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An Intranet should provide seamless access to a variety of information resources crucial to the success of the organization. From an information management perspective, this seminar will examine the conceptual and proven technologies that organizations are using to build Intranets, from the crucial planning considerations, to the types of people skills and expertise required, to the technical challenges.
As anyone who has used the Web knows, a consistent style with good navigational aids is critical for any set of pages. The same applies to an Intranet. We'll briefly discuss style guides and the use of graphics. Unfortunately, much content does not lend itself to cost-effective conversion to HTML. Scientific nomenclature, mixed formats, including tables & pictures, etc., are best optimized with PDF and other formats. We'll use an example of a mixed-format document and discuss the options and issues involved in making it retrievable in a variety of formats.
Learn about Groupware applications (forums and interactive discussions) that will enhance communication and virtual workgroups. Middleware applications will be explored as tools which can provide users with a Web front-end to legacy databases.
Many libraries have built large CD-ROM collections. Unfortunately, because of technology constraints like Macintosh and UNIX access to DOS & Windows-based databases and bandwidth requirements for WAN delivery, many have not been able to provide enterprise-wide access to this data. Howard will demonstrate new technology (Winframe and NTrigue) that can make this information available to everyone, through either a custom client or client configured as a "helper application" to the Web browser. This technology, based upon remote-control concepts, allows the user to be either on-site or remote, needing only 14.4 Kbps modem connection.
Publishers are beginning to offer Web-based subscriptions to databases. At first glance, this approach may seem like a panacea. We'll explore some of the issues associated with this delivery mechanism, including getting past the corporate firewall.
The search engine is the "corporate brain" of the Intranet. If a non-information professional cannot easily gain access to relevant information, the Intranet cannot be considered a true success. We'll explore various methodologies of search engine technology. If we accept the premise that one of the goals of an Intranet is to allow end users (non-information professionals) to self-serve, we must then accept the fact that end users are not going to learn Boolean search strategies (to the same extent as the information professional). So, where do we go from here? Natural Language Processing has been under development for some time and is being employed, to lesser and greater extents, in a variety of search engines. We'll discuss some of the major components of Natural Language Processing, including statistical weighted relevancy, semantics, syntactics, discourse, and pragmatics.
Many Internet search engines are being marked for Intranet use. Is an engine that has been designed to harvest information from a humongous universe appropriate for an Intranet where the end user wants to retrieve relevant information from a limited number of sources? Howard will review what he feels are the top (four to five) Intranet Search Engines and will cut through the hype and reveal the subtle, yet very important differences between their products.
If you want to play an integral role in the design, implementation
and/or on-going enhancement to your organization's Intranet, this
seminar is a must!
This seminar also offers a historical perspective of the information retrieval arena. Not many of today's players understand the events of the last few decades which have led to much of today's perplexity in the field. Particular emphasis will be placed on the interface problems between the databases and the users: what special considerations are necessary for end-user searching and what are the hopes and promises for machine-aided indexing and full-text searching.
The seminar will cover the following:
This full-day workshop focuses on transforming legacy data into valuable SGML/ HTML databases. Presented are defining legacy data, assessing the nature of your collection, sizing the collection and analyzing the collection for conversion, comparative survey of SGML/HTML authoring tools including their strengths and weaknesses from the user perspective, converting large collections with SGML and HTML, looking at real costs (applied to real-life data collections), and costing large projects.
Most organizations store immense amounts of data on paper in warehouses, in other remote locations, and much of their data is stored in inaccessible electronic formats. If made available, this data can be mined for very valuable intelligence. Before this can be done, it must be in a suitable machine-readable form. This cannot be done by simple scanning and OCR conversions. This workshop targets the processes necessary to turn paper archives into valuable assets.
Turning workshop attendees into SGML editors and DTD developers is NOT an objective of this workshop. The history of SGML and its relationship to HTML is covered. You will be introduced to the structure of SGML, fundamental concepts and constructs, and the rudiments of syntax. You will be exposed to the concepts and structure of the DTD, learning about what it is, why it is important, and how you can get one of your own.
SGML/HTML, DTDs, the intranet, the Web, the network are only tools--only
useful if they add value to your data. Your data--your content-- IS THE VALUE. Major emphasis is placed on analyzing and understanding your data, that is, the stuff that makes up the "content"
of your intranet and/or Web site. Where is it? What is it? How valuable
is it now? Who uses it? Why? How often? What do we do with it now? These
and other questions are asked and some are even answered! Learn how you
can transform your information resources into valuable information
assets.
Marjorie M.K. Hlava is president, chairman, and founder of Access Innovations, Inc. Mrs. Hlava is past president of ASIS and the 1996 recipient of ASIS' prestigious Watson Davis Award, past member of the Board of Directors of SLA, member of the Board of NISO, past President of the Board of Documentation Abstracts, and has held many other positions in these and other organizations.
Jay Ven Eman joined Access Innovations, Inc. in December, 1978. As chief executive officer, he has contributed to every aspect of the business. He has overseen Access' database production services where he was responsible for the design and conversion of large, legacy databases for a variety of government and private organizations.
"The Information Broker's Seminar" will cover every essential area of
information brokering and small business start-up and management,
including:
Take-home materials: course book with Internet address book, vendor literature, sample disks
Internet sources will be approached from a highly practical perspective, providing participants with an objective overview of the nature, extent and quality of information resources available.
Online demonstrations of a wide range of resources will be complemented
by discussion of evaluation strategies.
NOM/IOLS '97 Home Page