When people share a workspace, they naturally create visual structures which organize resources, communicate interpretations, and coordinate activities. To support this mode of communication and coordination we have built the Visual Knowledge Builder (VKB.) VKB supports the incremental visual interpretation of information. Through the emergence and evolution of visual languages, communication between VKB users sharing a workspace grows over time. VKB has been used for two years in note taking, writing, curriculum development, project management, and conference organization. These tasks include short- and long-term synchronous and asynchronous activities. Features such as the recognition of implicit spatial structure and navigable history facilitate the authoring and comprehension of shared visual information spaces. VKB has also been used in a more controlled setting by pairs of people writing a poem with a constrained vocabulary. This use of VKB has been compared to the same task using Magnetic Poetry sets to better understand how the characteristics of the tools and information space impact collaborative practice.

Spatial hypermedia provides opportunities for expression not possible in navigational hypertext. However, static spatial hypermedia, just like static traditional hypermedia, has a single presentation for all use contexts. We are exploring the use of multiple adaptation models to alter the presentation of spatial hypertext. Differences between navigational and spatial hypertext expression require developing additional principles that can guide the design of new adaptive spatial hypermedia systems. MASH (Multi-model Adaptive Spatial Hypermedia) is a theoretical framework to help guide the augmentation of spatial hypermedia to include dynamic and adaptive behaviors. The framework provides, in the form of a general architecture, guidelines for designing, analyzing and comparing spatial hypermedia systems. This architecture allows spatial hypermedia systems to be classified based on their generative, interactive, dynamic and adaptive functionality. The MASH framework also presents an ontology of the adaptation methods and techniques that can be used in spatial hypermedia. The theoretical work is then grounded by introducing WARP, a prototype that not only exemplifies this approach but also represents a first incursion into Web-based spatial hypermedia, distributed spatial hypermedia, access issues for Presentation Oriented Spatial Hypermedia (POSH) documents, and interoperability issues between spatial hypermedia systems.

In this paper we describe a unique type of knowledge management systems virtual reality-enabled multi-user virtual environments with spatialised semantic structures. They are designed to enable users to exploit emerging knowledge structures shared among a group of people and engage in social interaction with concurrent users in the virtual world. The design principle is illustrated by an example of how a heterogeneous collection of accumulated documents and user profiles is visualised. Resultant spatial structures reveal not only interdocument relationships, but also the interconnectivity between user profiles and documents.

daviesn2/ An ontology-based knowledge sharing system OntoShare is described. RDF(S) and RDF are used to specify and populate an ontology, based on information shared between users in virtual communities. We begin by discussing the advantages that use of Semantic Web technology afford in the area of knowledge management tools. The way in which OntoShare supports WWWbased communities of practice is described. Usage of OntoShare semi-automatically builds an RDF-annotated information resource for the community (an potentially for others also). Observing that in practice the meanings of and relationships between concepts evolve over time, OntoShare supports a degree of ontology evolution based on usage of the system – that is, based on the kinds of information users are sharing and the concepts (ontological classes) to which they assign this information. We conclude by describing some avenues of ongoing and future research and a planned evaluation exercise. 1.

This position paper argues that the structural computing workshop should cover more research ground than just structural computing systems. The ongoing research thread on multiple open service systems is close related to the structural computing systems research thread, and as such is very relevant to the workshop. The paper starts with a historical perspective on hypermedia infrastructure research as an attempt to place current research on structural computing systems and multiple open service systems in context. The remainder of the paper focuses on multiple open service systems. The basic ideas, goals and characteristics of multiple open service systems are described.

Our research goal is to support designers with interactive systems by exploring the relationship among representations, their meanings, and their effects. This paper first outlines ART (Amplifying Representational Talkback), a prototype system which we have developed to instantiate our research framework. We then reinterpret the essence of the ART system by illustrating the ART approach with other people’s work in Semiotic Approaches to User Interface Design presented at the ACM CHI 2000 workshop. We identify critical aspects of the system from four points: (1) interactions with representations “I ” produced; (2) representations as indices for thoughts; (3) hands-on representations; and (4) limiting the automation. By having the ART system as an object-to-thing-with, we argue that communication with interactive computational tools had better been regarded as interaction with representations.

When reflecting on information, spatial hypermedia users express their understanding of the information’s structure visually. In order to facilitate this process, spatial hypermedia uses spatial parsers that enable systems to infer the structure of information based on the implicit relationships between components of the representation. This paper describes the two main purposes of spatial parsers in spatial hypermedia systems and how particular parsing approaches and features influence their effectiveness and responsiveness. An alternative approach that provides better support for ambiguity and adaptability is instantiated in FLAPS, an adaptive spatial parser that uses fuzzy-logic in order to infer the implicit structure of spatial hypermedia. The comparison of FLAPS to other parsers reveals benefits of supporting ambiguous structures by computing multiple possible interpretations and identifies limitations that provide goals for future spatial parsers.

In this paper, we introduce Garnet, a novel visual interface for Digital Libraries. Garnet aims to provide a visual workspace in which the user can structure and organize documents of interest. This structure is then used to organize and filter further documents which may be of interest, such as search results

Information processed by computers is frequently stored and organized for the computer's, rather than for the user's, convenience. For example, information stored in a database is normalized and indexed so computers can efficiently access, process, and retrieve it. However, it is not natural for people to manipulate such formal/prescriptive representations. Instead, people frequently sort items by rough notions of association or categorization. One natural organizational process has been found to center around manipulations of objects in spatial arrangements. Examples of this range from the organization of documents and other items on a regular office desktop to the use of 3"x5" cards to organize a conference program. Using visual cues and spatial proximity, people change the categorizations of and relationships between objects. Without the help of indices or perfect memory people can still interpret, locate, and manipulate the information represented by the items and the higher-level ...

Spatial hypertext is an effective medium for the delivery of help and instructional information on the Web. Spatial hypertext’s intrinsic features allow documents to visually reflect the inherent structure of the information space and represent implicit relationships between information objects. This work presents a study of the effectiveness of spatial hypertext as medium for delivery of instructional information. Results were gathered based on direct observation of the people reading a spatial hypertext document which was used as informational support for a complex task. Two versions of the spatial hypertext document were used: a non-adaptive and an adaptive. The document was adapted based upon the inferred relevance of information to the user’s knowledge and task requirements. The study produced insights on emergent reading strategies such as informed link traversals and the use of collections as bookmarks. Observations and evaluation of how people interacted with both document versions showed that the spatial layout and the use of collections as a way to encapsulate information allowed people to read, browse and navigate very large information spaces while maintaining a clear understanding the structure of the information. Finally, several differences between the adaptive and non-adaptive versions were identified, showing that adaptation alters not only the display of information but the way that people read spatial hypertext documents.