Prof. Dr. Beat Signer (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Department of Computer Science, Brussels, Belgium)
November 2nd, 2009, 14:00
G29-301
English
slides (4.13MB)
While there have been dramatic increases in the use of digital technologies for information storage, processing and delivery over the last few decades, the affordances of paper have ensured its retention as a key information medium. Despite predictions of the paperless office, paper is ever more present in our daily work. However, there is a gap between the paper and digital worlds: information present in paper documents cannot be seamlessly transferred to digital media and digital services are not easily accessible from the paper world.
In this talk I will present an information-centric approach for integrating paper with digital as well as physical media based on a general cross-media information platform (iServer). Some details about the architecture and implementation of the iServer platform as well as the underlying resource-selector-link (RSL) metamodel for cross-media linking will be highlighted. A selection of interactive paper applications that have been developed based on this platform over the past nine years will be presented, including the EdFest interactive paper guide for the Edinburgh festivals, the PaperPoint presentation tool as well as the PaperProof proof-editing solution. Challenges and solutions for novel forms of interactive paper and cross-media publishing are discussed based on the presented applications. This includes specific extensions of the iServer platform and RSL model as well as the application of our solution in new domains such as digital libraries, cross-media annotation and retrieval or personal cross-media information management that goes beyond the hierarchical information management imposed by the desktop metaphor.
Beat Signer is Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) in Belgium, where he is co-director of the Web and Information System Engineering (WISE) laboratory. He is investigating interactive paper solutions and cross-media information systems. His research interests further include innovative forms of information management and interaction, document engineering, ubiquitous and tangible computing, object databases as well as software engineering. As a member of the European Paper++ and PaperWorks projects, Beat developed the interactive paper (iPaper) framework for integrating paper and digital services/information. Different solutions for innovative forms of interactive paper document publishing have been realised and the iPaper framework has been applied in a variety of applications including PaperPoint, EdFest, Generosa Enterprise, the Lost Cosmonaut, Print-n-Link, PaperProof and other solutions. More information can be found at the following website.