The foundations of the CoAKTinG toolset are formed by three pre-existing applications which were further developed within the project framework. Individually they have proved successful performing specific tasks supporting collaboration [111]; collectively they provide metadata sources to augment the mediadata produced in distributed collaboration - this second provision is the focus of discussion in this section, in which the metadata potential of each tool is listed.
5.2.1
BuddySpace
Overview
Developed at the Open University, BuddySpace [65, 140] is an Instant Messaging (IM) environment extended to enhance awareness of presence - the availability, readiness, and capability for communication of collaborating users. It is the most inherently distributed of the CoAKTinG foundation tools, being a client/server implementation of the widely used Jabber instant messaging protocol [126]. The server includes functionality for intelligent service discovery and automatic generation of a user’s roster (‘buddy list’) derived from metadata about their involvement in particular collaborations (e.g. group membership, role, location), such that the user can quickly access relevant members of the collaboration without having to manually create contact lists. The client messaging interface is extended to present a graphical visualisation of collaboration members and their presence on an image, geographical, or conceptual map (figure 5.1).
In the distributed audio/visual meeting scenarios of CoAKTinG, BuddySpace provides a less intrusive textual ‘backchannel’ for communications and sharing of electronic references (e.g. URLs, documents), and meeting management (agenda queuing, electronic voting).
Figure 5.1: BuddySpace client with geographical and conceptual presence maps (from [111])
Metadata Sources
BuddySpace can provide an electronic record of the presence of collaborators in a distributed meeting, be that their location, or position in an organisational or project structure. If logging is enabled on the server, any information conveyed through the instant messaging system can be indexed on a temporal timeline. Of these, natural language communication, while more structured than audio/video data, cannot be perfectly automatically mapped to higher level information (though techniques do exist); other messages can be explicitly or implicitly typed, including presence status changes, URLs, and voting, which can provide directly accessible metadata about the meeting.
5.2.2
Compendium
Overview
Compendium, also developed at the Open University, is a tool for creating and publishing Dialogue Maps, which are used to capture the flow and structure of knowledge generated by a collaboration - it acts as a kind of “group memory caputure”. The user transcribes Issues, Ideas, and Arguments as nodes within a graphical hypertext between which links can be asserted, as well as links to
external objects such as documents, multimedia objects, and URLs [46] (figure 5.5). Compendium also supports several more advanced hypertext features: typed links, transclusion, labelled tagging of nodes, and managed catalogues of nodes.
Maps can be based upon pre-defined Issue Templates, automatically generated by other compliant software, or captured free-form as discussion takes place. In a meeting situation the latter approach is more likely to be adopted, with one participant acting as a scribe for the group; if the evolving map is visible to all participants on a shared display it can also help focus discussion, and ensure a commonly agreed record is produced.
Metadata Sources
Compendium has a rich hypertext heritage, and while the set of node types is limited - Questions, Ideas, and Arguments - a highly structured record of discussion is created by the links between these nodes. For any scribe using Compendium while a meeting progresses, there will always be a practical limit to the amount if information that can be captured, and a trade-off between the textual description stored in a node and the hypertext surrounding it. The map is unlikely to be fully complete, and is perhaps more comparable to a set of minutes than an exhaustive and authoritative metadata record. Using
Compendium in this manner does, however, usually mean that a node is created or modified while the discussion is taking place, so the editing timestamps Compendium stores for the nodes and links can be used to map Compendium structure into metadata for more detailed mediadata recordings of the meeting.
5.2.3
I-X Process Panels
Overview
Process Panels, developed at the University of Edinburgh, provide users with an interface to the I-X system [137]. At the simplest level, Process Panels can be viewed as an intelligent ‘to-do’ lists, and in the context of CoAKTinG are used for activity management and guidance. This might include step-by-step
assistance in setting up group communication, through structuring routine or periodic administrative meetings, to tracking and co-ordinating project tasks as they are discussed and followed through in, and after, meeting discussions. A Process Panel presents each user with an individually tailored perspective on the underlying activity or task; in a collaborative environment this activity will be shared, and each Process Panel displays to its user the steps they need to take to complete the overall task, or the issues which are blocking the progress of their actions. Activities can be decomposed, refined, delegated (to other users through their Panels), ‘standard operating procedures can be incorporated, and
automated agents invoked to perform sub-tasks. Metadata Sources
The I-X system has at its heart the <I-N-C-A> ontology [136], a shared
representation of synthesis tasks, in which the processes and products comprising the task are represented by abstract nodes which are related by constraints, and about which issues are generated and resolved. This approach builds upon a significant body of AI experience in planning, scheduling, process, workflow, and activity management.
While the extent of formalising an activity within the I-X framework can be set at a level appropriate for the given task, that which is formalised can be
represented using the <I-N-C-A> ontology, and as such provides an excellent source of structured metadata for the activity. Although some of the activities
Figure 5.2: Relative levels of detail and structure for metadata and mediadata sources (from [111])
assisted by Process Panels may take place during a collaborative meeting, many of them will be tasks which, while initiated at, progress checked at, or returning results to a meeting, will be performed outside of the meeting scope itself. To ensure any structure from I-X can be included in the meeting corpus, Process Panels can send a summary of the activity to Compendium, where it can be included in the meeting map.