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A visual XML dataspace approach for satisfying ad hoc information needs
Author(s) -
Moilanen Katja,
Niemi Timo,
Näppilä Turkka,
Kuru Mikko
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of the association for information science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.903
H-Index - 145
eISSN - 2330-1643
pISSN - 2330-1635
DOI - 10.1002/asi.23326
Subject(s) - computer science , xml , syntax , semantics (computer science) , information retrieval , markup language , query language , user interface , world wide web , programming language , artificial intelligence
Dataspace systems constitute a recent data management approach that supports better cooperation among autonomous and heterogeneous data sources with which the user is initially unfamiliar. A central idea is to gradually increase the user's knowledge about the contents, structures, and semantics of the data sources in the dataspace. Without this knowledge, the user is not able to make sophisticated queries. The dataspace systems proposed so far are usually application specific. In contrast, our idea in this paper is to develop an application‐independent extensible markup language ( XML ) dataspace system with versatile facilities. Unlike the other proposed dataspace systems, we show that it is possible to build an interface based on conventional visual tools in terms of which the user can satisfy his or her sophisticated information needs. In our system, the user does not need to master programming techniques nor the XML syntax, which provides a good starting point for its declarative use.