AIMS - Academic Information Management System
Gareth Hughes
Multimedia Research Group
Department of Electronics and Computer Science, Southampton University
Southampton, Highfield, SO17 1BJ.
gvh@ecs.soton.ac.uk. http://aims.ecs.soton.ac.uk/
Introduction
It is becoming commonplace for HE departments to maintain a Web site of official information for staff and students. The creation and maintenance of such a site is far from trivial. The AIMS [1] project sets out to make it a very simple matter for the people who create paper documents within a department or organisation to actually contribute them directly to an automatically generated Web site. Advanced linking technology is used to enhance these on-line documents with links. The AIMS server becomes a fully featured Web based repository and archive for the information. The user is simply required to provide a minimal amount of information when submitting a word processed file from a Web form.
The documents in AIMS will not contain any authored links because they are direct conversions of the files produced by word processors. The external link service enhances these Web pages by inserting links on words or phrases found in AIMS pages. The links are not embedded in the documents but are dynamically added to the Web pages by the link server. For example, a set of links can be automatically created that link staff names and user id’s to user’s home pages. Links can be made on acronyms used within the organisation that link to home pages or definitions. A more powerful application are links on official titles such as Safety Officer which then link to the current person. The central management of the link service makes it an easy task to update the destination of the link if the role of Safety Officer moves to another person. In effect the link service reflects the structure of the department complementing the information contained in the documents.
The system
This section contains a summary of the key features of the document management aspects of the system as implemented using a Lotus Domino [7] server. This is followed by a description of the research work being done to find ways to best apply the external link service to the documents in AIMS. The link service is a separate program and can be applied to AIMS at will to enhance the basic services provided.
Below is a document in AIMS.
Figure 1: A document in AIMS.
To upload documents into AIMS the user fills in a simple form. The user selects the actual file to place into AIMS using a Browse button on the Web form. A small amount of information is required about the document but every effort has been made to make it a quick and easy process to upload a document. When the user submits the form the Web browser sends the file and details to the Domino server. A complex LotusScript program manages the creation of a document in the database and conversion of the actual content of the file into the internal Notes format. The Domino server can then display this as HTML on the fly. Supported formats include Microsoft Word and WordPerfect. The conversion makes use of import filter libraries shipped with Lotus Domino. Import of a 20 page WordPerfect document takes approximately 10 seconds after which the document content is available and searchable on the Web. This makes it a very simple and fast way to put documents produced by secretaries and other administrators on-line with the minimum extra effort and no alteration to their current working practice.
Documents are accessed from the Document Store, a generated listing of documents in the system. A custom built full text search page and results generator allows users to search through the text of all documents placed in the system. Every document placed into the system is also kept as a file. This allows AIMS to serve as a central archive point for the Department allowing easy recovery of documents from a central resource. This is a secure system so access to these files can be controlled as required.
The HTML rendering of the content of a file in AIMS is usually an adequate representation of the file content. Sometimes it may be required to obtain a print accurate copy of the original file. An example of this is that the document in question is a paper form such as a travel expenses claim form. The user will wish to print off the document and fill it in. The Web page version will almost certainly not be accurate enough. To solve this problem AIMS creates an Adobe Acrobat PDF file of all word-processed documents in the system. This is an automated process that is handled by the server as part of its overnight maintenance duties.
In many ways AIMS makes use of the highly advanced capabilities of the Domino server to provide interactive features. It is possible to directly edit the details of a document in the system. The Title, Sub Title, Version and Category can all be edited and the Security Status of a document can be changed. This takes advantage of the security of the Notes system so that only the author of the document or an administrator can make such alterations.
AIMS supports a simple implementation of version control for the documents in the system. To submit a new version of a document the author follows the link on the page of that document and the system brings up the submission form with all the current details making it simple to alter any information and add in the new file. AIMS will provide navigation links between the different versions. AIMS has been designed so that the URL will not change and will always point to the latest version of the document. This feature is expressly designed to allow external Web sites to link into AIMS documents more easily. For instance a link to the Department Newsletter stored in AIMS will always return the latest edition.
For more details of the facilities in AIMS the reader is directed to the user manual available for download from the AIMS project home page.
Enhancing AIMS using an External Linking Service
The consequence of the AIMS design is the Web pages generated by AIMS do not contain any links within their content. The research aspect of the project is to provide useful links into this content in a way that is easy to maintain. Two similar systems are currently in use, both are derived from the open linking philosophy of Microcosm [4], [8], developed by the Multimedia Research Group at Southampton University. The Distributed Links Service (DLS) [2], [3], [5], [6], is a research oriented version used for the more experimental aspects of the project. The second system, Webcosm [9], is developed by Multicosm Ltd. and is derived from the DLS. Webcosm has a larger feature count and will be used when the linking service is made available to users of AIMS. Both systems can be switched on and off at will without affecting the performance of the rest of the AIMS system.
Webcosm is implemented as a Web proxy server. The user configures their Web browser to use the Webcosm proxy. When the user asks for a Web page the browser will first ask the proxy for the page. The proxy, Webcosm, will fetch the page from the AIMS Web server and annotate the pages with extra links before passing the modified Web page back to the user’s browser. The link service contains sets of links stored in link databases or linkbases. The minimum information for each entry in a linkbase consists of a source word or phrase, a destination URL and link description. The link service searches the text of the Web pages as they pass through between Web server and browser and add links into the HTML for the entries in the linkbases. Multiple linkbases can be used so that different types of users will see different links depending on their status or interests. An example of a link entry in a linkbase would be one to link the acronym of a research group in the department to the home page of the group. The links service will make any occurence of that acronym in the text of any Web page the user views a link to the home page of the group. If the research group home page moves then the administrator updates the entry in the linkbase using the java link editor.
The figure below shows a document in AIMS enhanced with links by Webcosm.
A linkbase has been created that contains a link for each undergraduate course taught by the Department. The codes are of the form CM140. Webcosm is placing a citation style link after each course code listed in this chapter of the Undergraduate Handbook. The destination is to the home page of each course on the Department’s main Web site.
Any occurrence of any course code becomes a link to the appropriate Web page. Other linking styles include underlining the anchor and placing a small asterisk after the anchor. Links can have multiple destinations. When a user follows a link it will take them to a generated page showing all possible destinations along with more information about the links. It should be noted that in the example above the linkbase in use was created programmatically making it simple to update on a regular basis.
Figure 3 below shows an advanced application of all the techniques discussed by making use of the links service and the dynamic abilities of the Notes server.
The minutes of the Department Board of Electronics and Computer Science contain item numbers of the form B.** where ** is a number. Frequently items in minutes will be following on from Actions and Items in previous editions of the minutes. The Distributed Links Service has been used to link together these item numbers enabling readers to follow the trails of issues back through time. This has been achieved by linking each item to a Domino server based agent. This agent searches the database to determine which is the document the user wishes to see. The fact that the item numbers start from B.1 each year is an added complication.
It can also be seen in the top screenshot that all the initials of the people present at the meeting are links. These are from a second linkbase generated directly from the department personnel database.
Figure 3: Using the Distributed Links Service to link the items of minutes together back through time.
This example combines the power of the linking service with the programming capabilities of the Lotus Domino server to dynamically query the information stored in AIMS. The techniques will need further investigation to ensure they apply to more generic document types and are not relevant to just a few documents that match a certain pattern. Standard styles of authoring documents and standardising methods for describing documents on submission need developing. For example a standard method of numbering items in minutes is needed for pattern matching algorithms to be more successful. The author is investigating efforts such as the Dublin Core metadata project to see what relevance they have to this need and how they can be used for more advanced queries of the information in the documents.
Conclusion
AIMS has been running in a read-only manner for a year with much of the effort focussed on ensuring the reliability of the document management system and rolling it out to the department. More users are being trained to use the system and more features will be released over the coming year. Development work will now concentrate on introducing the link service to the users. Research work is underway to enhance the links with more information concerning the structure of the department. Ways are being investigated to add more information and links to the information the link service provides for people and groups within the department. The aim is to dynamically combine information from sources such as the personnel database. Tools are to be developed that will allow users to remotely add links into a Webcosm linkbase from their own browser completing the set of tools users will need to create a coherent Web site.
The overall aim is to allow users to add documents into AIMS and then create hypertext links between them. The result is a dynamically cross referenced Web site with a much simpler interface for authors.
References
AIMS project home page. http://aims.ecs.soton.ac.uk/