COLLECTION SHORTCUT REFERENCE EXPANDER

A Collection Shortcut Expander method expands shortcut collection reference expressions into complete reference expressions, thereby improving the productivity of people who work with collections. In operation, a Collection Shortcut Expander receives expansion requests from request originators, expands shortcut collection reference expressions into complete collection reference expressions, and returns expanded references to the request originators. Shortcut references to local collections are expanded using information from a curren t collection specifier file. Shortcut references to remote collections are expanded using informati on from a knowledge base. Collection Shortcut Expanders improve human productivity by providing convenient syntaxes, by reducing typing burdens, by reducing knowledge burdens, by reducing human retraining costs caused by collection name changes, and by enabling people t o create customized alias names for frequently used collection names.