Exploitable results
The way we access information depends on our context: where we are, what we want, what we use to access it, the kind of interaction we expect to have, and so on. There is a need for an information management system that understands our context and tries to present information accordingly, and on a variety of access devices, such as web or digital TV appliances, and from a range of content providers. GUARDIANS has developed a generic architecture and business model that can satisfy this need and has applied it, for example, to education and learning.
As we move further into the Information Society, so more and more information will become available. But how can we access all this information? Do we need to access it, anyway? We can cut down on information overload by filtering out only those pieces that are of interest or relevance to us.
This challenge was recognised by the European Commission's Information Society Technologies programme, which funded the R&D project GUARDIANS.
Business model
GUARDIANS stands for Gateway for User Access to Remote Distributed Information And Network Services. It has developed a flexible, component-based architecture for the discovery and delivery of modular training and education services extended using various emerging technologies. The derived business model that looks at the whole value chain, including: the user, content providers, information service providers and mediation services.
The following paragraphs explain in greater detail how it works and mentions an application to which it has been put in the section starting with the subtitle Commercialisation.
The users are consumers of information and might have several access devices. The architecture is generalised and does not restrict the choice of access devices, but for the demonstrator system, an Internet-connected PC and an iDTV (interactive digital TV, both set-top boxes or the new integrated digital TV sets) were chosen. These use conventional web browser technology and DVB-MHP (Multimedia Home Platform from the Digital Video Broadcasting Project) respectively.
The content provider is any organisation, such as a publisher, a university, etc., whose main activity is the creation of digital resources. Each of these resources carries a detailed description in the form of computer-readable metadata.
Information service providers (INSP) can be thought of as information aggregators, who collect information from a number of content providers, organise it, and act as delivery channels from the content provider and end-users. A realistic possibility is that INSPs will tend to specialise in particular areas, such as e-Learning.
The mediator acts as a broker between the user and the available content resources, as represented by the INSPs. It matches user's queries and preferences to what's available from INSPs and selects suitable content. A key feature is that the system will search the resources of any INSP, provided that their metadata repository has been registered with the GUARDIANS service. This gives the system a degree of future proofing, in that the core system is independent of metadata schema types. The GUARDIANS demonstrator uses metadata schemas of the IMS and TV-Anytime consortia, and the MPEG-7 specification; IMS covers the education and training sector, and the other two, the audiovisual/personalised TV applications sectors.
Commercialisation
A spin-off from the project is the Learning Environment le(r) for television-based learning (t-learning), which operates as an INSP within the GUARDIANS architecture. "It's much more than a technical transformation from one medium to another" said Marcello Allegri, the project coordinator at FD Learning, formerly known as Fretwell-Downing Education. "The end-user's context, motivation and preferences are taken into account when accessing material from a multiplicity of service providers."
Learning Environment can be used to deliver educational material via iDTV. It supports a range of functionalities in a way that would be perfectly familiar to interactive TV users. Suppose a TV programme on astronomy was being broadcast. Users would be presented with an option to enrol on an astronomy course. They could check for other available courses, check availability and request a copy of the prospectus or answer to interactive quizzes.
"Users can be characterised as working in a sitting forwards or leaning back attitude. This is part of their overall context", commented Allegri. The le(r) can support messaging via the iDTV box and this enables users to participate in various communication activities - sitting forward and actively participating (like in interactive TV). If users are leaning back and watching a broadcast, they could input messages using, for example, the TV remote control. le(r) can also link to a personal calendar held within the learning management system, and has the facility to add question-and-answer data to existing programmes based on IMS-QTI metadata specifications. IMS-QTI (question & test interoperability) is an IMS workgroup that is considering a uniform way for representing assessment material. le(r) with its t-learning extensions (le.TV ©)is being actively promoted in the European broadcasting and DVB-MHP communities.
On another front, British Telecom's R&D arm BTexact Technologies, in partnership with FD Learning, may well promote the GUARDIANS mediation service for further development. 'Development has been successful because we have found opportunities to exploit results in partnership almost straightaway, and so to join forces to make a bid for the market', explains Allegri. The outlook for GUARDIANS looks very promising.
Promoted by: IST Results Service
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