Automating information overload: linking databases to the Web

University departments create, receive, and process large amounts of information every week A challenge in any office is storing this information in a way that allows easy access for users and quick, ejj5cient retrieval of desired elements. More and more relevant information is entirely digital, needing to be shuJ4’ed into large, expanding databases. With the rapid development of the World Wide Web over the last two years into an accessible and versatile medium of high speed communication, new options have emergedfor how we manage information. The Web has already become a significant medium for University departments, many relying on Web publishing as their primary avenue to communicate about courses, events, and other campus news. Departments are now becoming interested in having their Web pages collect information front their potentially huge user community, without requiring a large staff overhead Being able to serve this emerging need may be an important role for campus technical training and support organizations. We can now create Web interfaces that directly access our already existing databases. Our gain is twofold: The cross-platform and distributed access power of the Internet strengthens our service capabilities and enables the interactivity and responsiveness our departments need. As the commercial world generates a frenzy of hype and activity around the World Wide Web, technologies are emerging to satisfy their needs that could have a profound impact on the way campus computing service organizations do business as well As departments begin to struggle with the demand of publishing useful, up-to-date information for students and support organizations struggle with the need to show them how, technologies are becoming available that automate the process of dynamic Web publishing. In this paper I’ll present a piece of the picture of how the web can be an access to information currently locked inside databases. I’ll start by trying to provide a glimpse at how linking databases to the Web can make campus organizations more effective and productive. Next, I’ll briefly summarize the basic workings of the exchange of information between users, the web, and databases. Then I’ll provide an overview of some of the software that makes creating Web-to-Database interfaces accessible if not easy. Finally, I’ll present a summary of my own experiences linking a class evaluation database to the Web using one of these software tools. A bibliography and URLography is available at the end for further reading. This paper presents a practical guide for user service organizations to employing the Web as an interface for accessing important database irrformation and gaining a higher level of Web site interactivity. It covers some of the ways this innovation can make our services more From a service organization’s perspective, why connect a database to the World Wide Web? The answer to this question could be very different depending on the particular service in mind. A big common denominator, however, is that Web-toDatabase interfaces can make our jobs easier and more efficient. Serving a campus community means serving Permission to make digital/hard copy of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributedforprojit or commercial advantage, the copyright notice, the title of the publication and its date appear, and notice is given that coping is by permission of ACM, Inc. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specij?c permission and/or fee. @1997ACMISBN#O-89791-990-4/97/0011 $3.50 Are You Ready? ACM SIGUCCS XXV 1997 0327 Automating Information Overload... Leonard A. White thousands of people, many asking the same questions or needing the same immediate responses. In the past, increasing efficiency might have meant setting up an automated telephone help desk, so customers could direct themselves to the person with the answers they’re looking for. With the World Wide Web becoming the standard of distributed information and research worldwide, even more efficient, cost-effective, and in some cases easier to implement methods of increasing efficiency are being created. These new methods of increasing efficiency rely largely upon the ability to use the World Wide Web as a gateway to information, not simply a new publishing medium. Take the corporate world as an example of a community keenly interested in efficiency. This is reasonable considering that efficiency can quickly impact profits, market share: all things holy to a corporation. Taking a ride on the Web today yields product registration forms, company club applications, verbose product info, technical support databases, and the online shopping cart. Almost all of these, new roads to efficiency make use of Web-to-Database interfaces. i