Surfing notes

Abstract

Web archiving for preserving the valuable information online from disappearing due to the dynamic nature of the World Wide Web and web annotation for promoting the development of the Web as a two-way information sharing platform are both active research fields. Efforts of many scholars in recent years have been propelling the advance in these two areas in parallel lines. However, in spite of their common benefits to information management, research and education, no one has tried the integration of web archiving and web annotation. In this project, I will attempt to combine the functionality of web archiving and web annotation in one system using the brand-new cloud computing technologies. Upon the completion of this project, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application called Surfing Notes which will allow the users to annotate and archive the webpages for personal use together with a lightweight and easy to use browser extension will be deployed. Thanks to the cloud-based infrastructures offered by the Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) providers, the service of Surfing Notes will be identically accessed from any computer with Internet connection. The research focus of the project is on the customization of string comparison algorithm for comparing webpage contents and scheduling change detection tasks for archiving webpages efficiently.