| The development of the Internet globalization has many benefits, which triggered technological innovation, raised economic efficiency, facilitied our daily life, and promoted social connection. In the information age, as an individual, the information accessed and controlled by the individual has impressively increased. Take a college student for example, s/he has to deal with massive information in one day, including course information (such as PPT, readings, assignments), academic information (such as accession and management of academic papers, thesis writing and edition), schedule information (such as alarm clock, reminder, calendar planning and arrangement), social information (such as social communication, e-mail, QQ, text, wechat)... Normally, s/he has to deal with a variety of personal information. At the moment, an individual has much more information than decades ago, whose personal information could be stored by several huge bookshelves at that time. What's more, currently, digital information has taken a bigger portion of personal information, and it is different from paper information, which can not be regarded as a entity which can be put in physical place. It is a kind of information that we can "see" but we cannot touch. Therefore, if the digital information were not being well-managed, an individual could not find the information when s/he needed it, not mention the information usage. The above phenomenon showed us that with the development of the informatization, a well-organized personal information management system has become more and more important.In abroad, many experts and scholars in the fields of cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence, and computer science and information management conduct many researches on personal information management from multidisciplinary perspectives since1980s. After30years development, research on personal information management in abroad has gradually made great progress, and it has become stable in both theoretical and empirical research.However, research on personal information management in China is still in its infancy, and it is far away from success. The ideal personal information management should insure users can always access to the appropriate information from the right place at the right time in the right form and satisfy their needs with a good quality. However, it is a long way to reach this ideal condition. In order to reach the ideal condition, first and foremost, we need to re-find the needed information in time, which is also the basic goal of personal information management. And in this process, human memory plays a very important role.This dissertation starts from the perspective of cognitive psychology, consider human memory as the key point, based on a comprehensive theory research on psychology, artificial intelligence, ergonomics and information resource management, conducted an empirical research on the postgraduates in School of Information&Library Studies, University College Dublin, investigated their personal information management bahaviour. The research mainly analyzes the characteristics used to remember and re-find information, the factors that influenced human memory, the applicability of image representation in personal information management, difficulties existing in personal information management. Finally, it highlights the idea and conception of the memory-towards personal information management visualization tool which bases on theoretical and empirical research. The content and structure of the dissertation are as follows:Introduction, it mainly introduces the background and significance of personal information management, research questions and the structure of the dissertation.Chapter one provides a conceptual background, which mainly introduces the concepts which relate to the dissertation topic, including the definition of memory, personal information management and image representation.Chapter two provides the review of theory from many disciplines, including cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence and information management, and it also presents the research method which will be used in the dissertation.Chapter three offers a detailed literature review, which outlines the state-of-the-art of personal information management in China and abroad, and it also deeply explores some literatures which relate to the topic.Chapter four introduces research questions, selection of research methods, detailed research design and process, analysis procedures, limitations of the results, as well as identifies the characteristics of information, and it defines the terms which were used in the interview.Chapter five reports the results of the survey of personal information management behaviour that was conducted in School of Information and Library Studies, University College Dublin. The results contains the factors which influence participants'memories of information characteristics, participants'memories of information (including documents and photos) characteristics, difficulties existing in personal information management, and the use and expectations for personal information management tools.Chapter six discusses the results, and it discusses the reason why many personal information management tools prototype that mentioned in the literature review were not being widely used. It analyses participants'memory of their personal information characteristics and the degree of memory, perception, organization and management difference about documents and photos, the importance of a well-ordered personal information organization, and the inspiration to personal information management tool's design.Chapter seven presents the idea of memory-towards personal information management visualization tool, which contains demand and feasibility analysis, basic design principals, main modules and expected functions.Chapter eight reviews the literature and empirical research, and it also summarizes the research results, points out the limitations of the research and considers future work. |
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