Goal 4.a.1 - Design an authorization and security plan
The plan will be compatible with existing software within UMDL, and will use existing technologies and protocols where possible.
The intention of the plan is to define the way industry standard technologies and protocols can be used to support private, authorized interactions between UMDL users and publishers. Our security analysis will focus on understanding which entities in UMDL need to have secure interactions and how the component agent-to-agent transactions can add up to a system that provides end-to-end privacy and data integrity for users and publishers. We will then determine which industry standard security system best fits our needs and integrate it into UMDL.
Goal 4.a.2 - Integrate the NetBill payment system.
We are continuing to experience slippage in the delivery dates of NetBill code. With the recent acquisition of NetBill by another company the future of our ability to acquire useful code is unclear. We are continuing regular communication with Marvin Sirbu.
Goal 4.a.3 - Implement market facilitators (MF), and integrate with a set of UMDL agents.
For the coming year, our plan is to extend the Auction Manager: the mediator agent responsible for generating and tracking auction agents. Given a description of goods or services of interest, the Auction Manager will use the Service Classifier agent to identify existing auctions serving those interests, and generate new auctions when necessary. Since the number of potential service and negotiation options is unbounded, we require some mechanisms to manage the scope of markets actually available to agents. Our approach will be to balance the economic efficiency benefits of additional markets with their additional transaction costs. The Auction Manager will provide a vehicle for experimenting with alternate market configurations, auction-generation policies, and agent strategies for market search and bidding.
Goal 4.a.4 - Continue Development of Concept Definitions in the Ontology
While continuing the development of concept definitions in the ontology, we plan to begin to test our work by using the ontology to describe a collection. First applications of the content area should demonstrate the feasibility of developing ontology-based catalogs, various intellectual works, and the significant benefits for powerful queries that result.
Goal 4.a.5 - Extend Capabilities of Service Classification
In extending the capabilities of service classification to handle societies that are large and terminologically heterogeneous, multiple Service Classification Agents (SCAs) will have to communicate with each other, with the expectation that different terminologies will emerge.
Goal 4.a.6 - Agent Building Toolkit
The UMDL agent-building toolkit will be a set of tools for simplifying the task of building agents that are compliant with the UMDL Agent Architecture. This toolkit allows users to design agents based on the protocols that they engage in to achieve goals, while abstracting the complex code needed for communication. These protocols can be created specifically for new types of agents, or can be combined with previously design protocols supplied in a protocol library supplied with the toolkit. The toolkit will contain protocols already used by UMDL, as well as related agent systems, where possible. These protocols define the type, sequence and content of messages exchanged among a set of agents. Once the agent is specified in terms of the protocols it uses, skeleton code will be generated for the agent that implements the communication necessary for the agent to interact will other agents. Users will then fill in the necessary decision-making capabilities to make a fully functioning agent.
Goal 4.a.7 - Metadata
In 1996, we developed two iterations of metadata drawn from the ontology and registry interfaces utilizing the metadata to catalogue collections. In 1997 we will further elaborate and define metadata elements drawn from the ontology, with at least one more iteration of metadata describing work and creation of metadata attributes and domains describing services.
Goal 4.a.8 - Develop and incorporate agent mechanisms into UMDL research testbed (the Service Market Society)
Develop and incorporate into the UDML research testbed (the Service Market Society) agent mechanisms for making strategic negotiation decisions (such as how to price an offered good or service) based on models of the concurrent ongoing negotiations in the system. The SMS is a testbed for exploring more advanced functions without the constraints of deployment to real users. With the potential of dozens of active instances, we plan to scale up the SMS to include thousands of agents.
Goal 4.a.9 - Improve Search and Retrieval through User Preferences
Through the use of decision theory, we will be enable search to become more personal and focused. We will design a web based system to order Weather sites as a proof of concept, and will improve the UIA and Task Planner agents to make decisions which reflect user preferences.
Goals 4.a.10, 11 - Search scaffolding and relevance feedback
Scaffolding is intended to increase the precision of retrieved items. We plan to implement scaffolding for one search engine that accesses multiple collections using preprocessing and for one search engine that accesses multiple collections using postprocessing.
A relevance feedback capability will ask searchers what items are most meaningful to them and enlist characteristics of those items to find more like them. It could also become a component of search scaffolding.
Goal 4.a.12 - Information Gathering Environment
In 1997 we will be focusing on taking our various design implications and design fragments and prototyping one or more designs based on the novel PAD++ (infinite zoom) and CCR (social/spatial computing) platforms. We will also be pushing our understanding and modeling activities, and methodology advancements.
Goal 4.b.1 Develop Collection Interface Agent (CIA)
Work is underway to develop a full-fledged Collection Interface Agent (CIA) for the encyclopedias in our testbed. The CIA will be implemented in Q1-2 "97 in a staged effort, gradually taking more advantage of the SGML capabilities. For example, it will begin with a simple implementation of title subject, and full text access, with simple hit lists; later work will take advantage of "scaffolding" mechanisms available through searching the SGML to improve feedback through the CIA.
Goal 4.b.2 Deployment amd Evaluation in the High Schools
In the first half of the year, we will rollout the UMDL with its registry seeded with materials appropriate to high school in the areas of geology and astronomy. During the summer months, any revisions to Artemis interface will be made, and we will also make a major push to register collections relevant to the content areas of the curriculum units. The fall and winter semesters, the UMDL should be in daily use at the Ann Arbor high schools as well as possibly a school site in New York city.
We will be conducting a formal evaluation of the impact of the UMDL on student inquiry. In winter 1997, we will conduct a quasi-controlled retrieval test with high schoolers who use UMDL to determine whether they retrieve useful material in response to their queries. This first test will be pretest in preparation for longitudinal studies in the 1997-1998 academic year to determine whether high schoolers grow in their understanding of UMDL and its capabilities and benefit from access to UMDL content.