Development and Dilemma of Digital Library

With the popularity of the Internet, information technology continuously progresses, most people can feel modicum of impact. Due to fueled by information technology, people’s demands on the Internet using and diffusing digital information are increasing. Traditional newspapers or books’ transmission speed is really no comparison compared to now network’s transmission speed. So, traditional library’s business is facing unprecedented challenges.

The development of technology makes the operation of library have a significant change. The standards judging the library is successful or not are no longer the number of collections on the hardware, or magnificent and wide buildings, but how the software allows the reader to quickly and correctly get what he wanted. In short, accurate information Access supply has become the library’s main function that replaced large numbers of information Storage, and Digital Library through by the help of digital network technology is therefore able to achieve this ultimate goal.

I. Definition and Characteristics of Digital Library

(1) Definition of Digital Library:

According to 1992 Christine Borgman’s definition for Digital Library, he believes that the Digital Library is a kind of service that can anytime and anywhere provide information to readers when they need. Also is virtual library in digital form to collect, store and organize all types of information, and through the communication network to provide to readers.

Digital Library refers to a virtual library that storing book information with digital mode and through computer network to provide readers using. Digital Library is also called electronic library, merely electronic library generally refers to all libraries with electronic mode storing, processing, querying and using, but Digital Library stresses that the data is stored digitally. So, the scope of electronic library should include Digital Library.

Digital Library can be seen as an extension of entity library, also is a kind of  information retrieval system, not only put the files or objects on the network to be used by readers. So the Digital Library is generally defined: 「A kind of information service that founds and stores a mass of digital multimedia information, supplies high-efficiency, high-performance and conforming information research and searches function, and meets individual needs」. This new type information application mode could be applied to various fields e.g. business, environmental science, medicine, cultural heritage and entertainment, their users can query and use it.

(2) Characteristics of Digital Library

Ideal Digital Library’s function is that make any reader no matter what time and in any corner of the world can use network and find wanted information without visiting the library during opening hours, readers can print full-text, or for electronic document storage and edit.

In terms of the using-surface, Digital Library system through the input clerk making the traditional data digitize by keyboard, image scanner and disk etc. tools; in terms of editor, has edit, classification, retrieval and permission settings etc. functions; administrators carry out data index, system resource management, pricing/ account management, login / storage and other operations; readers can read, query, print and save recorded data; further, intelligent agent can automatically search wanted Internet related information. So, whole Digital Library system’s characteristics are: multimedia (words, pictures, audio messages, video messages) document management; intelligent full-text searches; file access control and version control; multi-function network edit and view; system security management; intelligent information search engine; publishing business support tools; network communication security.

Digital Library’s development is in response to the information highway and needs of information society, the main reason that it has an unprecedented attention of many countries is changing book information management and application model and having many characteristics of traditional library can’t compete, its characteristics are as following:

1. Main collections are digital full-text information: All books, magazines, technical reports, news, sound and cartoon etc. data are all presented by digital type, different from traditional library’s digital data which with bibliography information as main information.

2. Computer media is data’s main storage: The data’s storage is computer media, not bookshelf.

3. Service without effect whether time or space: All year and day open service; sub-set libraries through network connecting  co-operation and sharing resources.

4. Flexible use location: Places that network can reach e.g. library, office, lab, home, are available on line.

5. Services to the global people: All on-line people can use, the objects extend to library inside and outside users and domestic and foreign users.

6. Freely use: In addition to copyright data need to supply service according to the regulations, the data without copyright limit can be freely used by everyone.

7. Auto services: Information’s read will be automatically processed by system, no longer need manual operation.

8. Real-time data transmission: When reading the data, immediate transmission and without waiting.

9. Change the concept of data flows: Influenced by digital information’s characteristics, when users request data, the system will immediately copy, transmit and no longer has borrowing and returning process.

10. Transparent system creates a using environment of “all the world are a family”: Under the application of common agreement and various standards, the system of all libraries used becomes more consistent, when users visit the libraries, only have “come to my home” feel, no strange and alienation troubles.

It can be seen that Digital Library seem to have many advantages, including save a lot of data storage space, transcend or escape time and space limit, shorten display distance, easily copy and can permanent preservation, display by multimedia, has self-determination and interactivity, extension and tractility, high accuracy, retrieval is more efficient and better environment for knowledge and exploration. From Table 1 comparison of Traditional Library and Digital Library, we can learn the differences between the Traditional Library and Digital Library.

II. Development of Digital Library

The development of Digital Library has two main conditions: first, the development of computer technology, in the capacity, speed and ability to handle audio and video data all have great progress. Second, the development of Internet. In 1970s, Internet’s nature was only academic research, by 1994, Internet began to flourish, so far nearly a decade, Internet’s use has become widespread. At present, all digital libraries can provide remote retrieval, online document delivery and rapid real-time services. So, Digital Library can exceed the obstacle of time and space, and with the fastest speed to provide readers wanted information or online delivery of full-text documents, and the client is cross-global.

In many countries, the Digital Library program successively launched since 1992, and most of them made the library as the main body. Development purpose of Digital Library mainly has three:

1. Culture preservation: Preserving precious culture heritage of mankind by digital way, and can integrate precious historical materials, collections and research results collected by the units.

2. Academic research: Place digital materials in the network to allow scholars easily find the necessary information through the network, and provide a complete research environment to promote a study of Digital Library.

3. Education and Learning: Expand the flexibility and scope of matter’s application, provide education and learning content to general primary and secondary school teachers and students. Due to network’s use is popular, so providing these precious data has the value of universal education and can be used by public.

The formation of the Digital Library is from revelations of several important concepts, and only after invention and application of related information technology, the Digital Library can form and lay related basis.

III. Problems faced by Digital Library

1. Interviews of network resources: Now interview work has three kinds of main methods: the first is manual way: filter and check resources on the network by people who are familiar with network resources retrieval technology; the second is automatic way: through Web walkers, worms, spiders, harvesters etc. robot or search engine to gather each node data on the network; the third is recommended by the public: the users recommend useful data through sending Email or filling out the WWW form provided by the server. Under these conditions, how the librarians of Digital Library to develop appropriate way to interview data and to provide accurate summary to make readers be clear at a glance and quickly meet the readers’ requirements?

2. Classification and catalog of network resources: Although traditional classification and catalog way can accurately grasp to collections, but the existent format of digital data is different from the paper data, not only has more edition, irregular update and different catalogue index items, but also scattered in various places, files interconnected and short contents and large numbers. These characteristics will make the traditional way’s efforts not cost-effective which for mastering all information to classified and catalog, and also difficult to keep up with the expansion speed of network resources.

3. Network resources management: Information on the network has a regular or irregular amendment and change characteristic. So, we should collect the data coming from interview to ensure the data exists locally and at any time can use hyperlink to share other people’s data, and ensure that the data is the latest edition.

4. How to provide services to readers: The variability, fragmentary nature and mutual connectivity of network information coupled with Internet needs to use related compute and network technology, what will bring more troubles of information retrieval and utilization to traditional library users. How to continue about the traditional services to meet readers using information needs, without making the characteristics originally for convenience become an obstacle of readers’ utilization.

5. Develop new services: After the emergence of Digital Library, information producer-「Author」will not need printing and publishing procedures and the works can be placed on the network for consumers -「Readers」directly use. After the data are digitized, the convenience of modification, copy, storage and transmission makes intermediary of information order-「Library」can use computer and network technology to provide new services. Face the new readers using information network, what new services we should develop to give full play to the benefits of information technology?

The prime mover of Digital Library is from digital data. The day is just around the corner that digital will become mainstream of publications. The old data need to be digitized. When digital data convert, often face the following problems:

1. Funds burden: The old data are large, so need a lot of money to digital conversion, according to foregoing thing that Library of Congress is scheduled for completion five million digital data in 2000 AD and estimated 60 million U.S. dollars, giant cost we can see from that.

2. Treat with copyright and intellectual property rights: All data with copyright and intellectual property rights should first obtain authorization when implementing digital. Copyright generally has 50 years and according to this regulation, if we want to turn existing paper data into digital, there are still many materials need advance consent and this is a difficult problem.

3. Choice about successive treating: The old data are large, so the digital work can’t be finished in a short time, arranging is inevitable. Library of Congress makes the most interested in information on the general public as a first priority, followed by the Library’s special collections.

4. Selection of Digital Technology: There are so many digital ways, OCR: Optical Character Recognition, in accordance with original appearance re-type or image scanning etc. methods. Before conversion we must study: which is appropriate?

5. Reference about documents standards: Character set, Document Logo, pixel density etc.

6. Make Bibliographic Data contained in each file: Making digital data should consider the future use problem. Accessing to digital information is with file as unit. So, when making it, we should notate recognizable bibliographic data to facilitate the cited put down in writing.

7. Who will produce: Government agencies of private organizations.

In addition, the following problems are often referred to when using Digital Library:

1. Intellectual property rights: Base on the characteristics that digital information is easy copy and spread, if intellectual property rights can’t be effectively controlled and fully protected, there will be bound to hurt the publishers’ digital publishing will and indirectly influence the quality of information. Digital information is the prime mover of Digital Library survival, if lack of high-quality information, the Digital Library’s benefits will greatly reduced.

2. Rich and poor of information are incommensurable: Digital information is Digital Library’s main collections, one of its characteristics is invisible, can’t be seen and touched and interspersed in various places. The people who know how to apply the Digital Library will always enjoy the new and fast abundant resources all over the world. For this people, information is coming in torrents and inexhaustible; contrarily, the people who don’t know how to apply the Digital Library will become  more isolated and scarcity under the invisible characteristic of digital information. Incommensurable gap of rich and poor information hence happens. How to avoid is a problem not be ignored during Digital Library’s development.

3. Expression freedom and privacy right: Expression freedom and privacy right are human rights attached importance to by democratic countries. In the digital information world, these problems still exist. These problems are also needed to pay attention to, for example how to resist censorship, how to respect expression freedom and privacy right.

4. Information security: All these belong to the scope of information security, for example avoiding digital information being improperly used, stopped and obtained, altered or deliberately spreading false information etc. behaviors. For teaching proper use concept of digital information and preventing misconduct, Information Management of Berkeley School of California University offers “Ethics of the Internet" course. It can clearly be seen that establish a new ethics of applying digital information and construct Digital Libraries should also keep abreast and shouldn’t be delayed.

Epilogue

Compared to traditional library’s operation processes e.g. collection, compilation, storage and circulation services, Digital Library’s operation way must consider problems produced by these processes and solve them to provide more convenient information access service to users. Due to the characteristics of digital data different from paper data, and the operation mode of digital data extremely has flexibility, so if use traditional operation processes to reckon future Digital Library’s operation mode, this will not make Digital Library’s services achieve to maximum effectiveness. The mainstream of future book information is digital type, and the use of this type data has become a definite trend. However, successful change will depend on the users’ support and recognition. So, developing tomorrow’s libraries into Digital Libraries should sparkplug in due course and make users gradually accommodate.

The traditional library’s business will face unprecedented significant challenges with the development of modern information technology.

The traditional library’s operation mode that with books data as the main collections has gradually unable to adapt to the requirements of digital age. Only through constantly adjusting the structure and service mode and quickly transforming towards Digital Library, the traditional library can conform the times development trend. Although, at present the cognition for Digital Library is still not entirely consistent, but the library developing towards digital is the fact difficult to avoid. So, library’s digital will become the mainstream of library career development in this century.

IMA502 《Tibet Impression》

Abstract

This website is defined as tourist cultural website with the theme of Tibet, the contents of which will cover histories, local cultures, folk custom and many other aspects. Therefore, it has high requirements for aesthetic appreciation. Compared with the aesthetic appreciation of traditional arts, beauty under this kind of special environment has obvious differences, the reason is that beauty of general arts is as boundless as the sea and sky, it hesitates at no art; while the aesthetic appreciation of the layout of webpage is limited by many aspects, of course it has something that is better than traditional arts, the most obvious aspect is its interaction and fast updating speed, pure art is the author’s self releasing to a great extent, this webpage design is facing a large amount of users directly, the criticism and suggestions will be feedback any time, and amendments can be done according to actual conditions, for example, those places which are not considered when constructing websites and those places which do not get attention can be adjusted according to requirements. It will not damage the complete effect, while it will be more convenient for users. The process will be finished in short time. At the same time, my websites will incorporate article, pictures, voices and animations, also use PS,DW(PHP,XML,HTML,and Javascript ),FLASH,and AI to make my final project, which cannot be reached by traditional arts.

Firstly, we shall be familiar with Tibet. Secondly, I’ll talk about the user experience, in the thesis research  i’ll make flowchart to describe the theme of this website. Thirdly, I’ll discuss how to combine the Interaction Design, user interface, art statement, Production Statement, ROI, Budget in my final project.

http://www.happyingreenville.com/

http://www.disneytowerofterror.com/

http://demo.digitalmodo.com/crisiscore/

http://dev.rambofilm.com/

http://www.digitalvaults.org/#/browse/?record=1292

Artists Statement

Researches will be started from the theme of the website design, first of all, we shall be familiar with Tibet, which is located in west of China, the local culture of Tibetan nationality was formed originally by the Turk culture located in Yalong valley in the middle part of Brahmaputra River and the ancient Xiangxiong culture located in the west of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. By the A.D. 7^th century which was Songtsam period, Buddhism was spread to the Central Plains, India and Nepal, formed and developed gradually into Tibetan Buddhism with unique characteristics. At the same time, Indian culture and Nepal culture of South Asia, Persian culture and Arab culture of west Asia, etc, especially Han culture of Central Plains, had great effect to the development of Tibetan cultures. During the process of history development of Tibetan cultures, construction art of Tibetan nationality, sculpture, painting, decoration, arts and crafts and other plastic arts, music, dance, drama, languages, written literature, folk literature, Tibetan medicine, astronomy and cylindrical calculation reached very high level.

This website is a comprehensive cultural website with the theme of introducing Tibetan cultures and tourism. Interaction, advancement, user experience will be the technical applications of the complete website. Interaction Design was proposed by Mr. Bill Moggridge who was the founder of IDEO in a design meeting in 1984. Interaction Design is a kind of technique which can make products to be easily used, effective and pleasurable, that’s why it’s the essence of internet design. Interaction Design is the action of man made products, environment and system, and the design and definition of the external factor of conveying this kind of action. The traditional design subjects cares form, but pays more attention to contents and connotation recently, while interaction design mainly pays attention to the plan and describe of things’ behavior methods first, then to describe the most effective form of conveying this kind of behavior. Front design of webpage is closely related with interaction design, Web front design is the design of interface between web application program and user interaction. It starts from two points of view which are user experience and program function, the object is to create interface which is satisfied by users and program function. It mainly includes interaction progress design, visual design, technical realization, etc.

User experience is the most important, currently many designers feel helpless for user experience, the main reason is the unique aesthetic appreciation of each person, while designers can not only satisfy general people’s aesthetic appreciation, they have to endure the website with visual experience, and keep users with the help of program.

To deepey the context depth of my whole cultural website is also one of the important making links, we will get many users’ feedback after finishing the design of interface, and we can find out if our design is reaching our ideal effect from users’ judgements. To develop this subject, we shall discuss from the cultural extention of design, usually the cultural extention of design will be reflected by three layers of structure:

I will analyze following aspects for the above table:

Second is middle structure of culture, which mainly has strong epochal character and continuity; it’s reflected by humanistic factors, like the behavioral habits, arts and religions, life custom, history traditions, social organization and systematic civilization of users. This layer has relative stable art expression method, it’s also one of the reference factors to catch cultural surface structure elements when we are designing interface, when the cultural connotation of surface layer reaches the best sort, it will begin to be close to the cultural behaviors with epochal character and continuity.First is the surface structure of culture, it’s mainly reflected by the appearance factors of the design of product interface, which will be shown mainly by the elements of color, texture, design, lines, surface sculpture, detail processing, etc. the visual interface which is transmitted from surface visualization is what we called the structure of cultural surface.

Third is the deep structure of culture. The charm of interface is reflected by ideology, cultural awareness and aesthetic psychology; it’s reflecting the cultural value of individual spirit. Changes of designed contents and form are required to make people feel pleasure, and strike a chord. Of course the culture that I understand is not only the traditional or classic cultures, it’s the extension and spread of the design conception culture of this website, this is also the highest level design of cultural design currently which is the target pursuing by most of designers, his design has to create something new to spread on the basis of cultures to let users look forward to more surprise and expectations when users are following his design, then strike a chord from hearts. Design of Apple has to be talked about here for this purpose, design of Apple can be considered as a direction indicator of design industry at present, spread of its design connotation, cultural values, and aesthetic appreciation is very popular for the same industry and users, it seizes the users’ psychology tightly from its own ideology, cultural awareness and aesthetic appreciation. The design expresses great pleasure and expectation to users, it’s a miracle for Apple.

Here is the analysis of design of user interface, interface is reflected by animation. Two-dimension animation will use Animation, three-dimension animation will use 3ds max, and Maya and other generally used tools. Webpage elements are made and designed by vector software, molding is creative, and color is reasonable. When designing website, the design management instruction will be supplied first, the instructions will regulate all the involved designers and developers to make sure the consistency and continuity of website development.

Use of color is one of the most important links of the whole website, color assortment shall be arranged reasonably according to the theme and contents of the whole website, which will make people feel elegant and charming, or special and aggressive. Color shall be assorted well to make people feel smooth, and it’s pleasurable to enjoy their websites. The designed theme of this website is Tibetan cultures, so the whole color tone should accord with the characteristics of Tibetan nationality, and shall be planed reasonably according to religions and customs.

Design of the Tibet website must have layering, while the layering does not depend on some vertical letters, but depends on the added simple pictures or text-shadow effect and make visual different with the composition of a picture skillfully. Design cannot be limited to the form of style in order to portray the stereo effect vividly. Stereo effect of details and detail processing are especially important, each button and treatment of pictures shall be paid attention particularly, even though some slight parts cannot be found easily without careful checking, image of the whole website will go down without these details.

Production Statement

First of all, we shall make a definition:
Webpage = webpage technique + webpage design          Webpage making = webpage technique

Website shall supply the general view of the services; it includes not only the contents of “what can I find here?”, but also includes functions of “what can I do?”And how are these services organized. This task is processed by lasting guidance usually. In face, guidance of a website is very important, it’s the channel of websites, design of the channel will guide users to go to the webpage which he wants in the most convenient way, and will show the best contents of website to users.

I am listing 12 important guidance rules of making my finals website here.

No. One: Reflecting marks and mission of websites

Homepage of a website is particularly important. Homepage can not lose any users who may visit the website or users who are visiting the website or even users who have visited the website, you have to learn that what are users caring when they open your website for the first time. Users are caring these three questions when they open the website for the first time: A. What kind of website is it? B. What does the website have?  C. What can I do here?

No. Two: Website guidance and website layering

Website shall supply the general view of services; it includes not only the contents of “what can I find here?”, but also includes functions of “what can I do?”And how are these services organized. This task is processed by lasting guidance usually. In face, guidance of a website is very important; it’s the channel of website.

No. Three: Searching

Searching is necessary for those websites with a lot of information, contents will affect the quality of websites directly.

No. Four: Introductions

Like a cover of a magazine, homepage shall use some hints of “there are wonderful contents inside” to attract me, part of “contents recommendation” shall prominent the newest, the best and the hottest parts, such as top news or hot selling and popular post, etc. Part of “function recommendation” shall invite users to visit more columns of the website or use some individualized function or mail brief reports.

No. Five: Contents updating

If the success of a website depends on if users come to visit often, then the homepage shall use more updated information. Even if some websites do not need fixed visitors, they also need some live signals to tell users that this is not a stagnant pool of water, even if it is just a link to the updated news.

No. Six: Login and registration

If websites use member system, homepage should supply the link of login window or direct login window to new users and old users to register in case users look for it everywhere, designers will consider to supply a link or the direct login window, stickiness is stronger or weaker, there are more old users or there are more new users, if there should be a place in webpage for locating login window, how about the users’ habits, the question about login window will be talked about later. Come from webpage teaching website.

No. Seven: Shortcut

Those contents segments which are visited most, such as software updating, are worth to place a link on webpage in case users look for them.

No. Eight: Friendly link

Space shall be reserved on homepage to place cooperation institutions, advertisement links, etc.

No. Nine: Let users see what they are looking for

Homepage shall make those things that users are looking for obvious, this has high requirement for typesetting.

No. Ten: Tell users what they haven’t found

Homepage shall make users to see some wonderful contents which users may be interested, even though they are not looking for them.

No. Eleven: Tell users where to start

Users have no idea where to start from a website which they visit for the first time;

Homepage shall arrange how to finish this task.

No. Twelve: Establish credibility and sense of trust

For some visitors, homepage is the only chance to impressive them well of your website.

About user experience, to keep webpage small and exquisite is a very import link, user experience shall be put at the first position all the time, so we can not complain that users’ wire speed is too slow when designing, we have to do the best to control the small size of pictures and documents.

To keep size of webpage small and exquisite, size of each picture and document shall be smaller than 30KB. Spend some time to process the pictures and make your webpage loading speed faster, try to keep pictures small under the condition of assuring picture quality with high compression ratio.

Guidance is vital to the integrity of webpage design; people have sense of space instinctively. When we design webpage guidance, we have to tell visitor clearly that “where they are” and “where they can go”, users need to know their current location of the website information space, and we also hope to help users to form sense of website space by the designed guidance system.

Design plan: supply a complete guidance system, which includes overall guidance, partial guidance, assistant guidance, context guidance, and remote guidance.

Overall guidance:

It’s a group of key points from the terminal page to other pages, no matter where you want to go, you can reach finally in overall guidance.

Partial guidance:

It supplies a channel of father class, brother class and son class for the website; it’s the channel for users from website information space to nearby locations. Quality of partial guidance will directly affect quality of the whole guidance system.

Assistant guidance:

It supplies the shortcut to the relative contents which can not be reached by overall guidance and partial guidance. Users just transfer their guide attention rather than start from beginning.

Context guidance:

The time when users reading text is the time when they need the auxiliary information of context. Understand users’ requirements exactly and supply some links (e.g.: words links) when they are reading will be more effective than users using searching and overall guidance. Schematic diagram of context guidance is similar with that of assistant guidance.

Friendly guidance:

They are links which some users don’t user often, but they can help users fast and effectively when they are in need.

Remote guidance:

Guidance exists independently. For example: website map: it’s a simple reveal of the complete structure of single page website. When users are messed up by other guidance, they will choose website map most of the time.

Design sample

Production Timeline

Sept-Oct:

Determine the theme of “Tibet impression" , and begin to think of the main page and another page. A Web site should have an unambiguous theme, especially for a Culture Web site. Content must be large and all-inclusive and must be focused on the most interesting and pertinent things. The web site should be clear, concise, and in-depth. It should embody one’s own creative characteristics.

Oct-Nov:

After the theme of web site is certain, begin to work around the theme. First, collect material. If it is to be a content-rich Web site that will attract users, it is necessary to compile and assimilate the best information. This will enrich the content of the web site. Materials from books, newspapers, CD-ROMs, multimedia, also can be collected from the Internet.

Nov-Dec:

Continue to collect material and discuss it with the professor in the classroom. Begin to plan the Web site design, as the success of a website design depends on the designer’s planning. Web site style, colors, layout, text, images, structure and setup are all parts of the planning phase. When all of these items are properly taken into account, the result is a clearer, unique page that is more attractive and has more character.

Careful analysis of the travel website must be made.  Appropriate tools must be chosen in order to improve the site’s aesthetics. Choosing the correct design software is essential and will influence the final results. Good web design tools include software such as Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator, Maya and Aftereffect.

It is important to understand what proportions of the web design will be created through Flash and what proportions will be created through Dreamweaver.  One must take into account the speed at which the webpage will open and the psychological expectations of the user. The content of the text and pictures will be determined by the color, structure, forms and page layout.

The whole process of preparation for the final stage – video and sound effects – is very important for a good website. The visual and audio elements must mesh with the overall theme so it will enhance the users’ understanding and comprehension of the site. After completing the preparatory work, one can begin to actually do the project.

Dec-Apr:

During the design process things are refined and adjusted further in order to achieve a more perfect site. This is often a complex and painstaking process, because it must smoothly integrate with the overall details, from simple to complex. At the beginning of the process, interface design and interactive effects should be considered major emphases. Use Adobe Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Flash, and Illustrator to make the finals websites. Whole process will be combining the help of Professor.

May:

Complete the entire project.

Budget

Part1

The budget on the Tibet cultural website includes:

1. The budget on early web page design.

2. The business budget after finishing the website.

Network is as a kind of public medium, and its effect starts to be regarded by people gradually. Many enterprises have regarded establishing websites as one of the important methods of building enterprise image and enterprise marketing. The plan, design, exploitation and maintenance needs large numbers of manpower, material resources and resource, and the costs by means of it occupy more and more proportion in enterprises. In aspect of website operation, it is greatly more than the costs of making website, because the budget on website design is one-off, even if large mend, it is at best one time per year. The cost on network operation is continuous every month, and the cost is usually from 200 us dollars to tens of thousands of dollars. To most medium and small enterprises, it is almost an average price from 700 to 1500 us dollars.

According to the development stage of website establishment, the costs of websites can be divided into several classifications, as follows:

1. Plan costs and design costs of websites at plan stage. Plan costs include business flow analysis, competitor analysis, objective customer analysis, recommended plan of website, etc. Costs on system design are the cost of organization and design of establishing websites before exploiting and making web page.

2. Purchase costs of software and hardware needed by websites application and system. Certain network, software and hardware condition is needed during websites establishment, the main costs of the period is network facilities and software purchase costs, which includes network server and installed various applicable software expenses, tool software expenses to develop work, expenses of registering and obtaining domain name, etc. Furthermore, with the development and enlargement of websites business, network needs continuously perfecting, which also need input large numbers of costs.

3. Making and testing costs at the stage of view and content development. It includes content making, data-base design, image making, audio frequency making, video frequency making, testing work, etc.

4. Costs on websites run and maintenance at operation stage. Run and maintenance of websites is one of the important contents of websites, and establishment of website system is a repeating and excelsior course being characterized by obvious periodicity. With the development of business and continuous exploitation of involved business filed, old information must be replaced by new one in time, after website starts to run. Meanwhile, system structure and system function of websites also need improving and perfecting continuously in order to meet the requirement of business and customers increase. So, run maintenance of website system is a long-term work, and the cost will occupy more and more proportion in website costs.

5. The costs to popularize websites. The popularizing course is not a kind of simple repeat, because the requirement of customers and other factors influencing website popularizing are changeable. So website popularizing is a continuous and ascending course with self-regulation and self-perfect. The end of every popularizing course is also the beginning of another one. Comparing with former course, the content, method and way of latter course will be improved.

Part2

There is one problem that many people did not find: creating a website is just the first step. Website promotion is as important as website creation. Spend some time to cultivate a link towards our own website through SEO will promote ourselves to markets to a great extent. But opportunities are not stopping. Many other steps can help the website to contact more potential customers with the lowest cost because of the nature of interaction of websites. To supply some good news about products or good methods of solving problems will establish trustable authority in your area, it has positive and long term return for your website on credibility.

Articles with abundant of keywords can attract users to come to your own location, and you can stick them on free article catalogues, and add a link towards your own website at the same time. These two aspects are helpful to website. First, you can get a one direction link towards your own website. Second, which is a more important point, you shall reveal your own contents and ideas in front of many potential new customers. When publisher of newsgroup of other e-mails searching for contents, they may withdraw your contents and submit to their subscribers.

SEO and link towards your own website can drive a website to a great extent, but it will spend some time to entering the top ranking of Google. Before all this happen naturally, you may consider paying search, or choose to pay for Google to make you on the top ranking when users are searching for your keywords. Price is based on clicking, and will be done like auction. So if there are more companies are interested in the same terms, you have to pay more. But if you are competing in a smaller market, the situation may not be so bad.

If you are trying to use keywords of mainstream, perhaps you have to fight with some bigger opponents. But if you are doing in a non popular market, perhaps you can buy a click with one dollar. What we should know is that there should be originality when searching those not full used keywords. During all these types, the target to beat all is to improve the ranking of search engine of your website; the return is that users will visit your website.

One discovers of the research institution shows that there are 82% consumers said that they would like to supply personal data to get some benefits. The most effective strategy to transfer anonymous visitors into login customers is to hold on games like lottery draw competition with gambling. Someone has an experiment about website issuing. The basic service of this website includes pictures, safety, while the completion award is free. Users could join free. The result is that clicking rate increased 30%, and login customers increased 400%.

Companies should spend one third of internet budget for creating website, one third of internet budget for updating and maintenance, the remained one third of internet budget shall be used for promotion.

A common but neglected thing is to advertise your website in all your other media advertisements, include business card; your website shall be included in all kind of Medias.

ROI

Registration and ranking is one of the most classic and the most common methods of network marketing. At present, even though the effect of search engine is not as effective as several years ago, the investigation shows that search engine is still the basic method for people to find new websites. Therefore, to register in main search engines and get the most ideal ranking is one of the questions shall be considered during the process of website design, website will be submitted to main searching engines after it’s issued officially, that’s the basic task of network marketing.

Besides search engine, the common used network marketing methods are: internet advertisement, link exchange, information issue, mail list, allowed Email marketing, individualized marketing, member system marketing, and viral marketing, etc. Following are the introduction of ten commonly used network marketing methods:

Link exchange

Link exchange is also named as reciprocal linking, it’s a simple cooperation form with complementary superiority among websites, that is to put others’ website names on their own website and set up super link for others’ website to make users can find their own websites in their cooperated website to reach the purpose of mutual promotion.

Viral marketing

Viral marketing is not to market with real viral, but to transmit and spread information to thousands of and millions of people like viral through users’reputated advertising net. The classic example of viral marketing is Hotmail.com. Almost all of the free e-mail suppliers are using similar promotion method at present.

Internet advertisement

Almost all of the network marketing activities are related with brand image, effect of internet advertisement is the most direct among all of the network marketing methods which are related with brand promotion. After entering the 21th century, a large-scale innovation campaign was launched in network marketing area, new advertisement forms came up frequently, new type advertisements got higher clicking rate because it overcame the weakness of limited information and weak interaction of banner advertisements.  There are searches shows that clicking rate of network marketing can not represent its effect totally, network marketing has the same effect to those visitors who visited but did not click, and their number is 99% of the total amount of visitors.

Information issue

Information issue is not only the basic function of network marketing, but also a kind of practical operation method, a large amount of commercial information can be looked through by internet and self information can be issued at the same time. The most important thins is to issue the valuable information to website and make full use of websites, for example, the information of new products and promotion, etc. allowed Email marketing is based on the Email marketing allowed by users, it has obvious advantages compared with traditional promotion methods or not allowed Email marketing, for example, it can reduce the disturbance to users of advertisements, increase the accuracy location of potential customers, promote the relationship between customers, improve the credibility of brand. The premise of Email marketing is to own the Email addresses of potential users, these addresses can be collected and arranged from materials of users and potential users, the third party’s potential users’ sources can also be used.

Mail list

Mail list is actually a kind of Email marketing, mail list is also based on the permission of users, and users will enter voluntarily and exist freely, the slight difference is that, Email marketing will send promotion information to users directly, while mail list is to supply valuable information with proper amount of promotion information to users to reach the purpose of marketing.

Individualized marketing

The main contents of individualized marketing include：Users make their own interested information, choose their favorite website design form, set up information receiving method and accepting time according to their own needs. Researches tell that, to get some individualized services, users will supply limited personal information when their personal information is under protection, which is the guarantee of developing individualized marketing.

Member system marketing

Member system marketing has been proved that it’s an effective marketing method of e-commerce website, many E-retailing type website abroad are implementing member system, it almost covers all industries, the domestic member system marketing is at the first period of development, but it has already shown the great interest from E-commerce enterprises and thriving development trend.

Marketing Plan

I  Publicity & Promotion

Media Selection

Make full use of tour information platform to publicize, such as expedia and other tour information websites. And consider to unite all possible and related large-scale tour websites to publicize jointly, particularly emphasis on activities publicity. Also can appropriately choose all levels of television, newspapers and broadcast media to publicize.

Publicity Way

Publicity way should as far as possible many and varied in the case of the media can be used, and as far as possible consider multi-media, multi-channel, multi-way of transmission to publicize roundly.

Advertisement Exchange Publicity

There are many advertisement exchange organizations in Internet, such as Link exchange and so on. It’s a good method to increase visit count quickly by joining advertisement exchange organizations or contacting websites by ourselves.

Website Stats Publicity

Website adopts flux statistics analysis system to analysis website’s flux and design and adjust website’s content scientifically, as far as possible meet the visitors’ requirements, that this will attract the visitors’ maximum rate of second glance, and can play a chain-reacting effect on the publicity, attain the goal of from passive publicity of “Tibet Impression” to active publicity of visitors, attain the qualitative change of publicity and enter a virtuous circle of publicity and promotion.

Forum Publicity

Engage personnel to enroll member in other website forum, issue “Tibet Impression” eye-catching information from time to time, such as tour knowledge network challenge and so on, and link to the “Tibet Impression” to guide user to visit.

Activities Publicity

According to operating conditions, we can unite a number of tour units to carry out activity promotion together.

II Marketing Strategy

Pricing Strategy

From launch to payoff of website is a difficult and relatively long process,  especially “Tibet Impression” is an integrated website of culture and tourism, it’s almost all business’s promotion and development all need large visit count as pivot. In view of this, free strategy should be better adopted in the early stage of website, emphasis is attention marketing and the greatest goal is to improve visit count. In the early stage shouldn’t have too much hope about the earnings.

Offline Marketing Strategy, Combination of online and downline

The key of strategy is to transform the information and resources owned in the internet to operate offline, and combine with online publicity, become divers, in-depth extension of advertisement media. Such as issuing “Weihai Real Estate Atlas”.

Timely Intervention Strategy

Electronic Commerce is the development trend of the Internet, to prevent surrounded by enemies, we shouldn’t intervene prematurely when “Tour in Weihai” hasn’t yet become a competitive advantage field, however, we can develop to this direction in the network’s pre-planning and strategy’s development and choose the appropriate time to intervene.

III Success Key

Anyway, every business, activity, publicity & promotion and website maintenance must have special man responsible for them, to reflect the professional image of the website, to better support sales and maintenance of customer, advertising input should be timely, although the advertisement doesn’t always have effect, but without the advertisement will almost have no any effect.

web3.0 and AI paper3

In nowadays which witness rapid development of science and technology, many scientific theories depend on mathematic simulation, and artificial intelligent is one of them. How to formalize human activity of thinking and represent them with symbols which can be manipulate on computers has become an important subject in the artificial intelligence field. In this subject, logistic theories, approaches and technologies play a crucial role. It not only provides powerful tools for artificial intelligent research, but also lays theoretical foundations for knowledge ratiocination. Logic used in artificial intelligence roughly comes into to categories. One is classical statement logic and first-order predicate logic featuring that the truth value of a statement must be either true or false and cannot be others. This kind of problems can be solved by classical logic theories in mathematics. In a world full of various things, besides definite things and concepts, there are a large range of indefinite issues, which cannot be settled by classical logics. Therefore, we have to develop new mathematic tools to express these indefinite issues. At present, most indefinite things and concepts are depicted and manipulated by multi-value logic and fuzzy theory. With the common feature that multi-value logic, fuzzy theory and probability depict indeterminacy by taking values from [O．1], they are markedly different. Multi-value logic depicts the degree of being true by adding several medium truths between true E13 and false Eo3; however, it takes medium truths as individuals. Fuzzy theory holds that there is no clear boundary among medium truths, which displays the features of connection and penetration among different medium truths and better reflects the indefinite nature. Probability is used to express the chance of a certain thing happens, and it reflects the indefinite nature in a angle different from fuzzy theory, therefore it is said that fuzzy theory depicts the inner indefinite nature, while probability depicts the outer. Therefore, it is mathematics that enables artificial intelligence to simulate human intelligence, and push forward it. Although there are a few issues cannot be expressed by modern mathematics, it is believed that they can be solved soon after continuing development of mathematics.
While research artificial intelligence we have to discuss the combination and development of Web3.0 and artificial intelligence. The purpose of Web3.0 is to add a meaning layer, to be a guide rather than a category. It even provides a systematic foundation which can deduce human behavior. Artificial intelligence has reached a level which can drive machines to think instead of carrying out simple directions. In internet Web2.0 which details the capability of seamless connectivity software (similar to geographical cartography) and service items (similar to picture-sharing) has become a highlight in Silicon Valley advertisement, however, commercial interests in Web3.0 emerge until recently. The outstanding type of Web2.0 is the Mash-up mode. Cooperating with GOOGLE to link to a housing rent platform for example, it can provide new service which is more useful, and can automatically display the address of the name of each house for rent. By contrast, the aim of Web3.0 developer is to create a system which can provide reasonable and complete answers to simple problems. For example, “I want to have a vocation with my kids in some warm place with a budget of $3000”, the system can automatically provide a complete plan for customers.
The crucial value of Web3.0 does not consist in that it can provide information, but that it can provide filters according to demands, and each filter is based on a corresponding market demand. If Web2.0 is said to have solved the problem of individuality liberation, as its upgrade version, Web3.0 has solved the structural problem in the information society, i.e. the problem of auto-integration optimization.
How to build such a system and how long it will take to provide proper answer is a hotspot debated by academic researchers and commercial technologists. Some are concentrated on build a huge new structure to replace the existing network, while others are determined to develop some pragmatic tools. But all agree that these systems, if realized, would be more commercially valuable than currently used search engines.
Artificial intelligence has a great potentiality. Although relevant research on it as a whole has just begun, great breakthroughs in certain aspects are bound to be made. As the most classical research branch of artificial intelligence, and whose theory is the common basis for other branches, auto-deduction has always been one of the most popular subjects. The dynamic evolvement features of the knowledge system and the research on feasibility deduction emerge as new hotspots, and great breakthroughs are likely to be made. Research on machines’ study has achieved considerable development, and many new study methods come out one after another and are used successfully, such as reinforcement and learning. At the same time, we must also see that the current methods are not efficient enough for online study. It is a common concern for most researchers to seek new methods to solve problems in online study such as mobile robots, self-determination agent, and input and out put of intelligent information, and it is believed that new breakthroughs will be made soon. The process of natural languages is a typical example of AI technology application in practical areas. Through the researcher’s hard endeavor, remarkable theoretical and practical achievements have been scored in this field, yielding a large number of products. Under the influence of internet technology, intelligent information retrieval technologies have developed rapidly, and become an independent branch of AI. As information acquisition and extracting technologies has become an urgent subject in computer science and technology research, application of AI technologies in this field would be an opportunity and breach for artificial intelligence application. It can be seen from the development of artificial intelligence that welcome progress has been made in this field.

 

web3.0 and AI

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/eric_schmidt_defines_web_30.php

Artificial intelligence IMA505 Paper2

Artificial intelligence was applied in contemporary society universally; it can be classified into three sorts.

(1) Symbolic Computation

Scientific computation is one of the major fields in which computers are used. It comes into two classifications. One is numerical calculation such as solving functions and figuring out numerical solutions of equations, which are used in weather forecast, oil reservoir simulation, space flight, etc; the other is symbolic computation, or algebraic computation, which in an intelligentized calculation process involving symbol manipulation. The symbols can represent integers, rational numbers, real numbers and complex numbers as well as multi-nomials, functions, sets, etc. Along with the popularization of computers and the development of artificial intelligence, a variety of fully functional computer algebra system software emerged one after another, represented by Mathemati ca and Maple which are written in the C programming language and can be used in most computers.

(2) Mode Identification

Mode identification is the research on the automatic processing and deciphering of modes through mathematical approaches on computers. Here circumstances and objects are called “modes”. With the development of computer technologies, the human beings are likely to research the complex process of information processing. The most important breakthrough due to come in developing intelligent machines is to realize the automatic identification of modes (script, voice, images of human bodies and objects, etc), which can also provide clues for studying human intelligence. The most distinct feature of computer identification is its high speed, accuracy and efficiency. The process of identification is similar to that of human study. Take “voice identification” for example, this technique is to make computers understand human languages; an important application is the auto-interpretation system which can translate seven languages (English, Japanese, Italian, Korean, French, German and Chinese). If this system is invented, people can talk to foreigners by mobile phones and telephones connected to telephone network or internet when they book hotel rooms abroad, buy air tickets, converse in foreign hotels, and exchange currencies.

(3) Expert Systems

An expert system is a computer program system which can simulate human experts to solve problems in certain fields. Expert systems contain a large amount of know-how experience of certain fields, and can simulate the decision-making process by applying human expert knowledge and approaches to reason and estimate, so as to solve complex problems of certain fields. Export systems are one of the most active and extensive field applying and researching artificial intelligence. They are used in all fields and have achieved great success. Expert systems, according to the type of problems they deal with, can be classified into ten types such as the explanation system, the diagnosis system, the debugging system, the maintenance system, the education system, the forecasting system, the planning system, the designing system and the control system. Specific application is even more, for example, the blood coagulation disease diagnosis system, the expert system for telephony and cable maintenance, the expert system for the design and printing of patterned cloth, and so on.

To understand artificial intelligence as a whole, we must know that its research goal is to study and simulate human intelligent behavior. Traditional research on artificial intelligence generally focuses on the research and simulation of single human intelligent capability such as calculation, deduction, memorization, search and intuition. However, as human intelligent behavior is comprehensive expression of all these single intelligent capacity, therefore, the traditional research approaches fail to exactly depict or properly simulate human intelligent behavior. It is the common wish of all artificial intelligent researchers to deem the human being as an organic whole composed of all intelligent quality—the agent, and comprehensively explore its intelligent behavior and features. Recently, research projects on studying artificial intelligence as a whole i.e. agent, has become a hotspot in this field. Relevant theories and technologies have been successfully used in robots, internet and other realistic production issues. As the research on agent entails theories and technologies of all branch fields, therefore, strengthening research on this subject is will push forward development of the whole artificial intelligent field.

Reference

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYMA5W8b1zY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu0ztxdsFis&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J132shgIiuY&feature=related

Artificial Intelligence-Hongfei.Wang IMA505

Abstract

Artificial intelligence is also named machine intelligence, which is a comprehensive subject integrating computer science, cybernetics, information theory, neurophysiology, psychology, glossology into a whole. From the application of computer, it is inferred that artificial intelligence is a kind of science, which is used in researching how to make intelligent machine or intelligent system to simulate the ability of human beings’ intelligent behavior, in order to extend human beings’ intelligence. Only from technology, it is can be inferred that what artificial intelligence is going to resolve is how to make computers show intelligence and to make computers serve human beings smartly and effectively. The aim is to make computer show the similar behavior to human beings but not is whether the computer understand it or by some methods during the course. Artificial intelligence is a branch of computer science relating to research, design and application of intelligent machine. The aim of artificial intelligence is to research how to simulate and execute some intelligent functions of human beings’ brains by computers, and to develop relevant technological products and constitute relational theories.

content

The research on artificial intelligence started from 1956, when the glossary of “artificial intelligence” is formally used at the meeting in Dartmouth University. The research and development to artificial intelligence is divided into the following stages: stage I: After the concept of artificial intelligence is put forward in 1950s, some outstanding achievements appeared one by one, such as machine theorem certificate, jump chess procedure, S solution procedure of current problem, processing language of LISP form, etc. Owing to limited reasoning ability of digestion method and failing machine translation, artificial intelligence has bottomed out. The characteristics of stage I: To stress the solution of questions but to neglect the importance of knowledge. Stage II: From the end of 1960s to 1970s, expert system appeared, which made artificial intelligence reach to a new climax, and the research and development of expert system leaded artificial intelligence to practicality, such as DENDRAL chemical mass spectrum analysis system, MYCIN disease diagnoses and treatment system, PROSPECTIOR system, Hearsay—II language understanding system, etc. Internationa1 Joint Conferences on Artificial Intel1igence, IJCAI, was founded in 1969. Stage III: With the research and development of Fifth generation compute, artificial intelligence was greatly developed in 1980s. In 1982 Japan started “Research and Development Plan to Fifth Generation Compute”, “Knowledge Information Processing System (KIPS)”, and the aim is to make the speed of logical ratiocination as fast as that of value calculation. Though the plan was failed, its development formed a hot wave to research artificial intelligence. Stage Ⅳ: By the end of 1980s, NN was developed at very fast speed. In 1987, US held first NN International Conference, which declared the birth of the new subject. Hereafter, the investment in NN by all countries was increased gradually and NN was developed fast. Stage Ⅴ: In 1990s, new research peak of artificial intelligence appeared. On account of the development of network technology, especially that of international network technology, artificial intelligence started transforming itself from the research on main body of single intelligence to that on distributing artificial intelligence under the circumstances of network. It researched not only distributing question solution basing on the same object, but also multi-object question solution of intelligence multi-main body, which made artificial intelligence face practicality. Otherwise, that Hopfield multi-layer NN model was put forward made artificial NN research and application flourishing. Artificial intelligence has entered into every fields of social life.

To the reason why the new peak of AI research appears, on the one hand it is due to new progress of artificial intelligence, on the other hand rapid development of computer hardware. With the continuous improvement of computer’s speed, constant enlargement of memory capacity, sustaining drop of price and ceaseless development of network technology, much work never finished before can be achieved now.

To the research to artificial intelligence, there are three hotspots: intelligent interface, data mining, main body and multi-main-body system.

(1) Technology of intelligent interface is used in researching the way to make people conveniently and naturally communicate with computer. In order to achieve the goal, the computer is required to be able to read characters, listen to language, speak, even to translate among various languages, and these function can be achieved depending on the research to knowledge expression methods. So, the research to technology of intelligent interface has not only huge application value but also basic theory significance. Currently the technology of intelligent interface has won outstanding achievements, and the technology has became practical, such as character recognition, voice identification, voice synthesis, image recognition, machine translation, natural language understanding.

(2) Data mining is a course to extract some hidden information and knowledge that people don’t know before but is potential and useful from a large number of practical application data that is incomplete, noisy, blurry and stochastic. Now the research to data mining and knowledge discovery has formed three strong technology supports: data-base, artificial intelligence and mathematical statistics. The major research includes basic theory, discovery calculation, data-base, visual technology, quantitative, qualitative and interchangeable model, knowledge expression method, maintenance and recycle of discovery knowledge, knowledge discovery in semi-structure and non-structure and data mining on the net, etc.

(3) Main body system is an entity, including faith, wish, intent, ability, choice, promise, etc, which possesses bigger power and higher intelligence than its objects and with certain independence. Main body system tries to finish the task autonomously and independently, which can be interchanged with environment and communicated with other main bodies, and which can reach aim by plan. Multi-main-body system is mainly used in researching harmonious intelligent behavior among multi-main-body separated in logical or physical way, in order to achieve question solution. Multi-main-body system tries to simulate rational behavior by main body, which is mainly applied to the simulation to real world and society and robots and intelligent machine fields. Currently the research to main body and multi-main-body system mainly covers main body and multi-main-body theory, system structure and organization of main body, language of main body, harmony and corporation among main bodies, communication and interchangeable technology, study of multi-main-body, application of multi-main-body system, etc.

Artificial intelligence is a new frontier subject integrating computer science, cybernetics, information theory, psychology, glossology into a whole, which is used in researching how to simulate and realize intelligent behavior of human beings by computers. By the development of dozens of years, the application of artificial intelligence in many fields has been developed, and artificial intelligence is also applied to a lot of regular life and study areas.

Development of the technology always is beyond human beings’ imagination, and it is impossible to correctly foresee the future of the artificial intelligence. The Dimensional Analysis’s Research is also an important part of Artificial Intel1igence. Dr. Stephan Rudolph said: “The strength of the method of dimensional analysis in different areas of artificial intelligence such as in case-based reasoning, pattern recognition, genetic algorithms, design evaluation, neural networks and others, is shown using the example of the topology and generalization properties in non-linear neural networks. The results provide some insight into the modeling power of dimensional analysis in artificial intelligence techniques.” However, from some perspective research, we can conclude artificial intelligence will develop the following aspects in future: fuzzy processing, parallelity, NN, machine emotion, at present, the ratiocination function of artificial intelligence has been broken, and the function of study and association is being researched. The next step is to simulate fuzzy function of human beings’ right brains and parallelity processing function of whole brains. Artificial NN is the new field of artificial intelligence in future, and future intelligent computer may be composed of Von Neumann model computer as main body and artificial NN as intelligent periphery. The research discovers: emotion is a part of intelligence but not separated from intelligence, so there will be a break of artificial intelligence field on emotion ability of computer. Emotion ability is fatal to natural contact between computers and human beings.

Reference

Dr. Stephan Rudolph. “On the Context of Dimensional Analysis in Artificial Intelligence.” < http://www.isd.uni-stuttgart.de/~rudolph/papers/similarity11.98a.pdf> November 26^th and 27^th 1998