Explore

The Media Suite offers a tool for Exploratory search. This tool offers the possibility to explore and discover the Media Suite’s collections in an open-ended way.

Background

This tool is the integrated version in the Media Suite of the tool DIVE+ . See also the FAQ section: How has the Media Suit been built?

Leading scholars from the CLARIAH research pilot project NarDis (see also the FAQ section: What are the CLARIAH research pilot projects? have investigated the use of this tool in humanities research, proposing the terms “browsing path” and “search narrative” to denote the storage of the “journey” followed by a user of the tool while navigating (“diving”) into the interconnected resources and entities.

Data

This tool uses only one part of the data available via the Media Suite . Since working with linked open data in CLARIAH is an ongoing effort (see the FAQ section: How does the Media Suite make the data available? ), the Media Suite offers in Version 4 (December 2018) only one experimental collection as linked open data, the Open Images collection from the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision” 1 . Only this collection can be accessed via the “Browse and Explore” tool at this point.

How to use

Steps:

  1. First, log in to the Media Suite.

  2. In the “Tools” menu, choose “Explore.” There are several links to access the DIVE+ instances, the version explained here is the tool you access in: http://mediasuite.clariah.nl/tool/exploratory-search.

  3. You can start exploring by entering keywords into the search box, by choosing “example searches” under the search box, or by selecting “popular entities” or “recent entities.”

  4. Observe that the Explore tool allows you to search and browse based on “entities”:

    • You can get information about the different types of “entities” that have been extracted from the original collections:
      • Media objects : these are the records of the resources (i.e., video, audio, text, image) which metadata and, in most cases, the objects itself, are available via the Media Suite. See also the FAQ section: Can I play/view all the sources that I find via the Media Suite?
      • People : names of persons, which have been extracted or identified in the metadata or content of the resources
      • Locations : names of places, which have been extracted or identified in the metadata or content of the resources.
      • Concepts : terms representing ideas, which have been extracted or identified in the metadata or content of the resources.
    • You can also observe the types of relations (derived from the metadata) between the extracted entities:
      • Creator of / created by
      • Has subject / subject of
      • Publisher of / published by
      • Located in / Location for

  5. You can click on any entity of the type above, and start a navigation journey through the connected (linked-data) [[entities]]. This is led by the curiosity of the user, driven by the need to experience serendipitous encounters. In this fashion, exploratory search can lead to discovery of unexpected media resources or surprising connections between other entities” 1 .

  6. Observe the “Exploration path” that appears on the left of your screen. When you click on an entity, you will see a panel opening on the left side. This panel stores your queries, entities, path bookmarks, and personal notes. This means that, every time you click on an entity in the middle panel browser, that entity is stored here. In the Exploration path panel you can:

    • Bookmark entities in this path (use the star icon on the right)
      • Note : Please note that there are two bookmarking options :
        • (1) the bookmark button in the browsing interface and in the “Exploration path”: this bookmarks items and entities in your path (these items are not saved to your Workspace/Bookmarks, but to your “Exploration path” only.
        • (2) the bookmark button that you see when you view a media object in the Resource viewer : If you bookmark the resources here, they will be saved to your Workspace/Bookmarks).
    • Add user comments or notes, by clicking on the three vertical dots on the left side of the bookmark icon. These comments are inserted between the entities, they allow you to add commentary to the path, so you can build a “narrative” of your exploration.
    • You can also clear your path, save it, load it, or export it. For these actions, click on the three vertical dots on the right side of the Exploration path menu:
      • If you “Save” your path, you get the option to save it to the Media Suite Workspace . If you click on this option, you will see a pop-up window asking you to select a User project . If you haven’t created a User project, go first to the Workspace and create one.
      • Once you have saved your path, you can visit it in the Media Suite Workspace, going to the User project where you created it, to the tab “Tool sessions.”
      • In the Workspace, you can also find your bookmarks (in the “Bookmarks” tab), besides the fragments and annotations that you added to the media objects and fragments using the Resource viewer.
      • You can also “Load” (recreate) and “Export” your exploration path.

  1. You can read more about these concepts in the publications of the NarDiS research pilot project ↩ ↩ 2