Computing and Information Systems - Theses

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Analysis and prediction of user behaviour in a museum environment

GRIESER, KARL ( 2006)

Visitors to a museum enter an environment with a wealth of information. However not all of this information may be located in physical form. It may be accessible through an online web-site and available for download, or this information could be presented by a tour guide that leads you through the museum. Neither of these sources of information allow a visitor to deviate from a set path. If a visitor leaves a guided tour, they will not have access to the resource that is supplying them with the extra information. If they deviate from a downloaded tour, they again will not have the correct information sheets for an exhibit that is not directly on their tour. The solution is to create a Recommender System based on the conceptual similarity of the exhibits. This system creates a dynamic tour through the museum for a given visitor by recommending exhibits that the visitor is interested in. Conceptual similarity of exhibits can be comprised of elements including the physical proximity, the semantic content of the exhibit, and the opinions of previous visitors. By using a combination of these similarities, we have produced a system that recommends relevant exhibits in 51% of test cases.