Digital Documents

The purpose of this course is to examine ongoing research related to digital documents. The goal of the course is to lay the foundation for further evolution of networked digital document systems. The ideal student is one with lots of initiative, who enjoys learning together with students from different disciplines, and is excited by the prospect of identifying the important questions to ask, and by the opportunity to shape the directions of an incipient technology.

The course consists of weekly readings, short lectures followed by in-depth discussion of papers and issues, and occasional guest lectures. Students work on assignments and a course project, which they report on in class toward the end of the semester.

Ideally, student projects advance the state of the art of "network-centric" digital documents. One model which students may advance or contribute to is "multivalent documents". This model is being developed as part of the Berkeley Digital Library Project. A "Tour" of the initial Java prototype is available from on the project home page.