...
>If the links between the METADATA terms carried a 'degree of
>relevance' with other terms / entries then such an interface could
>offer users the opportunity to find material 'related' that which they
>are seeking in such a way as it may be usefull. This could yeild a
>sory of visual 'more like this' query. Users often dont expore
>services or systems becuase they think 'there's nothing relevant to me
>in there' wheras perhaps a graphical space in which they can roam may
>well bring other information sources literally into their 'field of
>view'.
...
I have conducted some of this discussion bilaterally, but to emphasize
the point; MCF is a metadata format, but Hotsauce really does not
exploit this. I have generated MCF files of our site. The ONLY metacontent
current generations of MCF generators appear to pick up are from the
Title (the quality of which almost invariably leaves much to be desired;
its a bit like e-mail subject headers, they often do not reflect the content).
for this reason, the resultant mcf file is pretty much useless. I have spent
a fair bit of time declaring meta headers in some of our pages, but all
this information was just discarded.
For reasons such as this, when we came to produce navigation metaphors
for the ECHET96 conference derived from the CLIC project, we
used "chemically aware" similarity searching software developed by
chemists. We have used so-called 3-D AGLO diagrams in VRML, and other
navigation aids to the chemistry. We also included an MCF file, but
feel it does not really reflect what a CHEMIST would like to see. Thus
fly-thru's need really to be subject aware. A Chemical fly-thru needs to
know about the molecules!! Anyone wishing to see a copy of the ECHET96
CD, it should be pressed in say 4-5 weeks time!
Dr Henry Rzepa, Dept. Chemistry, Imperial College, LONDON SW7 2AY;
[log in to unmask]; Tel (44) 171 594 5774; Fax: (44) 171 594 5804.
URL: http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/rzepa/
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|