Organization of the Web

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Organization of the Web
T.B. RajashekarNational Centre for Science
Information (NCSI)Indian Institute of
ScienceBangalore - 560 012(E-Mail
raja_at_ncsi.iisc.ernet.in)
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Why study organization of the Web?

• Using the Web is analogues to using libraries and
  electronic databases
• Libraries
• How the documents are organised document types,
  classification system used
• Access tools catalogues, indexes, automated
  catalogues, access points
• Our information need (search topic) translate
  these in terms of organization scheme employed by
  the library
• Information Retrieval systems (e.g. electronic
  databases)
• How the database is organised, record content,
  fields, search elements
• Indexing and query language, thesaurus, Boolean
  logic, truncation, etc.
• Our information need formulated as a search
  expression using the query language

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Organization of the Web

• Web servers and browsers
• Web servers store variety of web compatible
  documents and provide access to these on the
  Internet or an intranet
• PCs, RISC-based workstations/servers
• These documents are accessed using Web browsers
  like Netscape and IE
• Palm tops, Laptops, PCs, workstations, etc.
• Web sites and URL
• One or more web servers identified with a unique
  web site address on the Internet (e.g.
  www.iisc.ernet.in)
• Documents available on a Web site are uniquely
  identified using the URL scheme access
  protocol//host.domain port/path/file
  name(Ex. http//www.ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/ncsi/data
  base.html)

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Organization of the Web...

• Anatomy of a web site
• Hardware, software (OS, web server, CGI,
  database, indexing and search, etc.)
• Dedicated Internet connectivity
• Information content Documents stored in variety
  of formats (HTML, SGML,PDF, databases, images,
  audio, video, etc.)
• HTML pages integrate access to this information
• Organised in a hierarchical manner
• Home page (root page) provides links to second
  level HTML pages which in turn link to third
  level HTML pages, and so on
• These pages may contain images and provide access
  to databases through search forms, PDF files,
  audio and video, etc. or link to documents on
  other servers

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Organization of the Web...
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Organization of the Web...
The World Wide Web is non-linear. There is no
top, there is no bottom. Non-linear means you do
not have to follow a hierarchical path to
information resources.
You can jump from one link (resource) toanother
You can go directly to a resource if you know the
Uniform Resource Locator (URL) (its address)
You can even jump to specific parts of a document.
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Organization of the Web...

• Structure of a web page
• Title (viewable in the title bar of the browser)
• Meta tags (not viewable)
• Description
• Keywords
• Author
• Creation/ modification dates
• Body (viewable content)
• Text, links, etc.
• Page attributes name, date of creation/modificati
  on, size

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Organization of the Web...

• Web is the totality of web pages stored on web
  servers
• Spectacular growth in web-based information
  sources and services
• Education and research
• Entertainment
• Business and commerce
• Personal home pages
• Estimated to contain over 1 billion documents
• Doubling each year
• Over 80 million web sites

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Types of Web Sites

• Shopping sites
• www.amazon.com (book store)
• www.garden.com (gardening)
• www.indiabookshop.com (book store)
• www.shopperstop.com (clothes, etc.)
• Community sites
• www.acs.org (American Chemical Society)
• www.indiatimes.com
• www.gardencityinfo.com (Bangalore)
• www.nse-india.com (stock traders)

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Types of Web Sites

• Entertainment sites
• disney.go.com (Walt Disney)
• www.starwars.com
• www.carnaticmusic.com
• www.indiatalkies.com
• Identity sites
• www.ibm.com
• www.wipro.com
• www.iisc.ernet.in

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Types of Web Sites

• Learning sites
• www.digitalthink.com (web-based training in IT)
• www.netskills.ac.uk (Internet training)
• www.nationalgeographic.com
• Information sites
• www.computers.com
• www.eb.com (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
• www.thomasregister.com
• www.timesofindia.com

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Types of Web Sites

• Govt. web sites
• Combine identity and information functions
• Public domain, unrestricted access
• Disseminate information about plans, policies,
  projects, people, facilities, performance,
  technologies, etc.
• Receive feedback from the public
• Bring openness, transparency in its operations
• Constitutional obligation

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Accessing Web-based Information Key Problems

• Identification of sources (documents)
• No central card catalog
• Most web pages are not indexed in standard
  vocabulary, unlike library catalogues or journal
  article indexes
• Impossible to reach all related pages/ sites
  directly
• Need to use intermediate, resource finding tools