SIS Seminar Series: Towards Automatic Simplification of Information Organization Structures

Many large digital collections are currently organized by subject; however, these useful information organization structures are large and complex, making them difficult to browse. Current online tools and visualization prototypes show small localized subsets and do not provide the ability to explore the predominant patterns of the overall subject structure. This research addresses this issue by simplifying the subject structure using two techniques based on the highly uneven distribution of real-world collections: level compression and child pruning. The approach is demonstrated using a sample of 233K records organized using Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). Promising results show that the subject hierarchy can be reduced down to 30% of its initial size, while maintaining access to over 90% of the collection. The visual impact is demonstrated using a traditional outline view allowing searchers to dynamically change the amount of complexity that they feel necessary for the tasks at hand.

Charles-Antoine Julien is an industrial engineer with professional experience as a business information systems programmer, analyst and trainer. After completing an engineering Masters in educative technologies, he completed a PhD in information studies specializing in information visualization of information organization structures. Dr. Julien was a post-doctoral fellow at the School of Information Studies of the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee where he further developed his research on the simplification of information organization structures. He has published on information visualization and simplification of information organization structures, next-generation library catalogues, and human-computer interaction. Since January 2012, he is an assistant professor at the McGill University School of Information Studies.