Lorenzo Cantoni reports on the experiences of the SwissCast project. SwissCast is a project run by the Faculty of Communication Sciences of the University of the Italian Switzerland (Lugano) and the Department of Applied Arts of the Tessin High School for Applied Sciences, and funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Its purpose is to study push technologies and to develop a prototype service in different content areas in order to better understand the communicational dynamics. The project, which will finish at the end of March 2000, has built a fully-functioning service in the area of information support for University Research and Development and a prototype in the area of medical-pharmaceutical information. The project has already shown many interesting features which a "push" service can provide and emphasises the developmental role which communications issues can provide for technology.
This articles has three different purposes:
A popular communications metaphor for information access on the Internet is that of browsing information from the World Wide Web. Here users actively search for information they need by browsing web sites. To do so they often make use of search engines (e.g. AltaVista) or directory services (e.g. Yahoo!). In the last few years, due to the growth of the Internet community and of information resources available on the web, this first paradigm has shown some major shortcomings, which can be summarised under three main headlines: quantity & relevance, quality, updating.
Quantity & Relevance: Due to information overload, it is quite difficult to find out what one is looking for, both in general (having a question and finding relevant material over the Internet), and at a specific web site answering the question: is there anything relevant for me in this web site? (or: is there something more on the subject here? and how much?). This means that every search over the Internet is becoming more and more time demanding (efficiency issue), and needs special ad hoc skills in order to be really useful (effectiveness issue).
Quality: Once relevant items are found quality issues arise: are the resources of good quality or not? Now just about everybody can publish everything and many new actors are struggling to gain an audience and receive credit. Professionals, who are normally well equipped when judging other media, are not always able to assess with the same certainty information providers' quality on the Internet. Additional expertise is needed in order to monitor and assess new information resources in specific content areas.
Updating: Information on the Internet changes continuously. Users cannot know if they accessed the newest version or not. In general, they find it too time-consuming to return to a web site again and again to check if there is something new on the web site. Automatic checking activities are needed to provide information on the most recently updated resources.
The paradigm of information casting or "push" (also known as WebCasting, PushCasting, Channel Broadcasting, etc.) could offer relevant answers to these issues - see [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7] and [8].
Information casting is the term used for the automatic delivery of content to a computer desktop over the Internet. Although a definition of 'push' may be difficulkt toi achieve, a good one seems to be the following:
Push is the automatic delivery of content to users' computer desktop; content is organised by topic defined by a publisher and users receive information according to their own pre-defined profiles.
Three elements thus integrate a would-be complete definition: automatic delivery, content organisation, user profile.
Automatic Delivery: In order to provide a push service you need some sort of automatic delivery of information items to end users. This is similar to radio and TV broadcasting, where end users simply receive what is sent. Automatic delivery is carried out using special technologies, ranging from point to point casting to multicasting.
The emphasis on the technological aspect has stressed the need for increased bandwidth equirements and supported technologies (e.g. live audio/video) rather than the communicational issues themsevesf. The definition suggested above requires, however, opens up many possibilities, from plain text e-mail messages to audio/video clip delivery. In our opinion, what is most important are neither bandwidth nor technologies (which all are communicational tools) but the fact that each single message has not to be solicited, but is automatically delivered to its receivers in a given, suitable way.
This last observation helps to better outline the general SwissCast philosophy: trying to follow the natural communication hierarchy: moving from meanings and human communication needs towards suitable communication tools and not vice versa. In other words the question which drives the research programme is: Which technologies are useful for which communication flows?
This point of view explains also the project choice of using many different communication tools to build up the push service prototype, including e-mail messages and web browsing (personal page approach).
Content Organisation: A main added value an information service has to offer is that of selecting, organising and editing, according to its clients' interests, information items coming from different sources. Another relevant advantage will be that of presenting selected items formatted following a given, homogeneous format, helping end users to process more items in less time.
User Profile: Push technologies and services are quite similar to the traditional TV broadcasting: an information provider delivers news on given subjects. The inner nature of the electronic medium offers much more customisation possibilities, both offering pre-defined thematic channels to which end users can subscribe, or allowing end users themselves to define their own channel/s (user profile), this last one is the choice made by the SwissCast project.
After a first enthusiastic welcome, push technologies do not appear to have revolutionised the web. Neither Netscape nor Microsoft are developing or upgrading their proprietary channel technology (nor do they make an extensive use of it) and many push technology providers appear to have changed their area of interest.
In our opinion this situation can be explained by a rather one-sided vision of push services, which emphasises almost only the technological side of the overall "push story".
We believe that push services are neither only, nor mainly, technological tools that help finding information in Internet, but are true information brokerage services, which try to bridge the gap between the information content available on Internet and the users' needs. To do so, they perform a series of actions, which include [9]:
In this process technology can be very helpful, mainly in order (1) to access information through the Internet, (2) to perform very repetitive tasks as regularly searching web sites or matching new information items against users' profiles and (3) to regularly monitor information flows and users' behaviours.
If we consider the activity of a push service as being that of an information broker, we have to take into account three main elements the broker has to manage.
Let us consider the brokerage function in more detail:
The purpose of the SwissCast project [10] is that of studying and working out a prototype Internet-based communication service which can select and broadcast information organised to meet different user-profiles in well-defined professional/interest groups: a "push service".
The project also tries to examine a number of relevant issues, including: classification and choice of the most suitable hardware/software tools, analysis of information providers' and information users' communication needs, design of user-oriented graphical interfaces and the realisation of suitable validation procedures.
In order to implement and validate the service two different areas were chosen: Research & Development in a University setting and medical/pharmaceutical information. In the SwissCast project activities both information providers and end-users actively co-operate with the researchers who work at the building and validation of the service.
The SwissCast project was approved and funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). It started in autumn 1997 and is currently run by the Faculty of Communication Sciences of the University of the Italian Switzerland, and the Department of Applied Arts of the Tessin High School for Applied Sciences. The project leaders, managers, researchers and consultants come from very different scientific areas, bit all are involved with communications issues [11].
In addition a number of pharmaceutical companies are involved in the SwissCast project as project partners, namely: Pfizer AG, IBSA, Institut Biochimique; Künzle, and ActaMed Services: an agency specialised in information brokering in the health area, with a deep insight and a long experience in the concerned information market.
Project activities at first were those of analysing the two research areas and the involved information market. Bibliographic research as well as interviews with professionals helped in getting the needed knowledge. In parallel, a deep analysis of information push available research, technologies and services was undergone. Collaboration with Eurospider - a spin-off company of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (Switzerland) - helped the SwissCast team to focus its research object and gain an understanding of the main differences between information retrieval services and push services.
In spring 1999 a full-functioning version of the SwissCast push service was made available online. It is being tested and assessed. This will last until the end of the project in March 2000.
In this section, we will present the architecture and the functionalities of the push service built in the framework of the SwissCast project.
From the point of view of information flow, the system contains the elements displayed in Figure 1.
 Figure 1: The Swisscast Architecture |
Information retrieval & information classification Information is in part directly inserted into the push service by the active information providers (those who have signed a special agreement with the SwissCast service) or it is retrieved by the information editor (namely, but not exclusively, from the web) and inserted by the information editor in the information storage. All insertion activities are carried out using web forms.
Ad hoc software modules were implemented to interface external databases with the SwissCast document database; this is the case of active information providers whose data are stored in corporate databases.
All items of information must be classified according to a standard keyword scheme and formatted along a pre-defined structure. For the University Research area the Subject Classification Codes by CORDIS has been adopted [12]. After the first test phase, a need to reorganize the keyword list has been shown, in order to better suit the actual interest profiles of the SwissCast end users.
For the pharmaceutical area the Medical Subject Headings used by the US National Library of Medicine were chosen; for this area other keywords were added, to map various information types. Those ones were elaborated through focus groups and interviews held with health care professionals.
Information storage (document database) The document database is a key element in the system, because it contains what will be pushed to end users in a standard format. Many items in the document database will also contain a reference to a web page that gives more information on the subject.
Push module This module periodically matches new information items inserted in the document database against users' profiles and attributes new relevant documents to the corresponding profiles; users can read relevant documents through a common web browser (personal web page approach). Moreover, this module contains an agent that regularly checks for new documents and sends notification to each user via e-mail. E-mail messages contain the titles of new information pieces assigned to a given user profile, as well as a direct link to the user profile page.
After four weeks of being displayed every document is removed, unless end users checked it to maintain it. This activity is performed due to the "push" nature of the service, and in order not to have too big - and thus useless - document lists.
The complete management tool set is accessible to the information editor through the web. It provides utilities to monitor the system settings and running, as well as many statistical utilities.
Since the goal of the project is to study the communicational flows in push services, rather than to develop new technologies, most of the SwissCast system has been developed using freeware software tools adapted to the Project needs and interfaced with the web using CGI programming. In more detail, the following tools were used:
Moreover, the interface of the service with the information editor, the information providers and the end-user is completely web-based and thus all the necessary tasks – including the management of the service and the input of documents – can be done via a web browser.
The SwissCast system is thus based on a database, which acts as a container both for information and user's profiles data. Information are classified and inserted within the database manually from active providers (filling information via web forms) or automatically through dedicated gateways from other databases accessed via Internet. An account (username and password) is assigned by the information editor of the service to each active provider, in order to guarantee their identification.
A gatherer unit was implemented in order to help the information editor to perform repetitive tasks. In detail, it constantly checks a list of web pages and automatically displays last updates; through a filter unit the information editor can discard all useless information and insert into the SwissCast documents' database only relevant information items, mapping them according to the standards.
Once a new document is inserted into the SwissCast documents’ database, a match against all existing profiles is performed, and the document will be automatically and instantly assigned to the corresponding profiles. The match criteria is based on Boolean operators, working on the keywords schema through which every document is classified and every profile is created.
Moreover, an agent periodically checks each profile for new documents, and sends notification to the corresponding user via e-mail if new documents were found. Other pieces of software were developed in order to monitor and assess the service (usage statistics, keywords schema efficiency, etc.) as well as to do the system administration.
A running prototype has been working for the area of University R&D information since May 1999.
The R&D area has been chosen as the first area of application due to the possibility of a close co-operation with the Research Office of the University of Italian Switzerland, thus having from the very beginning of the Project an interested partner that knows very well the specific application field. At the same time, R&D information is a domain well suited for the development of push services because most of the internal communication and of the information exchange in the scientific community already develops via Internet, researchers are thus used to this medium. A very important push service in the research area is already run by the European Community.
The SwissCast service for R&D has been specifically targeted to the information needs of researchers in Ticino and, in general, of Italian-speaking scientists in Switzerland; it is now fully operational and can be freely accessed [13].
The test phase has started in July 1999, it involves about 150 University professors, researchers and students, and assesses the service professional relevance, as well as its functionalities and graphical user interface.
Service assessment takes into account what can be automatically recorded (service usage, number of user profiles, and so on) as well as what the users say and perceive about the service, a first questionnaire was filled in by 20 SwissCast end-users, whose results guided the first service improvements. In the first months of 2000 at about 20 semi-structured interviews are planned with end-users and active providers, in order to get a deeper understanding of their perceptions and needs. The analysis of users' profiles has shown the need of modifying the keywords' list, to better semantically capture the actual information pieces SwissCast delivers to its clients.
The prototype for the medical-pharmaceutical information service is currently under in-house testing, and will be operational in December 1999; it will be run by ActaMed, and monitored and assessed by the SwissCast team. In parallel a national survey on the usage of Internet by Swiss health care professionals started in November 1999.
One of the results of the SwissCast project has been the identification of a number of key factors which must be fulfilled in order to build a effective push service.
Technology matters At the beginning of the push history there was a tendency to develop new applications, using very specific interfaces to the user-side; many tools, like PointCast, are quite intrusive, and demanding at the hardware and connection level, in order to achieve real-time updating. But not every push service has to be so demanding at the level of technology: quite often it can use the oldest and simplest push technology — e-mail — to deliver (or, at least, to notify) news, and a common web-browser to view relevant documents.
Information relevance matters Push technology has to meet well defined information needs, specific professional interests. In other words, as long as information got through the Internet is perceived and remains a second-choice information, only for laymen, not so many people will be interested in defining user profiles, for the simple reason that they can't and don't want to. Browsing without an end will remain more appealing than just getting specific, narrow-scope information. This explain why the push over intranets, where professional information needs are better defined, seems to grow more than the push over the Internet.
Information classification matters The relevance issue concerns also the issue of how to define user-profiles and — at the same time — how to semantically map the content. After many experiences and experiments, one must agree with the necessity of a human intervention, although assisted by suitable automatic tools, in order to establish how to define a user profile, and to map each information item. Here the difference between search and push services becomes most clear: the first ones have to provide useful stuff, to be further analysed, the last ones must offer only relevant items.
Information quality matters Closely connected with the previous areas, is that of information quality: professionals need to know that information they get is certified. Otherwise they will need nonetheless to go other ways — more traditional, better known by them and thus more secure.
Information layout matters Getting relevant good quality information is the strength of push services, but one more element has to be added. It consists in the way new items are presented, a way which must be easy, clear and not time demanding to be accessed. Otherwise paper technology will win the competition.
Graphical User Interface matters The proper public for push services being mainly professionals (not necessarily IT professionals), and their reason to use these services being to access updated, good quality, added value, relevant information items, the access must be as easy as possible. Non computer experts (or addicted) professionals don't want to become IT professionals, they just want to use the computer as a tool, and could be refrained from use it if they perceive the instrument as an obstacle.
SwissCast research activities have shown how necessary it is to pull together different competencies and skills to effectively meet communicational needs: technological tools are fundamental, but can't work without a continuous collaboration with communicational and visual graphics competencies.
The outcomes of the SwissCast project open a series of very interesting developments in research; in fact, SwissCast, being a functioning prototype with real users, offers an ideal platform to test more advanced methods and tools.
In the online version of the service, technical tools are used only to manage documents and profiles, to deliver information, and to execute repetitive tasks. This approach is very robust, because all complex tasks – e.g., information classifying – are left to human competence; on the other side, it can be, if the service becomes large, very time and resources consuming.
The first research line we wish to develop is thus the use of artificial intelligence methods to implement smarter functions, either to help the service manager (e.g. tools which pre-sort the information), or to interact with the users (e.g. to develop 'dynamic' user profiles, in order to obtain an improved information casting which could be automatically customised according to users' behaviour).
A second research line is that of the semantic mapping of information and of complex systems of keywords; while the actual system is based on a very simple (one-dimensional) scheme, which is the same for the information classification and for the definition of user's profiles, more complex structures, possibly integrating user's behaviour, could give more flexibility and could be very helpful to cope with increasing information volumes.
Finally, we wish to stress the issue of customisation of the service: tools and procedures which allow to adapt the system to the structure of each information market and to changing user needs would greatly add to the practical interest of such a service and thus open to new application fields.
If you have any comments on this article, please contact the editors (exploit-editor@ukoln.ac.uk).
Cf. as well: Maurizio Decina,
Lorenzo Cantoni, Benedetto Lepori, Riccardo Mazza, Paolo Jannuzzi,
The SwissCast information push service: A multidisciplinary research,
a multifaceted experience, ACM SIGIR'99 Workshop on Customised Information
Delivery, (August 19, 1999 - Berkeley, California),
Lorenzo Cantoni
Università della Svizzera Italiana
SwissCast Project
via Ospedale 13
CH-6900 Lugano
Switzerland
URL: <http://www.lu.unisi.ch/>
Tel: +41 91 9124720
Email: lorenzo.cantoni@lu.unisi.ch
Lorenzo Cantoni works as a part-time researcher in the SwissCast Project, at the Faculty of Communication Sciences of the Università della Svizzera Italiana, where he coordinates the Atelier "Web Promotion & Production". He also teaches Communication Theory at the Politecnico di Milano (Italy).
For citation purposes:
Cantoni, L.,"Shall Technology Lead communication or Vice-Versa?", Exploit Interactive issue 4, January 2000
<URL: http://www.exploit-lib.org/issue4/swisscast/>
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