An investigation of web-based personalisation technologies for information provision focussing on the multiple sclerosis community

The exponential growth of online information has made the process of locating appropriate information complex. This complexity increases when individuals are characterised by changeable needs, preferences, goals or knowledge, because this requires the system to personalise or adapt e.g. content in accordance with these needs. This research developed a prototype system for personalising information and investigated the appropriateness of using personalisation techniques. It focused on people with MS (Multiple Sclerosis) who have changeable needs. During the investigation, a prototype of a personalised system was developed to provide personalised content, links and content presentation (i.e. layout). A number of personalisation approaches, techniques and models that are used in the domain of adaptive hypermedia, were selected in the development of the prototype system. Furthermore, XML, XSL and the Apache Cocoon framework were used as the underlying technologies for this development. [Continues.]