Information Object: A Model to Build Web-Based Contents for Sharing

1. Information Object: A Model to Build Web-Based Contents for Sharing Shang Rong Tsai Professor, Department of Information Management Chang Jung Christian University Department of Electrical Engineering National Cheng Kung University

2. Outlines • Motivation • Concept and model of the information objects • Advantages using the information object model • The system design • Some developments • Epilogue

3. Why Information Objects • A single Web page or a single file is often not adequate to present the whole information of an entity in practice. • In an application, the data and the related operations of an object are not organized as a single unit in struture. • How do we save contents from Facebook, some forum websites, photo websites, etc. ? => saving data items piece by piece is not what we want. • On Internet, many successful information systems provide huge amount and useful information by collecting individual-supplied information. • How to integrate and manage the huge amount of information in a systematic way is an important issue. • We propose the Information Object Model to target at the issue.

4. Model of Information Objects • Information Object • An entity encapsulating the data and functionalities that are required in an application as a data unit • Main Document • Attachments • Metadata • Methods main and data

5. The structure of a basic information object A folder Information Object A file data methods system meta data main.htm anything as needed method1 method2 method-n …

6. Advantages of Information Objects • Portability Information Objects can be easily moved among various platforms. • Extensibility Information Objects can be easily extended in functionalities. • Reusability contents and methods of an Information Objects can be reused.

7. Portability • Information Object is designed as a portable unit • Moving an object from servers to servers • Moving an object from servers to clients

8. Extensibility • a new method can be easily installed and an existing method can be easily replaced. • In the design, the structure of the object sets is organized in a hierarchy. Several basic objects can be composed as a composite object.

9. Reusability • An information object is organized as a unit in structure and is a reusable component. • The reusability does not only refer to the data but also to the methods. Object B Object A method1 Method2 is modified and overwritten data method2 copied method1 data method2 Object C copied method1 data method2 method3 Method3 is added

10. Encapsulation of Multimedia • Various types of data can be encapsulated                                 • Data and methods are bound in a unit to perform the function as the application needs

11. Design Issues of an Information Object System • Operation Platform of an Information Object System • The Structure of Information Objects • The Specification of an Information Object • Management and Installations of Methods • Composition and Integration of Information Objects • Access Control of the Information Objects • Standard meta data of the Information Objects • Search of the Information Objects • Programming Interface for Accessing the Information Objects

12. Operation Platforms of an Information Object System • The Information Object Model can be implemented • inside an operating system • on top of an operating system as a middleware • on the Web system • For content sharing and integration purposes, we implemented the idea on the Web system.

13. System Design on Information Objects • Core system design • core system meta data • Types and structures of information objects • Application specific design • per application meta data • per application data format and structures • Methods • Considerations on designing the specifications • to develop reusable tools and methods • to facilitate the composition and integration of information objects • for systematical design • to accommodate a wide range of applications

14. The Types of Information Objects • Simple ObjectAn object without specific data and methods folders, designed for including more contents from general Web pages • Basic ObjectAn object with data and methods folders. An application designer can put any data under the data folder and the required methods under the methods folder. • Composite ObjectAn object with data and methods folders. The objects it contains are stored under the data folder, the methods under the methods folder.

15. Simple Objects Simple Object A folder A file Folders needed Files needed main.htm main.htm as the entry page of this object

16. The structure of a basic information object A folder Information Object A file data methods system meta data main.htm anything as needed method1 method2 method-n …

17. Composition of Information Objects Composite Information Object data methods system meta data main.htm method1 method2 method-n … Basic Object1 Basic Object2 Basic Object-n ObjectList.js ObjectList.js is a Javascript file describing the list of sub-objects

18. The Specification of a Basic Information Object

19. Management and Installations of Methods • uuid of a method • Installing a particular method • Installing a whole set of methods • Replacing a particular method • Replacing a whole set of methods • The languages to implement methods => Considering the platform to execute the methods (server side or client side) • HTML + Javascript • PHP • ASP.NET • JSP • Python

20. Composition and Integration of Information Objects • Objects Composition Composing objects into a higher level composite object • Objects Integration • Integrating N sets of objects into one uniform set • Each Object Set comes from the same object type with the same data format and same type of meta data, but with various methods.

21. Integration of Information Objects object set B, each with 3 (different) methods object set A, each with 5 methods Integrating the two sets into one uniform set, each with 8 methods

22. Reusable Tools and Methods • Listing the composed objects • Installing a method • Installing the whole set of methods • Creating a sub-object • Downloading/uploading a zipped object • Adding the related URLs to the object • Searching the objects • etc.

23. Typical steps for the development of a new application • Design of the application data and meta data (using json) • Design of the required methods • Constructing a sample object including sample data (with special marks) and the methods • Constructing a Web page for creating an object (with a <form> tag to gather the data of an object) • Creating an object by • Cloning the sample object • Replacing the sample data of the new object • Building the meta data • Including the object as a sub-object of the object set (the upper composite object)

24. Application Examples • Proper applications are those that • preserving long-term valid information • producing information to be shared • Some applications we have implemented • KaraOK with photos • Points of Interests Objects • Community member information system • A person as a basic object • A groups of persons as a community object • Computer hardware components ( a commercial product) for building a PC • A particular CPU, VGA card, or DVD drive, etc. as a basic object • A series of CPU product as a composite object • A PC as a higher level composite object

25. Epilogue • We propose the Information Object Model for building a digital content management system that collects and preserves long-term valid information for sharing. • The Information Object Model provides the advanatges of • portability • extensibility • reusability • In the design of the system, some specifications to be imposed should be carefully designed • some specifications of the contents and structures should be followed to enable the use of reusable tools and methods • More useful and reusable tools and methods are to be developed • More studies and developments should be done

26. Thank You Shang Rong Tsai Professor, srtsai@mail.cjcu.edu.tw