The Internet has opened new ways of learning and has brought several advantages to computer-aided education. Global access, self-paced learning, asynchronous teaching, interactivity, and multimedia usage are some of these. Along with the advantages comes the challenge of designing the software using the available facilities. Integrating online…

New economy corporate Web sites have pioneered exciting techniques-rich media, interactivity, personalization, community, and integration of much third-party content. Discusses business-to-business (B2B) Web commerce, with examples of several B2B corporate sites; portal and content elements of these sites; and corporate content outlooks. (AEF)

This paper examines inclusive design delivery through interface design, with a particular focus on access to healthcare resources for seniors. The goal of the project was to examine how seniors are able to access drug information using two different online systems. In the existing retrieval system, pills are identified using a standard search…

Introduces an extension of the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) for closed multiparty conferences; the extension expands SIP for discovery of participant identities in a conference, and ensures that each participant is notified before a new participant joins. Verifies this extension by applying it to two SIP conference models. Concludes with an…

Discusses the use of firewalls for library intranets, highlighting the move from mainframes to PCs, security issues and firewall architecture, and operating systems. Provides a glossary of basic networking terms and a bibliography of suggested reading. (PEN)

Information customization is a client-side activity designed to pick up where information filtering leaves off. This article describes a vision of information customization and chronicles the development of a proof-of-concept prototype, Cyberbrowser, for customizing information on the Web. (Author/AEF)

Explores the possibility of considering the creation and maintenance of reference librarians' personal Web sites as part of their professional duties. Reviews a sample of personal Web sites and the results of an e-mail survey targeting such sites and their creators. Examines three home pages to provide more detailed information about site…

Considers the problem of improving the performance of Web access by proposing a reconstruction of the internal link structure of a Web site to match quality of the pages with popularity of the pages. Provides a set of simple algorithms for local reorganization of a Web site, which results in improving users' access to quality pages in an easy and…

Reviews problems with the World Wide Web that can be attributed to human error or ineptitude, and provides suggestions for improvement. Discusses poor Web design, poor use of search engines, and poor quality control by search engines and directories. (AEF)

Java is an object-oriented programming language of the Internet. It's popularity lies in its ability to create interactive Web sites across platforms. The most common Java programs are applications and applets, which adhere to a set of conventions that lets them run within a Java-compatible browser. Java is becoming an essential subject matter and…

Explains the background to experimental work intended to measure aspects of the World Wide Web, which inadvertently caused two perceived security breaches on remote systems. Describes the nature of these incidents and considers why, when over 700,000 addresses were sampled, only two sites considered the activity to be an attempt to breach their…

Rich Site Summary (RSS) is an XML format designed to let content providers share news headlines and content with other sites without having to create a completely new Web page. Discusses three issues to consider before creating a newsfeed: content integrity, bandwidth issues, and spellcheck. Identifies resources for getting started and the two…

Multicasting is a necessity for a broadband metro-area-network; however security problems exist with current multicast protocols. A stateful multicast access control mechanism, based on MAPE, is proposed. The architecture of MAPE is discussed, as well as the states maintained and messages exchanged. The scheme is flexible and scalable. (Author/AEF)

Focusing on languages for the Dublin Core, examines the experience of some related ways to seek semantic interoperability through simplicity: planned languages, interlingua constructs, and pidgins. Also defines the conceptual and organizational problem of maintaining a metadata standard in multiple languages. (AEF)

Describes the conceptual foundations for the Gateway to Educational Materials (GEM) metadata framework including adoption of the Dublin Core Element Set as its base referent, and extension of that set to meet the needs of the domain. Discusses selection and structuring of the units of description. Examines metadata generation, the association of…