Alexandria

Alexandria is a part of the THESEUS project directed to the end internet users. Named after the antique library of Alexandria, it follows the vision of an online knowledge platform. It will assist users in the publishing, developing and search for content by providing them with tools and making the use of the application as simple and intuitive as possible.

The starting point and a special challenge of this project is the increasing relevance of the internet users in Web 2.0 applications on one hand. Not only do they use search engines, email and chat but they also become an active part of the internet and contribute to it with their interests and experience. On the other hand, the already existing technologies become increasingly ‘smarter’. They can process a huge amount of data, for instance by means of ontologies that convert a certain aspect of reality into a computer-comprehensible structure.

The objective of Alexandria is to combine these two trends in a way that innovative techniques and human capabilities complete each optimally. A good example in this respect is the so called ‘tagging’, the attribution of descriptive information (metadata) to a document or an image. In general, both humans and machines are capable of doing this. Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages that could possibly be optimized when used together. For instance, a technical approach can correct typing errors whereas a human can better recognize false interpretations of similar or equal terms. The Alexandria project sets in exactly at this point by integrating the users into the creation of an intelligent knowledge-based infrastructure.

Several well-known partners have joined the research project under the guidance of Lycos Europe, among them two branches of Siemens AG. Siemens Corporate Technology addresses the problem of how ontologies built by experts can be connected to folksonomies. Siemens IT Solutions and Services focuses on the simple and intuitive usability of such a platform, the testing and enhancement of information quality and the creation of an active Alexandria community. The German National Library contributes to the project with its library competence. Lycos itself is developing central parts of the concept and provides the technical implementation of the platform.