Abstract
M.A. (Information Technology)
The Internet contains large amounts of information that researchers can use,
however, finding the required relevant information can be a lengthy exercise.
Internet search engines, such as Google, allow users to search the Internet but
these search engines only supply lists of information that "could" be relevant thereby
forcing us, the users, to manually examine the list to select the relevant
information that we require.
Instead of requiring users to use Internet search engines to find lists of possibly
useful information, it would be advantageous to have a system that would give an
academic user a research summary report for the specified research query. This
research summary report can be formatted in such a manner that would allow the
user to have a list of links to the relevant information obtained, which could be
used as an aid in the researcher's research projects.
The design of the Mobile Agent Information Processing (MAIP) model and
prototype relied heavily on mobile software agents (MSA). These MSAs will
move from the creator system (the user's computer) to other known peer
computer systems participating in the MAIP system. Whilst the MSAs are on the
remote computer systems, relevant information is extracted from any of the text
documents that are acknowledged as available by the remote host system. The
extracted information will be returned to the creator system by each MSA where
it will be processed and used to create the research summary report.
The MAIP model is designed to locate, retrieve, and summarise information that
is relevant to a researcher's research query, it can, therefore, be said that the
MAIP model meets all the stated research objectives. The new and innovative
model is deemed to offer an effective and feasible technology solution to the
problem of information overload that exists within the electronic environment.