VIDA A virtual service and knowledge database for members of the Engineering Society in Denmark (IDA) Pernille Kofoed

Facts about the Society (IDA) and VIDA members in IDA VIDA has registred users, about 200 users a week VIDA has been developed over two years, and is based on the Silverstream Portal platform In danish only - so far Top-security: SSL and PIN-code by mail

Background for the VIDA project Higher emphasis on internet and virtual services 24 hours service Better and more flexible service for members Focusing on one line of service: Advice on salary, contracts, legal topics Look and feel like well-known internet tools: Yahoo

VIDA contains A knowledge database On-line counselling Advanced search facilities Personalisation: –individual selection of interest –rating of documents –subscriptions Customization Feed-back and activity analysis tools Tools for document, users, interface and portal management

The knowledge database 500 articles, faqs and link documents About 25 editors Feed-back from users 0-hit analysis Traditional search log analysis

On line counselling Users has private mailboxes Asks question on-line The question pop-up in the call-center system Questions are answered within 24 hours Users are notified via , when an answer is delivered to the mailbox The call center system has a large number of facilities: –integration with member files system –log with users activities in VIDA –extended information about the user collected from member directory

Advanced search facilities Fulcrum search engine is integrated –boolean search –fuzzy –left and right trunkation All search terms are trunkated to the right and is combined with OR as default Search results are ranked using an algoritm based on tre values: –the interests selected by the user –document rating by the user –attributes from member directory

Personalisation: individual selection of interest rating of documents subscriptions when browsing in categories, documents are listed according to the ranking algoritm.

Customization VIDA has app. 15 user attributes –sex, age, employment status, residence etc. the attributes controls –menu –search algoritm –access to special services the attributes are syncronized with member directory and are updated every night

Other components in VIDA Feed-back and activity analysis tools Tools for document, users, interface and portal management

Conclusion The process has been hard, but rewarding Well received by target users Inspiration to other lines of service in IDA