Although one of the most common uses for the Internet to search for information, Web search tools often fail to connect people with what they are looking for. This is because search tools are designed to satisfy people in general, not the searcher in particular. Different individuals with different information needs often type the same search terms into a search box and expect different results. For example, the query “breast cancer” may be used by a student to find information on the disease for a fifth grade science report, and by a cancer patient to find treatment options. This thesis explores how Web search personalization can help individuals take advantage of their unique past information interactions when searching. Several studies of search behavior are presented and used to inform the design of a personalized search system that significantly improves result quality. Without requiring any extra effort from the user, the system is able to return simple breast cancer tutorials for the fifth grader’s “breast cancer” query, and lists of treatment options for the patient’s. While personalization can help identify relevant new information, new information can

To design an infrastructure for knowledge communities, we need both technical expertise and an understanding of human and social aspects of communities. Technologies for implementing such infrastructures are often available. However, there is no clear, proven procedure for building successful communities. In this paper, we review research literature concerning user practices and social aspects of information and knowledge management. Based on this review, we propose preliminary design criteria for Semantic Desktop systems.

In a given week, an active person may be working on, or at least thinking about, several different projects. Some are work-related (“prepare annual report”); others are not (“plan family ski vacation”). Projects have duration (several days to several months) and a structure that includes basic tasks (“book plane tickets”) and subprojects (“decide on hotel”). This article describes exploratory research that looks at the kinds of projects people manage in their daily lives, the problems they encounter and the kinds of support people need to manage better. The personal project is advanced as a tractable unit of analysis for the study of personal information management (PIM). Over time, a personal project often involves several forms of information (paper and digital documents, email, web pages, handwritten notes, etc.) and several supporting applications. People face problems of information fragmentation that are more widely experienced in their practice of PIM. A Project Planner prototype explores an exciting possibility that an effective, integrative organization of project-related information can emerge as a natural by-product of efforts to plan and structure the project.

People manage and use their files/documents in social settings. However, current file systems do not consider social interactions that happen around files. For example, files that have been sent to many people are displayed in the same way as those that have never been sent. We argue that by capturing user activities around files, we can enhance user experience in managing their documents. In particular, presenting activity traces can help users comprehend their document collections better and recall the context of their documents. In this paper, we discuss our approach to providing a context-rich environment for document management. Keywords Document management, personal information management, semantic desktop, user modelling, context, metadata Copyright is held by the author/owner(s).

Current tools for forensic analysis require many hours to understand novel attacks, causing reports to be terse and untimely. We apply visual filtering and tagging of flows in a novel way to address the current limitations of post-attack analysis, reporting, and sharing. We discuss the benefits of visual filtering and tagging of network flows and introduce FlowTag as our prototype tool for Honeynet researchers. We argue that online collaborative analysis benefits security researchers by organizing attacks, collaborating on analysis, forming attack databases for trend analysis, and in promoting new security research areas. Lastly, we show three attacks on the Georgia Tech Honeynet and describe the analysis process using FlowTag.

This paper presents, in contrasts to the desktop metaphor, a content centric data surface interaction paradigm for graphical user interfaces applied to music creativity improvisation. Issues taken into account were navigation and retrieval of information, collaboration, and creative open-ended tasks. In this system there are no windows, icons, menus, files or applications. Content is presented on an infinitely large two-dimensional surface navigated by incremental search, zoom, and pan. Commands are typed aided by contextual help, visual feedback, and text completion. Components provide services related to different content modalities. Synchronisation of data surface content sustains mutual awareness of actions and mutual modifiability. The prototype music tool was evaluated with 10 users; it supported services expected by users, their creativity in action, and awareness in collaboration. User responses to the prototype tool were: It feels free, it feels good for creativity, and it’s easy and fun to use. Categories and Subject Descriptors (according to ACM CCS): H.5.2 [Information interfaces and presentation]: User Interfaces

desktop tools for enhanced file and email management that are based on the X-COSIM semantic desktop framework. They are implemented as extensions for an email client and file manager, specifically designed to enhance support for the personal information managment tasks of information organization and re-finding. 1.

Although one of the most common uses for the Internet to search for information, Web search tools often fail to connect people with what they are looking for. This is because search tools are designed to satisfy people in general, not the searcher in particular. Different individuals with different information needs often type the same search terms into a search box and expect different results. For example, the query “breast cancer” may be used by a student to find information on the disease for a fifth grade science report, and by a cancer patient to find treatment options. This thesis explores how Web search personalization can help individuals take advantage of their unique past information interactions when searching. Several studies of search behavior are presented and used to inform the design of a personalized search system that significantly improves result quality. Without requiring any extra effort from the user, the system is able to return simple breast cancer tutorials for the fifth grader’s “breast cancer ” query, and lists of treatment options for the patient’s. While personalization can help identify relevant new information, new information can

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This paper reports one part of results of a qualitative study conducted in an information institute. By investigating how people creatively organize their information items in current hierarchical folder systems on computers, we try to identify what people need from current hierarchical folder structure and what they can get from the current structure. Specifically, people need two types of grouping in addition to ordering and highlighting, and especially better support on derivative relationships between items or groups of items. Current organization systems can provide overview and implicit contextual and workflow information. The impact of derivative relationship on multiple classification mechanisms is noted, and the connections between folders, tags and their possible use are discussed. The study provides implications for information organization system design.