Context

Digital archives (DAs) store recorded cultural heritage information as cultural digital objects that can be made up of text, images, videos, files, or a combination of these. DAs provide long-term access to these cultural digital objects through digital preservation while making it more accessible to students, researchers, and the community. It is proficient in storing knowledge but are limited when creating relationships or illustrations, with information, for further analysis. Other tools exist to do this, but are not domain bound and requires a higher level of knowledge to use.

Aims

This study presents the implementation and evaluation of an experimental concept mapping system that allows users to create, edit and visualize digital content and the relationships between them.
It outputs a concept map (or mind map) which gives an overview of a collection of related data linked with edges to show relationships between the information.
The entire system is called MASH, consisting of two main components: COCE and COMR.

Research Question

For the study in its entirety, we determine:

What is the experience of users when using an integrated concept mapping and complex object creation and viewing tool to create, edit and view complex digital objects?

For COCE and COMR in particular:

MASH System

Two main features of MASH:

  • COCE

    This is the Complex Object Creator and Editor (COCE) component of MASH. It is responsible for creating, editing and saving concept maps that users create.

  • COMR

    This is the Complex Object Mappings Renderer (COMR) component of MASH. It handles the rendering and visualizing of maps in the form of an interactive website.

Evaluations

Ethics clearance to use non UCT affiliated people, UCT students, and UCT staff, was obtained. 25 participants were recruited, all with varying academic backgrounds, to participate in the user evaluations.

MASH was evaluated using a LimeSurvey questionnaire hosted on UCT's Computer Science servers. Users were given a list of tasks to complete, and then rate their usability using a USE (Usefulness, Satisfaction, and Ease of Use) questionnaire. The USE questionnaire evaluated the usability of COCE in four categories, namely Usefulness (U), Ease of Use (EU), Ease of Learning (EL) and Satisfaction (S). Thereafter, they had to give feedback on the most negative and positive features and most and least helpful features.

Resources & Downloads

Resources and Downloadable files for COCE and COMR

Resources and Downloadable files for MASH

MASH Poster
MASH Project Proposal
Ethics Approval
HR Approval
DSA Approval
MASH Questionnaire
MASH Complete Code

Researchers

Complex Object Creator and Editor Complex Object Mappings Renderer
Laaiqah Hassim
hsslaa002@myuct.ac.za
Yashkir Ramsamy
rmsyas003@myuct.ac.za

Supervisor

Prof. Hussein Suleman
hussein.suleman@uct.ac.za