Specific Information Package
i³
intelligent - information - interfaces
September 1995
Please note that the call for which this document was designed has closed
Schemata selected | For more information
NOTE
This document defines the evaluation criteria and proposal format for a specific type of preparatory measures, called schemas, that will provide the content for a subsequent call for project proposals on intelligent information interfaces.
CONTENTS
The world is living through an information revolution. The ability to both access and manage information is becoming more and more a factor of everyday life. Indeed, being well informed can offer competitive advantage, or simply make it easier to fulfil personal needs and desires. At the same time, there are dangers of creating a world in which people become overwhelmed by the sheer volumes of information available or become alienated by new technology. Both these positive and negative aspects of the information revolution underline the importance of creating new paradigms for interacting with information - paradigms that will enable the broadest possible population to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the information society.
What is needed are "intelligent interfaces" for communicating with people, participating in entertainment, using tele-services, accessing data-banks and utilising information services. The "intelligence" of such interfaces will lie in their natural and intuitive usability; their flexibility in spanning across different devices, applications and media; and their active role in providing helpful service that empowers the citizen. To provide such interfaces, new human-centred paradigms are needed - ones that will not depend on fixed concepts such as "computer", "television" or "telephone", but will open up new ways of interacting with information, ways that will be personal or social, offering truly distributed interfaces to information for anybody, anywhere.
The i³ initiative (pronounced eye-cubed) aims to tackle these issues and is broadly defined by five themes that describe the principal characteristics of interfaces to be considered:
- The broad population
- Intuitive to use
- Independent of location
- Flexible and interoperable
- Empower the citizen
- The themes are described in greater detail in section 7.
Clearly it is not sufficient to simply encourage improvements to current interfaces - what is needed are new paradigms for interacting with information. For such new paradigms to be given a chance of emerging, and of being realised in a quickly moving and competitive environment, activities must be focused and coordinated in a way that itself supports creativity, flexibility and competition.
This will be achieved by launching a small number of independent teams working in parallel, that may compete at different levels. Each team will address the five themes above but will each chose a different way of doing so. Each team will be made up of a tightly knit grouping of independent projects, each with a "master-plan" called a schema.
Based on the above rationale, work under this initiative will be carried out by a small number of tightly knit groupings of projects. A schema will describe a master-plan for each grouping of projects. It will describe a plan of work that addresses five broad themes of the initiative, which are described in detail in section 7. A schema will choose a particular instantiation of the five themes, aiming at an integrated validation and realisation of it plans. In its description, a schema will map out a tightly knit yet flexible framework for a number of independent but coordinated tasks.
The Commission will first call for schema proposals. A small number of schema proposals will be selected from the call and will be funded as short preparatory measures so as to allow the selected proposers to refine and finalise their schemas in agreement with the Commission. The schemas resulting from this work will define the tasks which will be open to competitive bidding through subsequent calls for projects and other actions.
The i³ initiative will thus evolve in two stages:
- There will be an open call for schema proposals as preparatory measures, from which a small number will be selected (subject of September 1995 Call). The selected schema proposals will then be refined and finalised in agreement with the Commission.
- There will be open calls for projects and other actions to carry out the tasks described by the schemas (probably the subject of March 1996 Call ).
Stage 1 is the subject of the September 1995 Call. The call for projects and other actions, Stage 2, will be the subject of a subsequent Call, probably March 1996, at which time this document will be updated accordingly. Overall it is expected to reserve a total of up to 25 MECU for the initiative. The remainder of this document describes in further detail: a definition of a schema, the criteria against which schema proposals will be evaluated, and the themes of i³ to be addressed by schema proposals.
In addition to the above, so as to provide an overall support mechanism for the initiative activities, a Network of Excellence is expected to be set up. This will be done after schema proposals have been selected. The network will be expected to:
- Include a broad community of technology users and providers, the participants of schema projects and actions, as well as participants outside of Europe.
- Provide infrastructure links across schema projects and actions, and their participants.
- Provide a forum for exchange of views on a range of relevant issues, such as discussing global market opportunities, or identifying where standards may be needed.
A schema is a plan of work that addresses the five themes of i³. It aims at an integrated realisation and validation of its suggested plan through demonstrators or prototypes. A schema describes a tightly knit yet flexible framework for a number of independent but coordinated tasks that will be carried out by projects or any other necessary accompanying actions. A small number of schemas proposals will be selected from the Call. The selected schemas will then be refined and finalised in agreement with the Commission, and will provide the material necessary for subsequent calls for projects or other actions to carry out the schema tasks. In addition,
- Selected schemas proposals may receive up to 50KECU to cover the costs of refining and finalising the schema.
- Schema proposers will be eligible to propose projects or other actions for tasks of any of the selected schemas.
- The proposers of a selected schema will play a leading role in managing the grouping of projects and accompanying actions working to the schema, and for bringing the overall operation to a successful realisation.
Schema definition
- A schema describes an effective plan of work that addresses the five themes of i³.
- A schema is driven by clearly identified human needs and market potential.
- A schema aims at a realisation and validation of its plans. It aims to result in demonstrators or prototypes from which future product development can evolve.
- A schema aims to stimulate European resources and encourage innovation. It should be open to interdisciplinary contributions from domains such as technology, design, human-factors and the arts.
- To ensure that the results of the work have a chance of contributing to globally competitive products, a schema takes account of developments worldwide and, where appropriate, involves cooperation beyond Europe.
- A schema provides a tightly knit yet flexible framework for a set of tasks that will be carried out by projects or other actions. To do so, it describes the tasks required, indicating their expected duration, deliverables, and interdependencies, in a way that will encourage a dynamic balance of project autonomy, inter-project cooperation and competition. It should, for example, identify tasks for which it would be advantageous to have more than one project competing on the same task with different approaches.
- A schema gives estimates the overall cost of carrying out its plans, as well as giving indicative costs of the individual tasks.
- A schema describes how the various themes, tasks and techniques will come together into an integrated whole.
Conformity with the scope and objectives of the programme
- Falls within the scope and objectives of the IT programme - see Chapter 1 of Part I (General Information document) and of its Work Programme.
- Falls within the scope and objectives of Task 4.4 of the Work Programme.
European dimension
- Involves at least two non-affiliated participants from different Member States or from at least one Member State and one state associated with the programme.
- There is clear added value in carrying out the proposed work at the European level (as opposed to the national level).
- If one of the proposers is an organisation from a European country other than a country from the European Union, Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein, it is clearly described why the participation of this proposer is in the interest of the European Community.
- If one of the proposers is an organisation from a non-European country, it is clearly described why the participation of this proposer contributes effectively to the implementation of the programme and provides mutual benefits.
Schema content
- The schema proposal addresses all the elements given in the definition of section 3, so as to be able to sufficiently assess the choices made and the relevance with respect to the objectives.
Proposers
- The proposers demonstrate the appropriate capabilities required for the creation of a credible schema, as well as its follow through.
The proposal title must have no more than 80 characters and an acronym of no more than 20 characters.
The proposal should be clear and concise, and be organised as follows:
PART 1: FINANCIAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE DATA
- Form 1, "Proposal Administrative Summary", must be completed by the coordinating proposer. Please specify "4.4" as the Work Programme Task and "PM" as the Action Type in the spaces provided.
- Form 2, "Individual Participant Profile" must be completed by each proposer (one form per proposer).
- A written statement by each proposer, signed by representatives of the organisation duly empowered to do so, authorising its participation in the proposal.
It is recommended that you use the diskette enclosed inside the cover of Part I (general information document) to prepare Forms 1 and 2 for your proposal. Paper copies of these forms are given in Annex 2 of Part I and you may use these instead, as well as the forms used in other RTD programmes. Using the diskette and returning it with the data, together with the printed forms would help us to speed up and improve the accuracy of data entry. In all cases you should pay close attention to the notes and instructions provided in Annex 2 of Part I or on the diskette.
PART 2: THE SCHEMA PROPOSAL
A schema proposal should address the criteria described in section 4, in the context of this document. There is no prescribed structure for a schema proposal, however, the body of Part 2 should be no more than 15 A4 pages. In addition to these pages there should also be a one page summary and an annex containing the CVs of the key proposers. Each CV should be not more than one page in length.
SUBMISSION
For general information on the submission of proposals see Chapter 4 of Part I(General Information).
The deadline for submission of schema proposals is 15 December 1995.
Calls for proposals for projects and other accompanying actions, based on selected schemas will probably be made in March 1996.
EVALUATION AND SELECTION
For general information on the evaluation and selection of proposals see Chapter 5 of Part I (General Information).
FURTHER ENQUIRIES
Proposers are welcome to address further enquiries about i³ to:
Jakub Wejchert
European Commission
Directorate General III - Industry
200 rue de la Loi - BU29 6/74
B-1049 Brussels
Tel: +32-2-2968032
Fax: +32-2-2968390
e-mail: jwe@dg13.cec.be
The features of the future interfaces are outlined under five themes below. Together the themes delineate the scope and range of activities to be considered by schemas proposals. The descriptions of the themes are designed to stimulate and guide schema proposers - they should not be seen as trying to pre-determine ideas.
i³ will be aimed at the broad population:
- The interfaces will provide new means of interacting with information for the broad population with non-specialist uses. They will aim to open all the opportunities that the information society can offer, to all citizens.
i³ will be intuitive to use - the interfaces will:
- Mirror the fundamental physical, cognitive and behavioural aspects of humans. For example, they will reflect the natural capacity of humans to carry out concurrent, cooperative, multi-tasking and multi-modal communication.
- Enable bidirectional interaction, allowing information to be given and received in natural and effective ways.
- Be designed for people in their environments. They will be designed to have a "look", "sound" and "feel" appropriate to their uses.
- Summarise information in ways that can be effectively understood by the user, setting a sense of scale, boundary, and enabling rapid interaction.
- Be self disclosing: initially appearing naively simple to use and only disclosing greater complexity when appropriate.
i³ will support "nomadic" uses:
- The interfaces will be independent of the physical location of the user. Location independent, or "nomadic", use can be supported by interfaces being portable (always being with the user) or ubiquitous (being present and accessible everywhere) or a combination of both.
i³ will be flexible and interoperable - the interfaces will:
- Range across many different activities including, media access, leisure/entertainment, buying and selling, and personal communication.
- Span across a range of devices (such as automobile, telephone, video player, washing machine or television).
- Link to a range of communication modes, from cellular telephony to global broadcasting and computer networks.
- Scale to the costs of services or devices of different bandwidth.
i³ will empower the citizen - the interfaces will:
- Act as personal "guides" by offering a range of services that, for example, can offer real-time consultation or augment personal knowledge.
- Respect and enrich cultural identity.
- Be customisable to the personal preference of the individual. For example, by pro-actively searching and filtering information to suit a personal profile, by being easily customisable to suit fashion or personal image.
- Support both collaborative and private use.
- Respect the individual by having controllable degrees of privacy and security.
The URL of this page is /esprit/src/eye95inf.htm
It was last updated on 19 April 1996, and is maintained by Jakub Wejchert - jakub.wejchert@dg3.cec.be
