The impact of usage monitoring on the evolution of an online-documentation system: a case study

Girill, T. R.; Luk, C.H.; Norton, Sarah

doi:10.1109/21.3471

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Usage monitoring of DOCUMENT, the original portion of DFT, showed that such question answering-reference reading of specific, short text blocks-was by far what most readers tried (Girill, Luk, & Norton, 1987;Girill, Luk, & Norton, 1988;Girill & Tull, 1988). Such heavy reference use imposes boundary conditions on the user interface that many hypertext systems simply ignore.…”

Section: Boundary Conditionsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Extended subject access to hypertext online documentation. Parts I and II: The search-support and maintenance problems

Girill

Griffin

Jones

1991

J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci.

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The DFT (DOCUMENT, FIND, THESEUS) online documentation system resembles other hypertext software in managing a full-text database with reference links (pointers) between passages (nodes). But DFT's prime role as an end-user reference service at a computer center where text updates are frequent required extra access methods often neglected in hypertext systems. To solve the problem of rapid, high-recall search for specific answer passages we combined syntactical interface features (substring and fuzzy matching of search terms) with a semantic expansion of the system's entry vocabulary. Extensive aliasing increased the number of descriptions under which any passage could be found. Conversion of the NBS GAMS classification scheme for mathematical software into descriptors allowed us to impose a virtual organization on our subroutine documentation that supports easy, task-oriented retrieval without tedious path walking. To solve the problem of reliable database maintenance amid frequent passage revisions we developed software tools for flexible input of text and entry-term changes, as well as for thorough and versatile status reporting. These, together with special features for testing and privately simulating changes and for coordinating the sequence of text and entry-term updates for maximum efficiency, yielded a robust and practical answer-delivery system.

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Section: Boundary Conditionsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Extended subject access to hypertext online documentation. Parts I and II: The search-support and maintenance problems

Girill

Griffin

Jones

1991

J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci.

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“…Paper is believed to be holding up to 50 times more information for a given space than a monitor (Tufte, 1991, p.3). One study of the use of 19,000 pages of online text indicated that readers tolerated only limited amounts of electronic text, information that satisfied a specific need and did not require a great deal of scrolling through monitors (Girill, Luk & Norton, 1988).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A study of graduate student end‐users’ use and perception of electronic journals

Liew

Foo

Chennupati

2000

Online Information Review

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The growth and diversity of electronic journals (e-journals) in the past five years had led many to predict the extinction of print journals and that a new paradigm is sweeping scholarship. Some others however, believe that future electronic scholarly journals will be different from their print antecedents and that both will fill a different niche, and will be necessary for the growth of knowledge. This paper considers the future of e-journals in the light of the use and perception of graduate student end-users, and their expectations of future e-journals. A segment of the results from a recent user study that present significant implications for the design of future e-journals are reported. The results show a significantly high acceptance of e-journals by this category of users. Generally, e-journals are expected to be different from print journals, with novel forms of functionality not possible in their print counterparts.

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Hierarchical search support for hypertext on-line documentation

Girill¹,

Luk²

1992

International Journal of Man-Machine Studies

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The impact of usage monitoring on the evolution of an online-documentation system: a case study

Cited by 5 publications

References 12 publications

Extended subject access to hypertext online documentation. Parts I and II: The search-support and maintenance problems

Extended subject access to hypertext online documentation. Parts I and II: The search-support and maintenance problems

A study of graduate student end‐users’ use and perception of electronic journals

Hierarchical search support for hypertext on-line documentation

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