Digital Publishing and the Knowledge Process

摘要

The World Wide Web has clearly caused major cultural shifts in terms of the access and dissemination of information at numerous levels. New ways of knowledge dissemination will come about in the multi-dimensional environments, for example through hypertext links and non-linear approaches to knowledge. Explicit or implicit navigational tools will increasingly offer pre-ordained pathways or the opportunity for unlimited serendipity. Issues with the semantic web are leading to new constructs in the underlying text infrastructure with alternative 'meaning functions' being produced. Berners-Lee has stated that the semantic web will transform access to information and foster greater productivity, especially in science and inter-disciplinary research (Berners-Lee, 2003). The semantic web, Berners-Lee argues, would be created when tiny standardized tags - universal resource identifiers - are added to pieces of data on web sites and databases. The tags in turn point to machine-readable vocabularies and a set of definitions which allow computers to 'understand' the data. The semantic web developments have much in common with other emerging web technologies, grid computing and digital repository developments.