Title: Designing Intranet Information Services IIS 1
1Designing Intranet Information Services (IIS) - 1
T.B. RajashekarNational Centre for Science
InformationIndian Institute of ScienceBangalore
560 012 (EMail raja_at_ncsi.iisc.ernet.in)
2We will be covering
- Goals of IIS
- Design elements - 1
- Information auditing
- User community and their preferences
- Infrastructure and resources
- IIS architecture
- Content storage and processing
3We will be coveringnext session
- Design elements 2
- Web style guide
- Metadata
- Subject organization
- Database driven approach for content management
- Customisation
- Relevance of XML
- Resources
4Goals of IIS
- Managed publishing and hosting of content
- What, who, where, why, how
- Integration of internal/ external, fee/ free
content - Integration of legacy content
- Structured and controlled access to content
- Usage monitoring
- Training and maintenance
5Designing IISSo?
- We need to have clarity on key components of IIS
- So, as intranet webmasters/ content managers, we
ask a series of questions related to these
components and try to answer these
6User Community
Information Assets
Infrastructure Resources
IISDesign Components
Content Storage Processing
Subject Organization
IIS Architecture
Database Approach
Web Style Guide
Metadata
Personalization
7Design Elements Information Auditing
- Information assets of the company
- Document-based, experts, partners, clients,
competitors - Print, analogue, digital
- Creation, ownership, availability
- Volume and growth
- Types and formats, web-compatibility
- Content rating (importance)
- Volume and frequency of use (80-20 rule!)
8Design Elements User Community Preferences
- Organizational goals, vision, business processes
- Internal users
- Divisions, their goals, business processes,
composition - Local, branch, mobile, home
- External users Who? Any access restrictions?
What?
9Design Elements User Community Preferences
- Volume
- What content they access? How frequently? (80-20
rule!) - What technology they use for access and
publishing? - E-Mail and Web-based surveys (an example)
- Access log analysis of servers
10Web-based User Survey
11Web-based User Survey
12Web-based User Survey
13Design Elements Infrastructure and Resources
- Servers
- Type (web, e-mail, database), services/
function, location, configuration - Clients, platform, numbers
- RDBMS, web/text search engines
- Authoring and publishing tools
- Staff
- IIS manager, Information architect/ intranet
librarian, SQL/Search engine specialist,
application developers, webmaster, content editors
14Design Elements IIS Architecture
- What architecture is required to meet the IIS
goals defined earlier? - Websites Centralized? Decentralized?
- How is the search handled, if decentralized?
- Site design uniform look feel
- Linkages with the company Internet website,
extranet
15Design Elements IIS Architecture
- Need metadata for content identification, access,
administration and rights management - Who is going to add metadata?
- Where it will reside? With the content or
separately in a database, with links?
16Design Elements IIS Architecture
- Access
- Structured/ unstructured access?
- Full content search?
- Access control?
- Browsing by topics?
- How do we support customisation/ personalization?
- How do we monitor usage?
17Design Elements IIS Architecture
- Publishing
- What authoring, publishing tool?
- Content format
- Publishing style
- Need web style guide (structure, navigation,
labels, logo, icons, font type, size, color) - Editorial/ quality control?
- Authorization for content hosting?
- Metadata preparation
- Hosting
18Design ElementsContent Storage and Processing
- Requirements for handling content formats
- Browser-aware formats no issue
- Plug-in based content (e.g. PDF)
- Helper applications (e.g. Word) platform
dependent - All your users have these?
- Level of content storage
- File level A document may have several physical
components stored at folder level (e.g. PDF
document, software package, tutorial) - Record level stored as database records or
occasionally as individual files (e.g. staff
directory, customer profile)
19Design ElementsContent Storage and Processing
- Document identification
- URL
- Any additional permanent identifier?
- Presentation/ delivery of content
- Record level content no issues
- File level content may need to be split into
smaller units to facilitate faster delivery,
audio/video streaming, PDF page serving,
compression
20File level content (example 1)
21File level content (example 1) (contd.)
22File level content (example 1) (contd.)
23File level content (example 2)
24File level content (example 2) (contd.)
25File level content (example 2) (contd.)
26Record level content(Example 1)
27Record level content(Example 1) (contd.)
28Record level content(Example 1) (contd.)
29Record level content(Example 2)
30Record level content(Example 2) (contd.)
31Design ElementsContent Storage and Processing
- Resource discovery
- How the content is stored influences the indexing
and search aspects - Usual full-text searching of text-based content
is not sufficient - Full-text indexing cannot handle non-indexable
content (PDF, images, etc.) - Appropriate metadata is essential for meaningful
resource discovery
32Designing IIS
- We will continue the discussions in the next
session