A framework for personalized e-catalogs: an integration of XML-based metadata, user models and agents

Supporting electronic catalogs (e-catalogs) to provide product search services on the Internet is emerging as an important function of electronic brokers. However, the explosive growth of information is creating difficulties for customers searching for information about the goods they desire. In this paper, an integrated framework is proposed to develop personalized e-catalogs. The proposed framework integrates XML-based metadata models, user models and agents. The proposed metadata model has a multi-level architecture that can facilitate resource discovery and format translation, and can flexibly model the definitions of diverse attributes. The proposed user model uses three-level user profiles to model a user's shopping interests into resources, categories and goods. This work integrates the agent technology with the proposed metadata models and user models in order to develop a personalized e-catalog system. With the support of personalized services, the novel e-catalog system allows an integrated product search to be performed effectively.