Towards personalization in digital libraries through ontologies
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/01435120510596062 |
| Pages | 206-217 |
| Published date | 01 May 2005 |
| Date | 01 May 2005 |
| Author | Núria Ferran,Enric Mor,Julià Minguillón |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science |
Towards personalization in
digital libraries through
ontologies
Nu
´ria Ferran
Digital Library, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), Barcelona, Spain, and
Enric Mor and Julia
`Minguillo
´n
Computer Science and Multimedia Studies, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
(UOC), Barcelona, Spain
Abstract
Purpose – To describe a browsing and searching personalization system for digital libraries based
on the use of ontologies for describing the relationships between all the elements which take part in a
digital library scenario of use.
Design/methodology/approach – Identification of all the desired functionalities and requirements
that are necessary to fully integrate the use of a digital library in an e-learning environment, and the
basic elements that are used to build the ontology that describes such scenario.
Findings – The elements that determine the functionalities of the desired personalization system:
first, the user’s profile, including navigational history and user preferences; and second, the
information collected from the navigational behavior of the digital library users.
Research limitations/implications – The ontology is not complete. In fact, the ontology in itself
will evolve with the new apparition of desired functionalities and requirements of the personalization
system.
Practical implications – Such a personalization system will be very helpful to the users of a digital
library to improve their experience of use.
Originality/value – The use of ontologies promotes the integration of new services into existing
ones, and the interoperability with other systems through the appropriate semantic web services. New
system functionalities and requirements can be added by including the appropriate description into
the ontology framework that defines the digital library scenario of use.
Keywords Digital libraries,Information searches, Personalneeds, Customization, Distance learning
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Distance education is becoming one of the most attractive methods for incorporating
all kinds of people into higher and university degree education levels, moving towards
a “blended” technology approach deploying multiple technologies. The introduction of
new technologies of information and communications with the intensive use of
e-learning environments, as a virtual campus, for example, allows students to break
through the barriers of space and time, and to design their own lifelong curricula,
adapting it to their particular necessities and preferences, according to their
possibilities as students, changing the usual way of both teaching and learning
(Jonassen et al., 1995), setting up the foundations of e-learning environments
(Rosenberg, 2001).
The students of an e-learning environment have access to a predetermined
repository of learning resources, which are part of the learning process designed by the
The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister www.emeraldinsight.com/0143-5124.htm
LM
26,4/5
206
Library Management
Vol. 26 No. 4/5, 2005
pp. 206-217
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0143-5124
DOI 10.1108/01435120510596062
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