Looking at digital library usability from a reuse perspective

ABSTRACT

The need for information systems to support the dissemination and reus e of educational resources has sparked a number of large-scale digital library efforts. This article describes usability findings from one such project - the Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE) - focusing on its role in the process of educational resource reuse. Drawing upon a reuse model developed in the domain of software engineering, the reuse cycle is broken down into five stages: formulation of a reuse intention, location, comprehension, modification, and sharing. Using this model to analyze user studies in the DLESE project, several implications for library system design and library outreach activities are highlighted. One finding is that resource reuse occurs at different stages in the educational design process, and each stage imposes different and possibly conflicting requirements on digital library design. Another finding is that reuse is a distributed process across several artifacts, both within and outside of the library itself. In order for reuse to be successful, a usability line cannot be drawn at the library boundary, but instead must encompass both the library system and the educational resources themselves.

References

1. 1.Ackerman, M., Definitional and Contextual Issues in Organizational and Group Memories. in Hawaiian International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 27), (Hawaii (Jan), 1993), IEEE Computer Press.
2. 2.Ackerman, M. and Mandel, E. Memory in the Small: An Application to Provide Task-Based Organizational Memory for a Scientific Community, UC Irvine, 1997.
3. 3.Bannon, L. and Bodker, S. Constructing Common Information Spaces. in Hughes, J. ed. Fifth European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, (Sep 7-11, Lancaster, UK), Kluwer Academic Publishers, The Netherlands, 1997, 81-96.
4. 4.Bilal, D. Children's Use of the Yahooligans Web Search Engine: I. Cognitive, physical, and affective behaviors on fact-based search tasks. Journal of the American Society for Information Science (JASIS), 51 (7). 646-665.
5. 5.Bondaryk, L. Publishing New Media in Higher Education: Overcoming the Adoption Hurdle. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 98 (3). {www-jime.open.ac.uk/98/93}.
6. 6.Borgman, C.L. Social Aspects of Digital Libraries, UCLA- NSF Social Aspects of Digital Libraries Workshop (February 15-17), 1996.
7. 7.Borgman, C.L., Gilliland-Swetland, A.J., Leazer, G.H., Mayer, R., Gwynn, D., Gazan, R. and Mautone, P. Evaluating Digital Libraries for Teaching and Learning in Undergraduate Education: A Case Study of the Alexandria Digital Earth Prototype (ADEPT). Library Trends, Fall 2000, Vol. 49, No. 2, 228 - 250.
8. 8.Fischer, G., Henninger, S.R. and Redmiles, D.F. Cognitive Tools for Locating and Comprehending Software Objects for Reuse Thirteenth International Conference on Software Engineering (Austin, TX), IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos, CA, 1991, 318-328.
9. 9.Fischer, G., Redmiles, D., Williams, L., Puhr, G., Aoki, A. and Nakakoji, K. Beyond Object-Oriented Development: Where Current Object-Oriented Approaches Fall Short. Human-Computer Interaction, 10 (1). 79-119.
10. 10.Frakes, W. and Terry, C. Software Reuse: Metrics and Models. ACM Computing Surveys, 28 (2 (June)). 416-435.
11. 11.Ginger, K., Devaul, H., Kelly, K., Sumner, T.R. and Dawe, M. DLESE Metadata Working Group Homepage, Ginger, Katy, 2000.
12. 12.Henninger, S. An Evolutionary Approach to Constructing Effective Software Reuse Repositories. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, 6 (2). 111-140.
13. 13.Hoelscher, C. and Strube, G., Searching on the Web: Two Types of Expertise. in 22nd annual international ACM SIGIR conference on Research and development in information retrieval, (Berkeley, CA, 1999).
14. 14.IMS. The Instructional Management System (IMS) Project, 1994.
15. 15.Jacobson, F.F. and Ignacio, E.N. Teaching Reflection: Information Seeking and Evaluation in a Digital Library Environment. Library Trends, 45 (4). 771-802.
16. 16.Khoo, M., Designing a Collection Review Policy: A Case Study. Submitted to: Joint Conference on Digital Libraries, (Roanoke, VA (June 24-28), 2001).
17. 17.Kuehn, O. and Abecker, A. Corporate Memories for Knowledge Management in Industrial Practice: Prospects and Challenges. Journal of Universal Computer Science, 3 (8 (Special Issue on Information Technology for Knowledge Management)). Springer Science Online.
18. 18.Lewis, C.H. and Rieman, J. Task-centered User Interface Design: A Practical Guide. http://home.att.net/~jrieman/jrtcdbk.html, 1993.
19. 19.Manduca, C. and Mogk, D. Digital Library for Earth System Education: A Community Plan, University of Oklahoma, 2000, 44, Aailable at: www.dlese.org.
20. 20.Marchionini, G. Information-Seeking Strategies of Novices Using a Full-Text Electronic Encyclopedia. Journal of the American Society for Information Science (JASIS), 40 (1). 54-66.
21. 21.Marchionini, G. and Maurer, H. The Roles of Digital Libraries in Teaching and Learning. Communications of the ACM, 38 (4). 67-75.
22. 22.Marion, A. and Hacking, E. Educational Publishing and the World Wide Web. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 98 (2). {www-jime.open.ac.uk/98/92}.
23. 23.Marlino, M., Sumner, T.R., Fulker, D., Manduca, C. and Mogk, D. The Digital Library for Earth System Education: Building Community, Building the Library. To appear in: Communications of the ACM, Special Issue on Digital Libraries (May).
24. 24.Muramatsu, B. and Agogino, A. NEEDS The National Engineering Education Delivery System: A Digital Library for Engineering Education D-Lib Magazine, 1999, Available at:http://www.dlib.org/dlib/april99/muramatsu/04muramatsu. html.
25. 25.Neuman, D. Learning and the Digital Library. Library Trends, 45 (4). 687-707.
26. 26.Norman, D.A. The Psychology of Everyday Things. Basic Books, New York, 1988.
27. 27.NSF. Shaping the Future: New Expectations for Undergraduate Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology, National Science Foundation, Arlington, VA, 1996.
28. 28.Olsen, F. 'Iscapes' Combine Data Sets, Computer Models, and More to Solve Problems The Chronicle of Higher Education, 1999, http://chronicle.com/free/99/08/99082501t.htm.
29. 29.Paepcke, A. Digital Libraries: Searching Is Not Enough; What We Learned On-Site D-Lib Magazine, 1996, http://www.dlib.org/dlib/may96/stanford/05paepcke.html.
30. 30.Poulin, J.S., Balancing the need for large corporate and small domain-specific reuse libraries. in ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, (Phoenix, AZ (Mar 6-8), 1994), ACM Press, 88-93.
31. 31.Rine, D.C., Success factors for software reuse that are applicable across domains and businesse. in ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, (San Jose, CA (Feb 28 - Mar 1), 1997), 182-196.
32. 32.Roschelle, J., C. , DiGiano, C., Koutlis, M., Repenning, A., Phillips, J., Jackiw, N. and Suthers, D. Developing Educational Software Components. IEEE Computer, 32. 50- 58.
33. 33.Shipman, F., Furuta, R., Brenner, D., Chung, C. and H., H. Guided Paths through Web-Based Collections: Design, Experiences, and Adaptations. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 5 (3). 260-272.
34. 34.Spohrer, J., Sumner, T.R. and Buckingham Shum, S. Educational Authoring Tools and the Educational Object Economy: Introduction to this Special Issue from the East/West Group. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 98 (10). Available at: http://www-jime.open.ac.uk/98/10/.
35. 35.Sumner, T., Domingue, J., Zdrahal, Z., Hatala, M., Millican, A., Murray, J., Hinkelmann, K., Bernardi, A., Wess, S. and Traphoner, R., Enriching Representations of Work to Support Organisational Learning. in 1st Interdisciplinary Workshop on Building, Maintaining, and Using Organizational Memories (OM-98). In conjunction with the 13th biennial European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI -98), (Brighton, UK (August 23-24), 1998), 09-127.
36. 36.Wattenberg, F. A National Digital Library for Science,Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology Education D-Lib Magazine, Arlington, VA, 1998, Available at:http://www.dlib.org/dlib/october98/wattenberg/10wattenbe rg.html#contents.
37. 37.Xie, H.I. Shifts of Interactive Intentions and Information- Seeking Strategies in Interactive Information Retrieval. Journal of the American Society for Information Science (JASIS), 51 (9). 841-857.
38. 38.Ye, Y., Fischer, G. and Reeves, B., Integrating active information delivery and reuse repository systems. in Eighth international symposium on Foundations of software engineering for twenty-first century applications, (San Diego, CA (Nov 6 - 10), 2000), ACM Press, 60-68.

Index Terms

• Applied computing

  • Computers in other domains

    • Digital libraries and archives

  • Education

  • Physical sciences and engineering

    • Earth and atmospheric sciences

• Information systems

  • Information systems applications

    • Digital libraries and archives

• Social and professional topics

  • Professional topics

    • Computing education

• Software and its engineering

  • Software creation and management

    • Software development techniques

      • Reusability

  • Software notations and tools

    • Software libraries and repositories