What is Wrong with Digital Documents?

A Conceptual Model for Structural Cross-Media

Content Composition and Reuse
Beat Signer, http://www.beatsigner.com
Web & Information Systems Engineering Lab (WISE)
Department of Computer Science
Vrije Universiteit Brussel

ER 2010, November 4, 2010

PARC User Interface (Mid 70s)
▪ Desktop metaphor
▪ WIMP interaction
▪ "filing cabinets" with
hierarchical folders
▪ Paper paradigm
▪ "What You See Is What
You Get" (WYSIWYG)
▪ what about richer
document formats that
existed at that time?
Xerox Star 8010 [http://www.digibarn.com/collections/systems/xerox-8010/]

ER 2010, November 4, 2010 Beat Signer - Vrije Universiteit Brussel - bsigner@vub.ac.be

Digital Documents as a Paper Simulator?
Most people don't understand the logic of the
concept: "What You See Is What You Get" is
based on printing the document out ("get"
means "get WHEN YOU PRINT IT OUT"). And that
means a metaphysical shift: a document can
only consist of what can be printed! [...] No
overlays [...] – PAPER UNDER GLASS.
Geeks Bearing Gifts: How the Computer World Got This Way, Mindful Press 2009 Ted Nelson

When data of any sort are placed in storage,

they are filed alphabetically or numerically,
and information is found (when it is) by
tracing it down from subclass to subclass. It
can be in only one place, unless duplicates
are used [...] The human mind does not work
that way. It operates by association.
As We May Think, Atlantic Monthly, July 1945 Vannevar Bush

ER 2010, November 4, 2010 Beat Signer - Vrije Universiteit Brussel - bsigner@vub.ac.be

 Paper-based Work Practices

Marginal
annotations
#
Cut and paste

versioning
Marcel Proust, À la recherche du temps perdu
Du côté de chez Swann [http://expositions.bnf.fr/brouillons/grand/45.htm]

ER 2010, November 4, 2010 Beat Signer - Vrije Universiteit Brussel - bsigner@vub.ac.be

oN-Line System (NLS)
▪ Collaborative System
by D. Engelbart et al.
demonstrated in 1968
▪ addressing and linking
parts of files
▪ flexible file views
▪ overlay file structures
▪ cross-file editing
▪ ...

ER 2010, November 4, 2010 Beat Signer - Vrije Universiteit Brussel - bsigner@vub.ac.be

Fluid Cross-media Information Spaces

010010001001001
0101001100010010100010010
0100100010010001000100001001000
100010001100001001000110010101010110
1100010010100010010010010100010101011001
1010011000011001 010101010100
11000100101000100 110101010101
010000100100 01010101000
01001001001 1111111111
111 0000000010
0 11111111
0101001011
010101010
111010101010101
00101001011010

ER 2010, November 4, 2010 Beat Signer - Vrije Universiteit Brussel - bsigner@vub.ac.be

Challenges
▪ Representation of cross-media relationships
▪ navigational relationships
▪ structural relationships
- within document structure
- external document structure
▪ Content reuse across media boundaries
▪ cross-media transclusion
▪ Distribution of data and metadata across
multiple devices and media formats

ER 2010, November 4, 2010 Beat Signer - Vrije Universiteit Brussel - bsigner@vub.ac.be

 Structure Metamodel (RSL)
structure link link
(0,*) (1,1) Structural (1,*) Navigational
Structures HasElements |HasChild|
Links Links

partition

link parameter
(1,*) (1,*) Has (0,*)
HasSource Links HasTarget Preferences Preferences
(0,*) (0,*)
parameter (0,*)
(0,*) (0,*)
Properties HasProperties (0,*)
entity (0,*) AccessibleTo (0,*) user
(0,*)
Entities (1,1) Users HasMembers
contextResolver (0,*)
(0,*)
Context HasResolver CreatedBy
partition
Resolvers (0,*) partition (0,*)
selector resource individual group
(1,1) (0,*)
Selectors RefersTo Resources Individuals Groups

(1,1) (0,*)
layer
(0,*) (0,*) OM notation
OnLayer Layers |HasLayers| (developed at ETH Zurich)

B. Signer and M.C. Norrie, As We May Link: A General Metamodel for Hypermedia Systems. In Proc. of ER 2007, Nov 2007

ER 2010, November 4, 2010 Beat Signer - Vrije Universiteit Brussel - bsigner@vub.ac.be

 Associative File System (RBAF)
structural link
navigational link
signer

My Pictures My Videos My Presentations

Vancouver ER 2010 Vancouver ER 2010 ER 2010 WISE 2009

Aquarium Keynote

single slide
cross-media transclusion
Granville Vancouver Public Keynote Olga and Dinner transclusion (via OOXML
Island Harbour Market J. Thorp Lamia ER 2010 RSL selector)

multiple classification cross-media association

ER 2010, November 4, 2010 Beat Signer - Vrije Universiteit Brussel - bsigner@vub.ac.be
Associative File System (RBAF) ...

ER 2010, November 4, 2010 Beat Signer - Vrije Universiteit Brussel - bsigner@vub.ac.be

Structure Metamodel Features
▪ Multiple overlay structures can be defined on top
of a set of entities (views)
▪ Structural relationships between parts of
resources (fragments) via selector concept
▪ Structural relationships as first class entities
▪ tagging via properties (key/value pairs)
▪ navigational links to other resources
▪ context-dependent adaptive structures via context
resolvers
ER 2010, November 4, 2010 Beat Signer - Vrije Universiteit Brussel - bsigner@vub.ac.be
Cross-media Information Browser & Editor

▪ How to build a cross-media structure browser & editor?

ER 2010, November 4, 2010 Beat Signer - Vrije Universiteit Brussel - bsigner@vub.ac.be
Conclusions
▪ Existing document formats are very much
based on the simulation of paper affordances
on static desktop computers
▪ Structure metamodel for the representation of
open and fluid cross-media information spaces
▪ associative file system example
▪ cross-media information browser & editor
▪ Remediation of the "paper simulation" approach
▪ WYSIWYG is only one out of many options!
ER 2010, November 4, 2010 Beat Signer - Vrije Universiteit Brussel - bsigner@vub.ac.be
Acknowledgments
▪ Colleagues at ETH Zurich for collaborating on
the RSL link metamodel; in particular
Prof. Dr. Moira C. Norrie
▪ Gregory Cardone for implementing the initial
prototype of the RSL-based associative file
system (RBAF)

ER 2010, November 4, 2010 Beat Signer - Vrije Universiteit Brussel - bsigner@vub.ac.be

References
▪ B. Signer and M.C. Norrie, As We May Link: A General
Metamodel for Hypermedia Systems, Proc. of ER 2007,
Auckland, New Zealand, November 2007, 359–374
▪ V. Bush, As We May Think, Atlantic Monthly 176(1), 1945
▪ T. Nelson, Geeks Bearing Gifts: How the Computer World
Got This Way, Mindful Press, 2009
▪ B. Signer, Fundamental Concepts for Interactive
Paper and Cross-Media Information Spaces,
ISBN 978-3-8370-2713-6, May 2008
ER 2010, November 4, 2010 Beat Signer - Vrije Universiteit Brussel - bsigner@vub.ac.be