Sunday 13 December 2009

Session 11: Resources and references

INM348 - Digital Information Technologies and Architectures
 
This section contains all the links and references used in this set of blogposts.

A note on hyperlinks: All the hyperlinks in this blog were tested and retrieved on 22 December 2009. Where I have referenced hyperlinks in a blog entry, I have put the full URL in square brackets to enable my PDF creator to make these links live. This extra text isn't included in any of the word counts.

If you are reading the PDF and, for any reason, the link does not work, please refer to the blog itself for the working link.

Resources
This blog URL, available at:
http://theabandonedbrain.blogspot.com/
 Personal webspace, available at:
http://www.student.city.ac.uk/~abhd820/index.html
Simple CSS, available at:
http://www.student.city.ac.uk/~abhd820/paulspage.css
XML example, available at:
http://www.student.city.ac.uk/~abhd820/H&S-library.xml
XML example DTD, available at:
http://www.student.city.ac.uk/~abhd820/H&S-library-dtd.txt

Javascript exercise for session 9, available at:
http://www.student.city.ac.uk/~abhd820/javascript-example.html

References
BBC Technology News, Blogger marks 10-year milestone, available at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8286174.stm
Berners-Lee, T and Fischetti, M (1999) Weaving the Web: the origins and future of the World Wide Web, London: Orion Business
Bing home page, available at: http://www.bing.com/
Blogger dashboard, available at: http://www.blogger.com/home
British Library online integrated catalogue, available at:
http://catalogue.bl.uk/F/?func=file&file_name=login-bl-list
Castro, E. (2001) XML for the World Wide Web, Berkeley, Calif.: Peachpit Press
City University London, web library catalogue, available at: http://www.city.ac.uk/library/
DITA lecture notes. CitySpace (City University Virtual Learning Environment). Available at:
https://cityspace0.city.ac.uk/webct/urw/lc20804.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct?JSESSIONID=BB01LyQJyLY11pW3lL1xGdRprG0wZRKjYvwXJj14m2n284fDpSZt!1034102646!csp0ndg.city.ac.uk!80!-1!815643302!csp0ndh.city.ac.uk!80!-1
DITA lecture notes, Session 9 (Applications Development). CitySpace (City University Virtual Learning Environment). Available at:
https://cityspace0.city.ac.uk/webct/urw/lc20804.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct?JSESSIONID=BB01LyQJyLY11pW3lL1xGdRprG0wZRKjYvwXJj14m2n284fDpSZt!1034102646!csp0ndg.city.ac.uk!80!-1!815643302!csp0ndh.city.ac.uk!80!-1
Englander, I. (2000) The architecture of computer hardware and systems software : an information technology approach, New York: Chichester; Wiley
Flanagan, D (1998) JavaScript: the definitive guide, Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly
Livejournal homepage, available at: http://www.livejournal.com/
Morville, P & Rosenfeld, L, (2006) Information Architecture for the World Wide Web (3rd ed), Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly
Mouchel corporate website, services page. Available at:
http://www.mouchel.com/services_atoz/default.aspx
Google UK homepage, available at: http://www.google.co.uk/
Google help page, available at:
http://www.google.co.uk/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=136861
Googleguide website, advanced search operators page. Available at:
http://www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators_reference.html
Tesco homepage, available at: http://www.tesco.com/
Tutorialised website, Javascript tutorials pages. Available at:
http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorials/Javascript/1

University of California Berkely web search comparison page, available at:
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/SearchEngines.html

W3Schools website, available at: http://www.w3schools.com/
Web Resources Depot - free vector maps page. Available at:
http://www.webresourcesdepot.com/free-vector-world-maps-collection/
Wikipedia - Cascading Style Sheets. Available at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_Style_Sheets
Wikipedia - hyperlinks. Available at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlink
Wikipedia - GIFs. Available at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Interchange_Format
Wikipedia - JPEGs. Available at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG
Wikipedia - PNG. Available at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Network_Graphics
World Wide Web consortium, Tim Berners-Lee profile page,
available at: http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/
Wordpress homepage, available at: http://wordpress.org/
Zen Garden CSS design website, available at: http://www.csszengarden.com/

Wednesday 9 December 2009

Session 10: information architecture

INM348 - Digital Information Technologies and Architectures
 
In this session we took a look at the idea of  'information architecture'. Morville and Rosenfeld (2007) use the term to encompass a variety of behaviours related to creating, structuring and organizing online environments to enable people to get to information in the most efficient and straightforward way, using (for example) website navigation, metadata and controlled vocabularies, and search technologies.

If you don’t organise and label your information properly, your intended users won’t be able to find it, which means that all of your effort and resources you’ve used to create your site, intranet or database will be wasted.

Tesco definitely seems to have considered key principles of information architecture on its website. For example, the Tesco homepage [http://www.tesco.com/] provides me with some easily-understandable topic categories, backed up with a search box in the top right-hand corner of the page. And, as well as making content very findable, it deploys some useful customization enabling me to, for example, store my favourites to make the weekly shop much easier.

How can I use Morville and Rosenfeld's (2007) principles of good information architecture to improve the work that I do supporting my company’s corporate intranet? We use standard HTML and Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) templates across the hundreds of pages on the intranet, which means we can present users with familiar pages. We use topic classification to organise our content – our next step would be to review the labeling we use to assess whether the language we use is consistent and appropriate for the audience. We could also deploy a controlled vocabulary, to improve findability.

Finally, we should consider customization so that users can store searches and key information. In this way, we can ensure that the intranet is a tool that they can use to aid – rather than inhibit – their everyday work.

Word count for this entry: 300 words.

Tuesday 8 December 2009

Session 9: client-side programming

INM348 - Digital Information Technologies and Architectures
 
In this session we looked at our first 'direct' programming language, Javascript. It's a language that enables us to create 'client-side' applications, enabling us to carry out certain tasks  - like asking for a user's input - locally rather than having to keep sending information back and forth from a central server. Done in the right way, this client-side programming can make the user's experience of a website quicker and more satisfactory.

For our task this week we looked at using Javascript to take and process simple user inputs, which direct users to certain pages on the BBC website, according to the preferences they stated.

This activity was very challenging; as our lecture notes explain, programming languages can be very unforgiving. It only takes a small error of syntax, grammar or logic in one part of the programme for the whole thing to stop working - which can be frustrating! [URL: https://cityspace0.city.ac.uk/webct/urw/lc20804.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct?JSESSIONID=BB01LyQJyLY11pW3lL1xGdRprG0wZRKjYvwXJj14m2n284fDpSZt!1034102646!csp0ndg.city.ac.uk!80!-1!815643302!csp0ndh.city.ac.uk!80!-1]

My first impulse was to use the Javascript 'prompt' command to ask for user input, and use 'parseint' to process it. Then, I could use the 'if.. . then' commands to direct the user according to their choices.

So far so good. But was this really the most elegant way to carry out this task? To me, having a series of prompt boxes popping up seemed a bit clunky, so instead I investigated the use of radio buttons to take user input.

You can see my solution here: http://www.student.city.ac.uk/~abhd820/javascript-example.html. The user simply chooses 'News' or 'Sport', which then causes a different set of radio buttons to appear, depending on which initial choice they've made. Once they've made this second choice, they simply click on the 'Go' button to be taken to the page they need.

Word count for this entry: 285 words.

Monday 7 December 2009

Session 8: information retrieval

INM348 - Digital Information Technologies and Architectures
 
This session deals with information retrieval (IR), which refers to the process of getting information from a wide range databases, sources and collections. It's different to the querying of relational databases which is concerned with getting data from structured and linked database tables.

Let's reflect on the way I have used IR to aid my learning from this module. First of all, I follow references from my lecture notes, either via hyperlinks or offline. I often need to augment these references with my own research, especially as I don't have an IT background. My first stop is usually Google [URL: http://www.google.co.uk/]; Google uses the Boolean 'AND' operator as default [URL: http://www.google.co.uk/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=136861], so I can search for 'XML W3 Schools' to quickly home in on useful resources. Likewise I can use Google's simple search to return a wider set of results, or use other operators if I need to [URL: http://www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators_reference.html].

Google is so simple to use that it's easy to forget that there are other ways of finding information. The University of California has carried out a useful comparison of search engines [URL: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/SearchEngines.html]; it points out that using multiple search engines if often necessary.

Contents of some specialist catalogues and databases aren’t always crawled by search engines. It’s always worth finding out about electronic library catalogues, such as the City University London [URL: http://www.city.ac.uk/library/] or British Library catalogues [URL: http://catalogue.bl.uk/F/?func=file&file_name=login-bl-list], or specialist databases for the field you’re working in, to provide a deeper perspective on the areas you’re researching.

In conclusion, I’ve been able to augment my learning in this module by developing my own information retrieval skills, from a reliance on Google’s simple search to something more nuanced. I’ve realised that learning the IR skills necessary to harness the vast resources that the online world has to offer has been almost as important as the content of the module itself.

Word count for this entry: 300 words.