WO2007137340A2

WO2007137340A2 - Method and system for providing access to electronically stored content resources

Info

Publication number: WO2007137340A2
Application number: PCT/AU2007/000733
Authority: WO
Inventors: Richard Siegersma
Original assignee: Da Information Services Pty Ltd
Priority date: 2006-05-26
Filing date: 2007-05-25
Publication date: 2007-12-06
Also published as: AU2007266318A1; WO2007137340A3

Abstract

A method of providing access to electronically-stored content resources, the content resources including one or more freely accessible resources and one or more commercial resources to which access can be purchased, the method including the steps of displaying a pre-populated list (40) of content references for a specific topic or subject to a user; upon user selection of a content reference corresponding to a freely accessible resource (16), providing user access to that freely accessible resource; upon user selection of a content reference corresponding to a commercial resource (18), determining whether access rights (34, 36) have been purchased for that commercial resource; and if so, providing user access to that commercial resource.

Description

METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PROVIDING ACCESS TO ELECTRONICALLY STORED CONTENT RESOURCES

The invention relates generally to electronically stored content resources and in particular to the provision of access to such content resources. The invention has particular application to the provision of access to electronically stored text and other content for students undergoing academic and formal education and it will be convenient to describe the invention in relation to that exemplary application. It is to be understood however that the invention is not limited to that application only.

All students are required to access textbooks and other sources of information in order to complete their academic or formal studies. Whilst some sources of information are able to be consulted by students in a central library, it is impractical for educational institutions to provide a sufficient number of textbooks for consultation by all students. Most textbooks are still purchased by students individually as print copies.

The logistical and distribution system for providing these textbooks to students is currently very inefficient. A long distribution process involving transportation and warehousing is required in order to deliver textbooks to the points of purchase students then collect the textbooks from those points of purchase and transport the textbooks to their educational institutions for use during study. In some cases, the point of purchase is the educational institution itself and in other cases the point of purchase is a book seller or other retail outlet. Recently, students have been able to electronically access some texts and other content for use in their studies. Information sources available on the worldwide web are regularly consulted by students. In some cases educational institutions supplement content that is freely available on the worldwide web with content that is electronically stored at the educational institution. However, it is impractical and prohibitively expensive for educational institutions to purchase and electronically store all content required to be accessed by students during their studies. Lists of textbooks and other information required to be consulted by students during their studies are created by academics, lecturers and other educators for particular topics or subjects. These lists are periodically updated and revised by the educators. With each revision of the reading list for each topic or subject, students must ensure they have purchased or have access to a copy of the information prescribed in the reading list for the duration of that subject. Changes in the lists of information required to be consulted by the students, and difficulties in the distribution and logistics systems for providing these information sources to the students is currently a cumbersome and complicated process.

There currently exists a need to provide a simplified, more productive and easier to use system for providing access to textbooks and other information used by students during their studies. There also exists a need to provide a system for providing access to content required to be used by students that ameliorates or overcomes deficiencies of existing information access systems. There also exists a need for students to be able to conveniently cite bibliographic references and avoid plagiarism during learning. One aspect of the invention provides a method for providing access to electronically stored content resources, the content resources including one or more freely accessible resources and one or more commercial resources to which access can be purchased. The method includes the steps of displaying a pre-populated list of content references for a specific topic or subject to a user; upon user selection of a content reference corresponding to a freely accessible source, providing user access to that freely accessible source; upon user selection of a content reference corresponding to a commercial resource, determining whether access rights have been purchased for that commercial resource; and if so, providing user access to that commercial resource. The method may also include the step of, if access rights have not been purchased for that commercial resource, directing the user to an electronic transaction facility to purchase the access rights.

Those access rights may provide access for a limited time only to the commercial resource, or may alternatively provide unlimited access to that commercial resource.

One or more of the freely accessible rights may be maintained in a content repository. The content repository may include one or more local databases. In this way, an educational institution may store some freely accessible resources in these local databases. The freely accessible resources may include full text databases, full text subscription services, video, audio or other information libraries as well as links to external information sources such as websites.

One or more of the commercial resources may be maintained in the content repository. In this way, commercial resources for which access has been purchased can be maintained in a central location for repeated access following purchase.

The electronic transaction facility, which may be for example an e- commerce server, may be remote from the content repository. The text or other information source may be purchased and subsequently transmitted for storage in the local content repository.

One or more of the freely accessible sources may also be maintained remotely from the content repository. Accordingly, whilst some of the content references for a specific topic or subject may relate to freely accessible resources or commercial resources maintained in the content repository, or content references may refer to freely accessible resources maintained remotely from the content repository such as content provided at various websites.

The method may further include the step of authenticating the identity of the user for providing access to one of the commercial resources. In this way, the access rights of that user may be verified before they are provided with access to the commercial resources to which access must be purchased.

The method may further include the step of authenticating the identity of the user before displaying the list of content references to the user. This enables only those users that are registered and known to a central management entity to access the electronically stored content resources.

The method may further include the step of enabling provision of the list of content references for a specific topic or subject from a resource manager.

The resource manager is therefore able to generate the list of content references required for a specific topic or subject, and then provide the content reference list to an educational facility for subsequent access by students.

The step of receiving the list of content references may include the steps of displaying a template to the resource manager to enable population of the template with content references for the specific topic or subject; and receiving the populated template from the resource manager.

The method may further include the step of authenticating the identity of the resource manager before accepting receipt of the list of content references. Once the list of content references have initially been generated, either by selecting from a library of subject related references or adding individual references it may be that the resource manager requires that list to be edited, either by the academic or lecturer that originally created the list or by a second person such as a librarian. The method may further include the step of enabling access to the list of content references for editing. The method may further include the step of authenticating the identity of the resource manager before enabling access to the list of content references for editing.

The resource manager may be an academic, lecturer or other content reference list creator as well as librarians or other editors of content reference lists. The user may be a student. The content resources may include the text and other contents of an entire book, chapter, article or other learning object, and may include video, audio, text or any other contents required to be accessed and learnt by a student.

Another aspect of the present invention provides a system for providing access to electronically stored content resources. The content resources may include one or more freely accessible resources and one or more commercial resources to which access can be purchased. The system may include a processor and an associated memory device for storing a series of instructions to cause the processor to display a list of content references for a specific topic or subject to a user; upon user selection of a content reference corresponding to a freely accessible resource, providing user access to that freely accessible resource; upon user selection of a content reference corresponding to a commercial resource, determining whether access rights have been purchased for that commercial resource; and if so, providing user access to that commercial resource.

The instructions may further cause the processor to, if access rights have not been purchased for that commercial resource, direct the user to an electronic transaction facility to purchase the access rights. The system may further include an authentication gateway for authenticating the identity of the user before providing access to one of the commercial resources. The authentication gateway may act to authenticate the identity of the user before displaying the list of content references to the user. The instructions may further act to cause the processor to accept receipt of the list of content references for a specific topic or subject from a resource manager. The instructions may further act to cause the processor to display a template to the resource manager to enable population of the template with content references for the specific topic or subject; and receive the populated template.

The authentication gateway may further act to authenticate the identity of the resource manager before accepting receipt of the list of content references. The instructions may further act to cause the processor to enable access to the list of content references for editing. The authentication gateway may further act to authenticate the identity of the resource manager through enabling access to the list of content references.

For assistance in arriving at an understanding of the present invention, one example of the system of providing access to electronically stored content resources, and the method of operation of that system, incorporating the invention is illustrated in the attached drawings. The preceding description of the invention may be read with reference to those drawings. However, as the drawings illustrate one example only, their particularity is not to be understood as superseding the generality of the preceding description.

In the drawings: Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of a system for providing access to electronically stored content resources according to one embodiment of the invention;

Figure 2 is a flow chart showing various steps carried out during operation of the system shown in Figure 1 ; and Figure 3 is a schematic diagram of an exemplary node forming part of the system shown in Figure 1.

Referring now to Figure 1 , there is shown generally a system 10 for providing access to electronically stored content resources. The system 10 includes a bibliographic/content management server 12 in communication with a content repository 14 for maintaining various content resources to which a user may require access. In this exemplary embodiment, the bibliographic/content management server 12 is directly connected to, or connected by means of a local area network (LAN), to the content repository 14. However in other embodiments of the invention, the bibliographic/content management server 12 and the content repository 14 may be interconnected by means of a wide area network (WAN) or other network, such as the Internet, interconnecting geographically remote devices.

The content repository 14 includes one or more databases for storing the content resources to which a user may require access. In Figure 1 , two such databases are shown, namely a first database 16 for maintaining freely accessible content and a second database 18 for storing commercial resources to which access can be purchased by a user. The two databases 16 and 18 may be physically separate databases, or different zones, regions or structures within a same physical database.

The bibliographic/content management server 12 is accessible to a user via a user terminal 20 and extranet 22 interconnecting the user's terminal 20 and the bibliographic/content management server 12. The extranet 22 uses the public Internet as its transmission system, but requires passwords in order for the user's terminal 20 to gain access to the bibliographic/content management server 12. In other embodiments of the invention however, the extranet 22 may be substituted with a virtual private network (VPN), Internet or any other suitable network depending upon whether private or public access is required as well as any other network design constraints. The system 10 may also provide access to one or more electronically stored content resources not maintained in the content repository 14. In that regard, a web server 24, providing access to content resources stored in a web content database 26, is shown in Figure 1 as being connected to the extranet 22. It will be appreciated that various other freely available and commercial content resources not maintained in the content repository 14 may be accessible from the user terminal 20 in other embodiments of the invention.

The system 10 further includes an authentication gateway 28 connected to the extranet 22. The authentication gateway 28 includes an authentication server 30 connected to a user/resource manager database 32 for storing user/resource manager authentication data 34 as well as access rights 36 to the content resources maintained in the content repository 14 as well as other information maintained in the bibliographic/content management server 12. The authentication server 30 may be of the remote authentication dial-in user service (RADIUS) type in which a series of challenges/responses are exchanged between a remote terminal and the radius server in order to authenticate the identity of the person wishing to access the bibliographic/content management server 12. In that regard, the authentication data 34 maintained in the user/resource manager database 32 may include the user name and password of registered resource managers and users, email addresses and related information, and may optionally include biometric identification information for each resource manager and user.

A biometric detector 38 may be interconnected to the user terminal 20, for example, in order to detect biometric authentication information from a user and transmit this information to the authentication server 30 to authenticate the identity of the user. The biometric detector 38 may capture a user's fingerprints, iris, voice, written image or other convention or biometric information.

Lists of content references to content resources available in the content repository 14 and/or at external repositories 24, 26 are maintained in the bibliographic/content management server 12. These resource lists 40 are provided by an academic, instructor, teacher or other educator from a resource manager terminal 42 connected to the extranet 22. A biometric detector 39 may be interconnected to the manager terminal 42 in order to detect biometric authentication information from a manager and transmit this information to the authentication server 30 to authenticate the identity of the manager.

In order to assist the educator to generate the list of content references for a specific topic or subject, the bibliographic/content management server 12 maintains a series of templates 44. When a new list of content references for a specific topic or subject is intended to be created by an educator, one of the templates 44 is served from the bibliographic/content management server 12 to the resource manager terminal 42 and populated by the educator to create a resource list 48 for that topic or subject. That resource list is then uploaded to the bibliographic/content management server 12 and added to the uploaded resource lists 40. The system 10 provides access to resource managers, such as academics, lecturers or other content reference list creators as well as librarians or other editors of content references lists, in order to create bibliographic or other references to content resources for use by students or other users for study purposes as well as the editing of those references. As is illustrated in Figure 2, an academic or lecturer initially accesses the bibliographic/content management server 12 from the resource manager terminal 42 at step 60. After providing authentication information from the resource manager terminal 42 to the authentication gateway 28 and undergoing an authentication process at step 62, the academic or lecturer enters or edits bibliographic references, at step 64, to be used by students for study into the template 46. The content references for a specific topic or subject correspond to freely accessible content resources maintained in the content repository 14, commercial resources to which purchase can be accessed that are maintained in the content repository 14, or other content resources maintained remotely from the bibliographic/content management server 12.

In Figure 2, the exemplary content references can refer to freely accessible resources maintained in the content repository 14 such as content resources maintained in an e-reserve database 66, library for text subscription database 68, library catalogues 70, index and citation databases 72, full text databases 74, websites 76, other resources (e.g. personal databases) 78, a library of subject related reference lists 80, a library of suggested subject references 82 or other resources that may typically be maintained in a content repository at an institution. The academic or lecturer may also enter bibliographic references to commercial resources to which access can be purchased by a student when populating the template 46 to create the resource list 48.

If review of the content reference list is required at step 84, the resource list is made available to a librarian or other reviewer/editor. If copyright in the content resource is approved at step 86, and review by a librarian or other editor is not required, then the resource list 48 is uploaded at step 88 into the bibliographic management software resident in the bibliographic/content management server 12. If copyright is not approved for any content resource, then reference to that content resource is deleted at step 90. A librarian or other reviewer or editor uses the resource manager terminal 42 for similar access point at step 92 to access the resource list 48 created by the educator. After undergoing an authentication process at step 94, the resource list 48 is served from the bibliographic/content management server 12 to the resource manager terminal 42 for review at step 96. Suggested enhancements or other changes may be made by the librarian at step 98. Once copyright approval is obtained at step 100 and final academic approval provided at step 102, then the resource list 48 is uploaded into the bibliographic management software. If copyright approval is not obtained or if final academic approval is not provided, then reference to those content resources are deleted at step 90.

Having thus created, reviewed and edited resource lists of content references for a specific topic or subject, a student or other user is then able to utilise the system shown in Figure 1 to access those content resources referred to by the resource list 48. The student accesses the system 10 at step 104 by firstly undergoing an authentication process with the authentication gateway 28 at step 106 and then being served with graphic content corresponding to their own "learning space" at step 108. From their learning space 108, the student is able to access the resource list 48 from the bibliographic management software 1 10 resident in the bibliographic/content management server 12. Having accessed the resource list 48, the student is then able to access the content resources 66 to 82 from the bibliographic references at step 1 12. For example, the resource list 48 may include a hypertext or other electronic link directing the user terminal 20 to access the content stored at the network address indicated by the electronic link.

Should the content reference refer to a commercial resource to which access must be purchased by the user, when the user initially selects that content reference at step 1 14, the user is then directed to an electronic transaction facility, such as an e-commerce server, to purchase the access rights at step 1 16. An exemplary e-commerce server 50, connected to the bibliographic/content management server 12 via the extranet 22, is shown in Figure 1.

If it is determined at step 1 18 that the user has previously paid for the access rights to that particular content resource, then an authorisation message is transmitted from the e-commerce server 50 to the bibliographic content management server 12 and access to the content resource maintained in the commercial content database 18 is provided to the student at step 120. If it is determined at step 1 18 that the access rights have not been purchased, then the student is informed at the user terminal 20 that another content resource must be selected or alternatively the electronic transaction facility used to purchase access rights.

In some embodiments of the invention, access rights may be purchased in perpetuity to that content resource, however in other embodiments of the invention it will be desirable to enable the purchase of access rights for a limited time only for a content resource. In that way, a student is able to access a particular book, article or other content resource for the semester or year in which they are undertaking studies, but is not required to pay for access to that content resource once that study is terminated. In that regards, access rights to commercial resources listed in the resource list 48 may also be verified as current at step 122 once that resource list is accessed for the first time each session by a student.

It will be appreciated that whilst content resources purchased from the e- commerce server 50 are shown in Figure 1 to be transmitted for storage in the commercial content database 18 maintained in the local content repository 14, in other embodiments of the invention the commercial resource or resources may be maintained in databases associated with, or to which access is controlled by, the e-commerce server 50 or any other local or remote site. Similarly, the functionality provided by the bibliographic/content management server 12 and the templates, resource lists, content resources and other information accessed by the server 12 may be directly connected or connected via a LAN, or may be provided a number of interconnected entities acting together to provide that same functionality. Those entities and the information accessed by those entities may be interconnected either locally or remotely in manners that are well known to a person of ordinary skill in this field.

One or more entities of the system 10 may be implemented using hardware, software or accommodation thereof and may be implemented in one or more computer systems or other processing systems. The functionality of the resource manager terminal 42, client user terminal 20, web server 24, authentication server 30, bibliographic/content management server 12 and e- commerce server 50 may be provided by one or more computer systems capable of carrying out the above described functionality.

An example of such a computer system 130 is shown in Figure 3. The computer system 130 includes one or more processors, such as processor 132. The processor 132 is connected to a communication infrastructure 134. Various software embodiments are described in terms of this exemplary computer system. After reading this description, it will become apparent to a person skilled in the relevant art how to implement the invention using other computer systems and/or computer architectures.

The computer system 130 may include a display interface 136 that forwards graphics, texts and other data from the communications infrastructure 134 to a display unit 138. The computer system 130 may also include a main memory 140, preferably random access memory, and may also include a secondary memory 142. The secondary memory 142 may include, for example, a hard disk drive 144 and/or removable storage drive 146, representing a floppy disk drive, magnetic tape drive, optical disk drive etc. The removable storage drive 146 reads from and/or writes to a removable storage unit 148 in a well known manner. The removable storage unit 148 represents a floppy disk, magnetic tape, optical disk etc. which is read by and written to by a removable storage drive 146. As will be appreciated, the removable storage unit 148 includes a computer usable storage medium having stored therein computer software in a form of a series of instructions to cause the processor 132 to carry out desired functionality. In alternative embodiments, the secondary memory 142 may include other similar means for allowing computer programs or instructions to be loaded into the computer system 130. Such means may include, for example, a removable storage unit 150 and interface 152.

The computer system 130 may also include a communications interface 154. Communications interface 154 allows software and data to be transferred between the computer system 130 and external devices. Examples of communications interface 154 may include a modem, a network interface, a communications port, a PCMCIA slot and card, etc. Software and data transferred via the communications interface 154 are in the form of signals which may be electromagnetic, electronic, optical or other signals capable of being received by the communications interface 154. The signals are provided to communications interface 154 via a communications path 156 such as a wire or cable, fibre optics, phone line, cellular phone link, radio frequency link or other communications channels. Although in the above described embodiments the invention is implemented primarily using computer software, in other embodiments the invention may be implemented primarily in hardware using, for example, hardware components such as an application specific integrated circuit/s (ASICs). Implementation of a hardware state machine so as to perform the functions described herein will be apparent to persons skilled in the relevant art. In other embodiments, the invention may be implemented using a combination of both hardware and software.

Whilst the invention has been described above in relation to the provision of electronically stored content to students, it will be appreciated that the invention is suitable for use in many other circumstances.. For example, educator and student roles exist within many corporations and vocational training centres and the invention is suitable for use in those and similar organisations. In the context of the present specification, the words "educator" and "student" are to be understood as not being restricted to describing roles in schools or other formal teaching institutions but rather as having an expansive meaning covering any aspect of information-providing and receiving.

Claims

CLAIMS:

1. A method of providing access to electronically-stored content resources, the content resources including one or more freely accessible resources and one or more commercial resources to which access can be purchased, the method including the steps of: displaying a pre-populated list of content references for a specific topic or subject to a user; upon user selection of a content reference corresponding to a freely accessible resource, providing user access to that freely accessible resource; upon user selection of a content reference corresponding to a commercial resource, determining whether access rights have been purchased for that commercial resource; and if so, providing user access to that commercial resource.

2. A method according to claim 1 , the method further including the step of: if access rights have not been purchased for that commercial resource, directing the user to an electronic transaction facility to purchase the access rights.

3. A method according to claim 2, wherein the access rights provide access for a limited time only to the commercial resource.

4. A method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein one or more of the freely accessible resources are maintained in a content repository.

5. A method according to claim 4, wherein one or more of the commercial resources are maintained in the content repository.

6. A method according to either one of the claims 4 or 5, wherein the content repository includes one or more local databases.

7. A method according to claim 6, wherein the electronic transaction facility is remote from the content repository.

8. A method according to any one of the claims 4 to 7, wherein one or more of the freely accessible resources are maintained remotely from the content repository.

9. A method according to any one of the preceding claims, and further including the step of: authenticating the identity of the user before providing access to one of the commercial resource.

10. A method according to any one of claims 1 to 8, and further including the step of: authenticating the identity of the user before displaying the list of content references to the user.

1 1. A method according to claim 10, and further including the step of: enabling provision of the list of content references for a specific topic or subject from a resource manger.

12. A method according to claim 11 , wherein the step of receiving the list of content references includes the steps of: displaying a template to the resource manager to enable population of the template with content references for the specific topic or subject; and receiving the populated template from the resource manager.

13. A method according to either one of claims 1 1 or 12, and further including the step of: authenticating the identity of the resource manager before accepting receipt the list of content references.

14. A method according to any one of claims 11 to 13, and further including the step of: enabling access to the list of content references for editing.

15. A method according to claim 14, and further including the step of: authenticating the identity of the resource manager before enabling access to the list of content references.

16. A method according to any one of claims 1 1 to 15, wherein the resource manager is educator.

17. A method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the user is a student.

18. A method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the content resource is any one or more of a book, chapter, article or other learning object.

19. A system of providing access to electronically-stored content resources, the content resources including one or more freely accessible resources and one or more commercial resources to which access can be purchased, the system including: a processor and associated memory device for storing a series of instructions to cause the processor to: display a list of content references for a specific topic or subject to a user; upon user selection of a content reference corresponding to a freely accessible resource, providing user access to that freely accessible resource; upon user selection of a content reference corresponding to a commercial resource, determining whether access rights have been purchased for that commercial resource; and if so, providing user access to that commercial resource.

20. A system according to claim 19, wherein the instructions further cause the processor to: if access rights have not been purchased for that commercial resource, direct the user to an electronic transaction facility to purchase the access rights.

21. A system according to claim 20, wherein the access rights provide access for a limited time only to the commercial resource.

22. A system according to any one of claims 19 to 21 , and further including: a content repository in communication with controller for maintaining one or more of the freely accessible resources.

23. A system according to claim 22, wherein the content repository further maintains one or more of the commercial resources.

24. A system according to either one of claims 22 or 23, wherein the content repository includes one or more local databases.

25. A system according to claim 24, wherein the electronic transaction facility is remote from the content repository.

26. A system according to any one of the claims 22 to 25, wherein one or more of the freely accessible resources are maintained remotely from the content repository.

27. A system according to any one of claims 19 to 26, and further including: an authentication gateway for authenticating the identity of the user before providing access to one of the commercial resources.

28. A system according to claim 27, wherein the authenticating gateway acts to authenticate the identity of the user before providing displaying the list of content references to the user.

29. A system according to any one of claims 19 to 26, wherein the instructions further act to cause the processor to: accept receipt the list of content references for a specific topic or subject from a resource manger.

30. A system according to claim 29, wherein the instructions further act to cause the processor to: display a template to the resource manager to enable population of the template with content references for the specific topic or subject; receive the populated template.

31. A system according to either one of claims 29 or 30, wherein the authenticating gateway further acts to: authenticate the identity of resource manager before accepting receipt the list of content references.

32. A system according to any one of claims 29 to 31 , wherein the instructions further act to cause the processor to: enable access to the list of content references for editing.

33. A system according to claim 32, wherein the authenticating gateway further acts to: authenticate the identity of the resource manager before enabling access to the list of content references.

34. A system according to any one of claims 29 to 33, wherein the resource manager is an educator.

35. A system according to any one of claims 19 to 34, wherein the user is a student.

36. A system according to any one of claims 19 to 35, wherein the content resource is any one or more of a book, chapter, article or other learning object.