The Design And Implementation Of A Pen-based Agricultural Information Collection And Dissemination System

With the wide use of information technology in the field of agriculture,agricultural information technology has become a powerful driving force to guide thefurther development of agricultural production, scientific research, education,management. We can finish the work of collecting and disseminating information offarm produce more efficiently with the benefit of computer tools, it can accelerate theaggregation and circulation of agricultural information indeed, however, in acquisitionmode and interactive aspects there is still room for improvement. In traditionalagricultural information collection and dissemination process, users have to make thecollection by handwriting on papers, followed by inputting into computer to get theelectronic data for another time, resulting in a waste of human resources; existingagricultural information collection and dissemination system are usually based on theWIMP interaction paradigm(based on the desktop metaphor windows, icon, menus,pointer interface paradigm, such as the typical Microsoft Windows user interface),such interface software scattered user’s attention and make cognitive burden to theusers. Meanwhile, information infrastructure is weak and the “left behind” farmersknowledge of computer is not good in China’s vast rural areas, it’s hard for them toobtain kinds of information, the existing interface software and interface cannot solvethe problems above and the “last mile” and”digital divide” in rural development.Pen-based User Interface (PUI) is an important form of Post-WIMP interface.It uses the metaphor of the “pen-paper interactive”, users’ interactive intent canachieved through continuous sketch, and consistent with human cognitive habits, withthe hand-eye coordination (integration of visual and hands) and intuitive (use ofsketch, continuous thinking) and other characteristics in use. Electronic form systembased on pen interactive can descript the workflow of agricultural informationcollection and dissemination tasks completely, and the entire process of the work canbe more efficiency. In this study, based on in-depth analysis of the process ofcollection and dissemination of agricultural information, the author study and developa rural information collection and dissemination system with pen-based user interfacetechnology, according to people’s daily pen using custom, the system make farmers in rural area more easy to make information gathering, access and organize with mobiledevices, make the information more sharable, and effectively reduce the cost of farmerusers’ learning, and shorten the “digital divide” between them.The main creative contributions of this paper can be summarized as follow:1）Analysis the development of pen-based interactive technology, electronicform technology and the progress and current situation of agricultural informationcollection and dissemination. Comparison and study the advantages and disadvantageson agricultural information collection and dissemination mode. Then we found thatwith the current agricultural information collection and dissemination, the cost oflearning is high and efficiency of interacting is low, and bring cognitive burdenproblems, the author suggest a new method in farm produce’s information collectionand dissemination based on pen interactive.2) In the system design phase, the author gives the architecture of the combinationof C/S and B/S mode, then analyses the workflow of farm produce informationcollection and dissemination tasks, and designs the system architecture, functionalmodules, scenarios tree and user interface of farm produce collection anddissemination system based on pen interactive, and describes the status of this projectthroughout the whole platform(central mountainous area in the new rural informationservice platform).3) In the system implementation phase, on the basis of the above design work,develop a farm produce information collection and dissemination based on peninteractive. The system uses pen as the main interactive device, helps users more focuson the business itself in information collection and dissemination through natural andefficient pen-based user interface, the system is much easy to study, to work with,more natural and efficiency.4) Finally, verify the feasibility of assessment methods through usabilityevaluation test, and analysis the data of the evaluate test. The results indicate thoseparticipants are more inclined to use the newly developed system.This paper subject was supported by the national “11th Five-Year “scientific andtechnological support key projects,“Key technology research and application of thecentral mountain areas of new rural information”(2009BADC4B00).