Information Visualisation: Flexible Access to Reusable Components (Informatie visualisatie: ontsluiting van herbruikbare componenten)

Over the last few years, numerous information sources have been deployed over the Internet, with large amounts of reusable objects and associate d metadata. Examples include Wikipedia, social bookmarking tools like de l.icio.us, learning object repositories like the Ariadne Knowledge Pool System, etc. Most of the tools for getting access to these resources are based on electronic forms that enable end users to define boolean combi nations of search criteria. However, users find it often quite difficult to adequately define such queries. There is thus an obvious need to imp rove access to those repositories. Information visualisation is the visual presentation of abstract informa tion spaces and structures, in order to facilitate their rapid assimilat ion and understanding. This dissertation investigates how we can improve access to repositories with the help of information visualisation techn iques. For each of four case studies, a working proof-of-concept has bee n created which has been used to validate the techniques.status: publishe