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Faceted navigation framework for XML data

Takahiro Komamizu (Graduate School of Systems and Information Engineering, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan)
Toshiyuki Amagasa (Faculty of Engineering, Information and Systems, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan and Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Sagamihara, Japan)
Hiroyuki Kitagawa (Faculty of Engineering, Information and Systems, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan)

International Journal of Web Information Systems

ISSN: 1744-0084

Article publication date: 16 November 2012

636

Abstract

Purpose

XML has become a standard data format for many applications and efficient retrieval methods are required. Typically, there are roughly two kinds of retrieval methods, namely path‐based method (e.g. XPath and XQuery) and keyword search, but these methods do not work when users do not have any concrete information need. To expand feasibility of XML data retrieval is an important task and this is the purpose of this paper.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper's strategy is to apply faceted navigation for XML data. Faceted navigation is an exploratory search which enables the exploration of data making use of attributes, called facets. General faceted navigation methods are applied for attributed objects but XML data have no criteria because XML nodes are objects and facets. Thus, the paper's approach is to construct a framework to enable faceted navigation over XML data. It first extracts objects based on occurrence of nodes and facets. Then it constructs a faceted navigation interface for extracted objects and facets.

Findings

The framework achieves semi‐automatic construction of faceted navigation interface from an XML database. In the experiments, the show feasibility of the framework is shown by three faceted navigation interfaces using existing real XML data. On the other hand, the user study shows the retrieval method helps users to find required information.

Originality/value

There are only a few works which apply faceted navigation for XML data and these works are based on predefined objects and facets which need human effort. In contrast, this framework needs human decision making only when choosing objects and facets to be used in the faceted navigation interface.

Keywords

Citation

Komamizu, T., Amagasa, T. and Kitagawa, H. (2012), "Faceted navigation framework for XML data", International Journal of Web Information Systems, Vol. 8 No. 4, pp. 348-370. https://doi.org/10.1108/17440081211282865

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2012, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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