NJIT - SEMATECH On-Line Services
Development

Design and Development Plan

 1. Prototype 1.

   Based on our initial meeting we have developed a prototype service
   to provide an on-line hypermedia version of the Semiconductor
   Industry Association (SIA), Semiconductor Technology, Workshop
   Working Group Report for 1993. 

   The prototype includes rough graphics and hypertext for the sections
   on Lithography and Interconnect. 

   The purpose of this prototype is to experiment with different overall
   presentation alternatives and show, in the rough, how the final
   product might be presented.

 2. Requirments Analysis

   Using the EIES group communication environment the NJIT WWW
   Development Group will meet on-line with the SEMATECH task
   force for on-line services development to determine the requirements
   for the "look and feel" of the SEMATECH services, index and cross
   indexing to be implemented, and the facilities needed to collect and
   maintain information for the public and private information services.

 3. Prototype 2

   Prototype 1 used plain text and scanned graphics. Prototype 2 will
   utilize the Interleaf IAF format to enable us to convert it directly to
   WWW hypermedia. Feedback from prototype 1 and the requirements
   analysis will be used to develop prototype 2. An interface to at least
   one of the major data bases will be provided. Prototype 2 will
   demonstrate the full functionality of the initial product release from
   the user perspective, but without task coordination capabilities for
   system management and user services.

 4. Interface testing

   In this phase we get "real" potential users to use prototype 2 while an
   observer jots down or records the users comments. The subjects are
   asked to "talk allowed" what ever they are thinking while using the
   system. 

   Upon successful completion of Alpha and Beta testing of Prototype 2,
   the public access part of the Sematech service can go on-line as, at
   least, an experimental service. The additional requirements identified
   in the user trial phase are incorporated into a later version of the
   interface in a continuous improvement process. Alpha testing of
   private database searching will be provided in prototype 2.

 5. Quality Benchmarking

   Many extraordinary hyper-media services are are becomming
   available on the World Wide Web. To help insure that our
   functionality and style will will not be outdone, we will compare our
   service with the best available, colaborating on user feedback results
   when possible.

 6. Product release

   Although the second prototype will provide a functional system,
   incremental improvement requires integrated task coordination
   within a framework that supports incremental automation of manual
   tasks. Identifying information sources, data collection, analyzing user
   feedback, access logs, applying the results, will initially be labor
   intensive. The EIES computer-mediated communications
   environment along with the World Wide Web integration philosophy
   will provide group decision support and task coordination facilities to
   help manage these processes while the mechanical tasks are
   gradually automated.

   On-going NJIT research in methods for hypertizing plain text may
   be applied to eliminate dead end plain text search results from all
   sources. Glossary terms, keywords and phrases, names of relavant
   people and companies, for example, will be highlighted when
   practical for selection by the user even when they appear in plain
   text.

 7. The Future

   NJIT's nearly 20 years of research and development of group
   systems and leadership in integrating computer-mediated
   communications and the World Wide Web can provide an 
   Information Garden where SEMATECH, the member companies,
   suppliers, and subscribers, may collaborate effectively while creating
   a hyper-media knowledge base for those who follow.