Intelligent Collection Services for and about Educators and Students: Logging, Spidering, Analysis and Visualization

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The AI Lab at The University of Arizona is researching, developing, and enhancing tools to augment the knowledge, skills and abilities that users bring in various degrees to the information search process. Results from three areas of research are being used: information analysis and visualization; data mining; and search agents. The platform for this research and development is an integrated system that allows for the retrieval, analysis, categorization, analysis and visualization of information from documents housed in a digital library. In addition, through the use of transaction logs from the library, a mechanism is provided whereby instructors can gauge the use of resources and their students' paths through the learning experience; such transaction logs can also prove valuable to students as a record of their learning experience within a given course or even throughout their college career. The testbed for this work includes two application domains that provide significant differences in domain language and subject matter: computer science and information technology, and the life sciences. Undergraduate students, professors and librarians are assisting in the evaluation of the system. The team also expects to investigate several issues: (1) whether use of a search agent improves the search results of digital library users over those obtained using a conventional search engine; (2) whether visualization of search results in the browser window reduces user disorientation in the information space; and (3) whether synchronous or asynchronous collaboration improves student performance over the course of a semester.