Content Analysis of Web Sites
LIS 690
School of Library and Information Science
University of Kentucky
Spring, 1997

Course Description
World Wide Web has become a major information resource that is more and more popular to information users. With a wide range of web sites providing information on topics as broad as any library can provide, it becomes increasingly important to have effective techniques to describe their contents and help users search for needed information.

This class will study various techniques that may be used to organize and present web information resources. Through the course, students will develop an understanding of general principles of knowledge organization. They will study traditional library techniques, such as classification, indexing and thesaurus, as well as new approaches to digital information organizing. They will examine various existing projects and different approaches to web information access. They will also develop their own projects on a selected approach to web information organizing.

Methodology
A combination of lectures, demonstrations, hand-on activities, and group discussions will be attempted in this class. Each student in this class will focus on a selected approach or projects and report his /her findings to the class. Each student will also work on a term project to index a selected web site and/or create a knowledge class on a selected topic or subject area. The instructor and other faculty members will provide research tools for students and supervise their projects.

Policies
Students are expected to read assigned materials before the class and participate in class discussions and other activities. All assignments need to be finished on time. Late assignments will be penalized.

Grades and assignments:
Grades for this course will be based on the following:

Some other assignments may be given throughout the semester.


Course Outline for LIS 690, Spring, 1997

Jan. 21. Introduction to the course
The scenario and the projects
The theme and the papers

Jan. 28. The classics -- Memex/World Brain/Xanadu/Cyberspace
Knowledge organizing -- paradigms

Well, H. G. (1936). World Encyclopedia. In: World Brain. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co., pp. 3- 35.
Bush, V. (1945). As we may think. The Atlantic Monthly. 176(1):101-108 .
Xiao, Y. (1994). Facet Classification: A consideration of its features as a paradigm of knowledge organization. Knowledge Organization 21(2), pp. 64-68.
Bies, W. (1996). Thinking with the help of images: on the metaphors of knowledge organization. Knowledge Organization 23(1), pp. 3-8.
Huth, M. (1995). Symbolic and sub-symbolic knowledge organization in the computational theory of mind. Knowledge Organization 22(1), 10 - 17.

Feb. 4. Knowledge organizing -- tools
Classification, Indexing and thesaurus
HTML basics
Chan, L. M. (1995). Classification, Present and Future. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 21(2), 5 - 17.
Dahlberg, I. (1995). The Future of classification in Libraries and networks, a theoretical point of view. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 21(2), 23 - 35.
Molhot, P. (1995). Qualities of Classification schemes for the information superhighway. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 21(2), 19 - 22.
Dahlberg, I. (1988). Concept and Definition Theory. In: Classification Theory in the Computer Age: Conversations across the disciplines. Rockefeller College Press, New York. pp. 12 - 24.

Feb. 11. Knowledge organizing -- processes
HTML authoring
Svenonius, E. (1990). Design of controlled vocabularies. In: Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science. Vol. 45, Supplement 10. pp. 82 - 109.

Assignment 1. HTML

Feb. 18. Natures of Web Information Space

Srinivasan, P. et al. (1996). An investigation of indexing on the WWW. Proceedings of ASISı 96, pp. 79 - 83.
Arson, R. R. (1996). Bibliometric of the world wide web: an exploratory analysis of the intellectual structure of cyberspace. Proceedings of ASISı 96, pp. 71- 78.
An Investigation of Documents from the World Wide Web
WebSite Content Analysis

Feb. 25. Search engine approach

Singh, A. & Lindsky, D. (1996). All-out search. PC-Magazine, V15(21), December 3, 1996. pp. 213 -249.
Kathleen Webster, K. & Kathryn Paul. Beyond Surfing: Tools and Techniques for Searching the Web
Ziegler, B. (1996). Why search engines arenıt turning up a host of web sites.
The Wall Street Journal, December 10, 1996.
50+ Search engines
Assignment 2. Web searching

Mar. 4. Clearinghouse approach

Ingwersen, P. (1982). Search procedures in the library -- analyzed from the cognitive point of view.
Journal of Documentation, 38(3), 165-191.
DESIRE(Development of a European Service for Information on Research and Education)

Mar. 11. Web sites reviews/evaluations

PointReview
Magellan
Evaluations of Internet Resources -- a Collection

Mar. 18. Spring Break

Mar. 25. Classification approach

Reading:
Lynch, C. A. and C. M. Preston (1989). Describing and classifying networked information resources.
Electronic networking: Research, Applications and Policy 2(1): 13-23.
CyberStacks
CyberDewey
Beyond Bookmarks: Schemes for Organizing the Web

Assignment 3. Comparison of two classification approaches

Apr. 1. Meta data approach

Smith, Terence R. The Meta-Information Environment of Digital Libraries.
D-Lib Magazine, July/August 1996.
OCLC/NCSA Metadata Workshop Report -- Dublin Core
A Syntax for Dublin Core Metadata: Recommendations from the Second Metadata Workshop
Image Description on the Internet
Meta data Resources
InterCat -- A Catalog of Internet Resources

Apr. 8. Knowledge Class approach

Concept maps and 24th Century Press
Knowledge Class -- Information Retrieval
Knowledge Class -- Anglo-Saxon Literature
Knowledge Class-- Investment

Apr. 15. Information visualization

Judge, A.J.N. (1994). Visualization: Structural outliners and conceptual scaffolding.
In: Encyclopedia of World problems and Human Potentials. 4th ed. Vol2., p. 535 -536.
Bolter, J. D. (1997). You are what you see. Wired. 5(1), 113 - 116.
The Big Picture(sm): Visual Browsing in Web and non-Web Databases

Apr. 22. Information mapping approach

Lin, X. (1997). Map displays for information retrieval.
Journal of the American Society for Information Science. 48(1), 40-54. 1997.
Interactive Information Services Using World-Wide Web Hypertext
WebMap - A Graphical Hypertext Navigation Tool
The Netcenter's Official Roadmap to the INTERNET
PC Computing's Web Map

Apr. 29. Channel/netcasting approach

The PointCast Network
Marimba

url of this page: http://www.uky.edu/~xlin/class/lis690.htm