A Sense of Collaboration

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A Sense of Collaboration

• The Applied Software Systems Laboratory
• Vincent Matossian
• July 2001

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Problematic

• From Person to Computer direct relation
• To Person to Person through computer
• What is needed to enable this transition ?

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Doing
Instead of
While avoiding the need for
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This Presentation will

• Define the problematic of the design
  infrastructure enabling collaboration in
  applications
• Review the current ideas in collaboration systems
• Point out what is missing from this review
• Present a theoretical approach to bring a
  collaborative tool to digital life

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On or Off a network

• Off single point of existence, sharing has to
  be done through storage media.
• On exists everywhere within the network (with
  proper restrictions), sharing can potentially be
  done instantaneously.

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Timeline

• 1971 FTP and Telnet are defined
• 1972 First email
• 1979 Usenet
• 1992 World Wide Web
• 1993 Internet Relay Chat
• 1995 Mobile Code (Java,JavaScript, VRML)
• 2001 Shaping of Grid Computing

Source Genuity Internet timeline
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Tim Berners-Lee inventor of the WWW

• The World Wide Web was designed originally as an
  interactive world of shared information through
  which people could communicate with each other
  and with machines. (1996)
• I had (and still have) a dream that the web could
  be less of a television channel and more of an
  interactive sea of shared knowledge. I imagine it
  immersing us as a warm, friendly environment made
  of the things we and our friends have seen,
  heard, believe or have figured out. I would like
  it to bring our friends and colleagues closer, in
  that by working on this knowledge together we can
  come to better understandings.

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Approach to Collaboration
Collaboration
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Current Systems
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Stock Market

• Goal Sharing information and ideas about the
  stock market progress with a small group of
  people

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Brain Computer Interface

• Goal Sharing information and ideas bringing new
  elements to understanding BCI

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Oil reservoir extraction
Goal Optimize amount of oil extracted from site
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Collaborative Applications

• Collaborators should be able to
• Monitor in real-time the development of the
  application
• Save any information locally for analysis of data
• Take action on application evolution
• Log events
• Access to history of events and or action/result
• Know of other users in the group (extended info)
• Contact (video,voice or text) any user
• Share ideas with group members. (to be explained!)

Local
Shared
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Sharing requirements

• Participants information/Awareness
• Each user has a shared space that can be accessed
  by other users
• Each user has a personal profile/status shared
  information
• Each user can share information with all users
  through a common shared space (Centralization of
  information)

Conference table
Shared space
P2P -Possible channel
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Sharing requirements contd

• Means of contacting a user text,voice,video/avata
  r
• Sharing ideas/opinions involves
• Present information to the group---facts
• Interact with the shared information
• Information manipulated in shared pool requires
  management
• Information can be controlled by each user in
  his/her own shared space where other users can
  observe/act
• Each user needs a unique data manipulation
  identifier

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Group Management

• In addition to sharing information and ideas
  basic collaboration infrastructure is needed
• Scheduling of events, calendar
• Action Item Listings
• Access to and query of previous similar tasks
• Forms established on knowledge based systems
  approach to extract essential results from
  session.

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Application Requirements

• In order to provide successful collaboration an
  application should enable distributing the
  information that will be accessed and/or
  controlled by each user, to each user.
• What exactly will be shared is decided on a per
  application basis Objects, Events, Displays

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Requirements Statement

• synchronous and asynchronous communication
• real-time
• Provide users and applications information
• Handle shared information types
• Provide annotation tools
• Provide dedicated data manipulation tools
• Provide means of communicating btw participants
• Provide access to history of events
• Manage shared workspaces (local and global)
• Manage group meeting, schedule, action items

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Theoretical Solution
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What should users get
Desktop
PDA
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Shaping a tool

• Design a software application complying to the
  above mentioned requirements and be (ideally)
• Platform Independent
• Ubiquitous

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Research aspects

• What do scientists computer users need in order
  to meet in a virtual collaboration session
  without requiring to be physically together ?
• How can technologies derived from Peer-to-Peer
  and Client/Server architectures be handled to
  provide tools enhancing work efficiency ?
• Defining messaging techniques that will allow
  collaborators to overcome bandwidth limitations ?