Introduction to the tool
SIMILE is a joint project carried out by Haystick Group, World Wide Web Consortium, MIT Librarians and CSAIL. The major technical focus of this project is towards Semantic web technology and standards. It stands for Interoperability of Metadata and Information in unLike Environments. It is focused on developing robust, open source tools that empower users to access, manage, visualize and reuse digital assets.
The various projects of Simile are as follows:
Exhibit | Appalachian |
Babel | Citeline |
HTTPTracer | JavaFirefoxExtension |
jsTeX | Longwell |
Piggy Bank | RDFizers |
Referee | Solvent |
Semantic Bank | Zotz |
Simile Exhibit lets the user create web pages that has advanced text search and filtering functionalities, with interactive maps, timelines, and other visualizations. It lets the user create web pages with support for sorting, filtering, and rich visualizations by writing only HTML and optionally some CSS and Javascript code. No database and no web application technologies are involved. Through this application a user can get data in a webpage in a organised, interactive fashion.
The Exhibit page can be created from any of the following:
Google Spreadsheet | Excel Spreadsheet |
Edit Grid Spreadsheet | Publications |
JSON data source | ASP.NET |
In computer programming, a widget (or control) is an element of a graphical user interface (GUI) that displays an information arrangement changeable by the user, such as a window or a text box. The defining characteristic of a widget is to provide a single interaction point for the direct manipulation of a given kind of data. In other words, widgets are basic visual building blocks which, combined in an application, hold all the data processed by the application and the available interactions on this data.
Business Value
The amount of data that is available on the web is immense and still counting. To go through this data and analyse it is in itself a mamoth task, but none the less very important. Exhibit is a tool that helps in deciphering the data available on the web and gives it to us in a manner which is easy to understand and use. This tool is very useful for every field of business be it marketing, consulting or an other field. Exhibit helps the business managers in developing pages by collecting data from multiple sources. In short it helps creating a repository of data from multiple webpages.
Data Source
Simile Exhibit requires us to select any webpage or particular spreadsheets to fetch the data. A particular webpage with relevant data will be selected and the data from this page will be fed to the application.
Methodology
The various steps that will be undertaken are as follows:
- Literature Review: Both primary and secondary research will be carried out in this stage. Information available on various websites and other articles will be studied. Also the home page of the software provides with various examples that will help us in understanding how this application works.
- Hands on: Since the application is an open source one, it can be downloaded free of cost. A hands of experience will be gained by using the application and creating some sample webpages.
- Data Source: An appropriate data source will be found and studied. The data source can be any website or any spreadsheets that will help us in showing the working of the application.
- Tutorial: Finally the tutorial will be prepared by explaining in detail regarding the application. An exhibit webpage will be created using data from a particular/multiple websites. This webpage will be taken as an illustration and the tutorial will explain each stage of how to create such a page using the application.
Below figure shows how Simile Exhibit transforms loosely available data into organized one that can be sorted, filtered and managed easily:
