Group list, Help, List of resources, Page, Search facility, Standard search box, Subject classification, Thesaurus box | |
| Hit | Access (produces access item) | Search results | ||
| List of resources | Title | Resource, Help links, Add/remove from search | Add/remove from other page (produces customise item), edit (produces customise item) | Group list, page |
| List of saved searches | Title | Saved Search
|
Page | |
| List of web links | Title | Web link | Page | |
| Page | Title, Customise group (maybe this could always be a group with the same name as the title of the page?), Logo (fixed across HeadLine installation) | List of resources, resource, search facility, search results, list of saved searches, saved search, CAS search list, CAS search, List of web links, Web link, Help links, customise, exit | Customise (produces customise item), Exit (produces exit item) | |
| Resource (see also resource description model) | Title, contact, long description | Help, Add/remove from search | Access (produces access item), Search (produces search results item), Search training info (produces search results item), Add / Remove (produces customise item) | Page, resource list |
| Saved Search | Title | Make search (produces Search results item), Edit (produces customise item) | List of saved searches, Page | |
| Search facility | Title | Standard search box (mandatory), Group list, thesaurus box, field list, Boolean search system, subject classification, start search, help links | Add / remove from user’s page | Page |
| Search results | Hit | Save search (produces customise item), refine search (produces search facility item) | Page | |
| Standard search box | Title | Help links | Search (returns search results item), add / remove from user’s page | Search facility |
| Subject classification | Title, Start element | Subject element, help links | Search facility | |
| Subject element | Add/remove from search (only available if not expanded) | Expand/contract tree (updates current page – adds or removes children of element to/from list) | ||
| Thesaurus box | Help links | Search facility | ||
| Web link | Title, URL | Access (leaves system) | List of web links, page |
The way that the institution will customise the appearance of their Headline system will be through files which assign particular HTML to each item. Attributes of items (and global configuration parameters like logo graphic locations) will be put in with variables to be substituted when they are displayed to users. For example, a page item might appear like:
<HTML<HEAD<TITLE$title</TITLE</HEAD
<BODY
<TABLE<TR<TD
<TABLE<TR<TD
<TABLE<TR<TD<IMG SRC="$bigheadlinelogo"</TD</TR
<TR<TDat the $instname</TD</TR</TABLE</TD
<TD<TABLE<TR<TD VALIGN="CENTRE"<FONT SIZE=3$title</FONT</TD</TR
<TR<TD VALIGN="RIGHT"<FONT SIZE=1@helplinks</FONT</TD</TR</TABLE</TD
<TD<A HREF="$insthome"<IMG SRC=$instlogo.gif</A</TD</TABLE</TD</TR
<TD<P<FONT SIZE=1Click on <IMG SRC="addicon.gif" to put
a resource from this page on your own page</FONT</P</TD</TR
<TR<TD@contents</TR</TD
<TR<TD<TABLE<TR<TD<A HREF="$insthome"</TD
<TD ALIGN="RIGHT"^exit</TD</TR</TABLE
</TD</TR</TABLE</BODY</HTML
Here, $ indicates an attirbute or a configuration parameter, @ indicates contentes, and ^ indicates a function. (this is only a rough idea, and will certainly require more sophistication to be implementable).
This system would lead to a very flexible configuration for the appearance of the HeadLine service, and shouldn't be too difficult to underatn for anyone who has written a reaosnable amount of HTML