ALEG

ALEG

Weekly Report - Week 33, 15 December 2000

What I've done

Lots of discussion on the agent maintenance form, and I made some changes based on this (but I think there is more to come!). It was actually used (by Ben) to merge some duplicated agents (see next point), and work OK.
Most of the updated AUSTLIT data has been loaded. There were a few issues caused by AUSTLIT identifiers being reassigned when the AUSTLIT records were updated between 19 Sep and 31 Nov, but these are now mostly resolved.
The reviews have been loaded, and are being linked to the works they reviewed as I write.
Detecting changes to works is very hard, not just because some AUSTLIT ids changed, but also because the issues we had initially linking works to sources meant lots of changes were made to the data on ALEG, and we are now trying to merge in the changes from AUSTLIT since the ALEG data was loaded and independently updated. Oh well, it is getting close. Some types of attributes (notes, topics, dates) are easy to update, but the publication and source details are very tricky and will probably require manual checking. It is not expected that many updates will be necessary, but still hundreds of records will need to be checked manually. We really need to have the work maintenance suite running to do this.
Sources from the first load are still not finalized, although Ben has manually processed all the 'in doubt' records - I just have to write a program to process the file he has produced.
Begun discussions with Clara Ichlov from Deakin who is organising the first extract of the Multi-Cultural writers database. We'll probably get this data to load mid/late January, which will be fine.
Added some rudimentary authentication to the maintenance screens (on update), which will be developed into a full-blown authentication and logging module one day.

What I haven't done but need to do soon!

Document how ALEG will handle some tricky cases - The "Poets of the Month" works from the mid 1970's and "Down the Lake with Half a Chook". These are amongst the most "difficult" cases Tessa and Kathy can come up with, so if we think the proposed data model can handle these, we'll be happy!
[Think I'll strangle this chook and eat it for Christmas lunch]

Next week

Finish the Austlit load, or as much as can be automated
Add reviews to the prototype search/results processing (so that they can be seen!)
Update the maintenance suite based on discussions, start working on maintenance of Works/Expression/Manifestations
Or, maybe start loading the BAL/LAW data

Summary

Things are going quite well, although the data loading never ceases to suprise with unexpected quirks and complications.

Links of the week - Simplicity:

In Search for Online Success, 'Easy Does It' Is Good Theme - Saul Hansell, New York Times.
"In test after test, Yahoo executives find, for example, that users are much more likely to click on underlined text links than on graphically more attractive buttons. Indeed, the brief history of the Web is filled with complex solutions to simple problems that attracted more publicity than users."
High tech's missionaries of sloppiness - Cheryll Aimée Barron, Salon.
"The AK-47 has every attribute of products I love best. Type the name of this assault weapon into Google and you'll find site after site listing the same shining virtues: little changed from the original model, the AK-47 and its derivatives are deliberately simple in design, therefore easily and inexpensively manufactured -- and above all, reliable, the reason why an estimated 40 million of them have been made so far. For many years, the far more complicated M16 -- packed with innovations -- was famous mostly for jamming.
It hardly requires a shrink to explain why someone like me -- who ordinarily finds the very idea of guns nauseating -- should enjoy conjuring up the arms business when reminded that American computer companies are fully aware of the glitchiness of their products and don't care."

[Ironically, rendering this article generates errors in Microsoft's latest browser (IE5.5) as at 14 December...]
Need Innovation? Start by Locking Up the Tech Toys - Michael Schrage, Fortune
"Technology makes it seductively easy to generate more and more so-called information in less and less time... But your empowerment is my overload. At some point the organization has to say 'No!' and mean it. Managers are discovering that the problem revolves less around what their technology should do and more around what it shouldn't do.

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Kent Fitch
k.fitch@adfa.edu.au
15 December 2000