Tango Interactive Today for Education and Training

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08/13/20 ricetangotodayoct99 http:/ /www.npac.syr.edu gcf@np ac.syr.edu

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Tango Interactive Today

for Education and

Training

Rice Tango Training

Houston October 18 1999

Geoffrey Fox

Syracuse University

NPAC

111 College Place

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08/13/20 ricetangotodayoct99 htt p://www.npac.syr.edu gcf @npac.syr.edu

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Abstract of Tango and Training Technology

• We describe the technology components that are needed to support

distance education and training

–

We describe integration of

asynchronous

and

synchronous/interactive learning

–

We describe role of

databases

, Java Applets and different authoring

packages

–

_{We describe Role of}

_Tango

_{as delivery vehicle of a model of}

Web-based

Education and Training

• This

model will succeed

because it will provide more cost effective and

higher quality learning environments

(3)

3

Motivation and

Structure of

Web-based Education

(4)

4

Challenge and Opportunity in Education and Training

• Pervasive Communication Infrastructure (The

Internet

) and powerful new

software technologies and concepts

–

Distributed

Multimedia

information on the

Web

–

Web-linked

Databases

,

Distributed Objects

–

Collaborative

Systems

• Can enable education and training with

–

Better

curricula

–

New

collaborative learning

models

–

Different “

business models

” for universities and schools

• Can also change/enable businesses, research, electronic societies

• Need to implement so that

–

Can take advantage of the

evolving web

(5)

5

Why use Distance Education and Training?

• New and rapidly changing Academic Curriculum suggest the use of distance education as

it will allow a few experts to deliver instruction to more students and this addresses both

– The shortage of trained faculty

– cost of developing new curriculum QUICKLY requires many students (say around 5-10 times traditional class) to amortize cost

• Distance Education is technically sound based on web curricula-- both synchronously and asynchronously -- today with very robust clear implementations available over next 2

years

• Both delivery mechanism and identification of knowledge nuggets (such as Internetics or computational science) that are smaller than a traditional degree suggests different

approaches to certification

– Courses are given, graded etc. by multiple organizations -- University integrate degrees?

(6)

6

Traditional Model of Instruction

Professors

Students

Personal

Lecture Material

Personal

Lecture Material

Personal

Lecture Material

Common Shared Books and Such Resources

Done separately for each class at each university

Often

(7)

7

Better Model of Instruction

Professor

at AVU

(AnyTown

Virtual

University)

with team of

authoring

specialists

Outside

Students

(dominant clientele)

Common Shared Books

Web based Lecture Material

and Similar Resources

Institutions focussing on particular disciplines, teach a given class

to Students from Universities which provide

beds

and

mentors

Possible local Students

(8)

8

Courses at Jackson State

• Taught using Tango since fall 97 over Internet and defense high performance network DREN twice a week from Syracuse

– Course material based on Syracuse Senior Undergraduate class CPS406(Web Technologies) and graduate classes CPS615/616/640 (Base Computational science/Internetics)

– Curricula, Homework, Grading, Facilities done by Syracuse

– Students get JSU NOT Syracuse Credit

• Jackson State major HBC University with many computer science graduates

• Do not compete with base courses but offer addon courses with “leading edge” material (Web Technology, modern scientific computing) which give JSU

(under)graduates skills that are important in their career

– Job fair employers liked Java Programming!

• Needs guaranteed 30 (audio) to 100 (video) kilobits per second bandwidth

– Use a proxy server or mirror site

(9)

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Architecture of Tango Distance Education

NPAC Web

Server

JSU Web

Server

Java Tango

Server

…….

Share URL’s

Audio Video

Conferencing

Chat Rooms

White Boards etc.

Address at JSU of

Curriculum Page

Teacher’s View of

Curriculum Page

Student’s View of

Curriculum Page

Participants at JSU

Teacher/Lecturer at NPAC

…….

Java Sockets

HTTP

Java

Control Clients

(10)

10

What is Web-based Collaboration?

• Collaboration

means

sharing objects

• Web-based Collaboration

implies use of Web to share distributed

objects accessible through the Web

–

_{Shared Web Pages}

_{; Resources accessed through}

_{Web Servers}

or Brokers;

Client-side

applications with programmatic

interfaces

Web Page

Specify Page

Web Page

Receive Identical Page

(11)

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Sample 1999 Java Academy

(12)

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The Ingredients of Web Based Education

• Assess and install the rapidly changing

hardware

and

software

technology infrastructure

• Design

of (

possibly new

as exploiting new possibilities)

curricula

• Authoring

of material in curricula

• Managing

the material and students response to it including

quizzes, grades and administration

• Delivery

of the material in a mix of

self-paced

(asynchronous),

traditional

(synchronous) or

collaborative

(interactive)

• Good answers

to all these components are

pretty clear

and these

answers will match the evolution of web over next few years

(13)

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Role of Collaborative Objects in Education

• Learning

is an example of an activity which can be thought of in terms of

objects

(digital audio streams when you talk, books, homework, science fair

exhibits) worked on alone or together -- either between students or students and

teacher

– digital “togetherness” is supported by collaboration technology

• Collaboration can be synchronous as when individuals talk to each other

–

Objects or object properties are shared at

same time

• Or

asynchronous

when sharing is done at

different times

• I post a web page

and

you look at it later

is a basic

asynchronous

sharing model

while writing on a blackboard is hallowed synchronous model in teaching

• All objects can be thought of as web pages as these are rendering of a

server side object

(14)

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Shared Form Illustrated by Shared Access to NCSA

Biology Workbench showing how general server

objects can be shared from web interface

Shared Multiple List

Shared Buttons

(15)

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Universal Shared Object Strategy

• _Assume

_{teachers, students, engineers, shoppers, salespersons,}

families

teach, learn, collaborate, buy, sell, socialize via electronic

versions of traditional human interactions combined with

shared objects expressed in XML and

rendered as web pages

–

Most sharing is asynchronous

and one usually wishes to share

synchronously same material

that one accesses

asynchronously

–

_objects

_{can be}

_{(electronic) text books}

_,

_{aircraft designs}

_and

simulations

, expensive

jewelry

or

photos of grandchildren

• _{Only shared event model (used in Tango) of sharing}

(16)

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(17)

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So what do we have now--TangoInteractive

• http://www.npac.syr.edu/tango

• Largely Java system enabling collaboration between general client side objects

– If client side object is a Server proxy, then this ruse enables sharing of server side objects

– Has API for Java applet/application, C++, JavaScript

• API Enables sharing of events in applications

– This is just a fancy way of saying it forwards messages

• API Enables applications to find out about participants

• Currently ONLY deployed for Netscape version 4.05 and above as uses LiveConnect to connect JavaScript to Java

– Internet Explorer version not fully debugged

• Tango 2.0 is about as good as you can do with current web

(18)

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The current Capabilities of Tango -I

• Tango supports a synchronous shared event model of collaboration

• Tango

supports (more than) enough

(over 40) applications

• Core Collaboration

Capabilities

–

Audio-Video Conferencing

multicast between room participants

–

Text

chat rooms with various tradeoffs between “coolness”, ease of use etc.

–

Shared Browser

(Synchronized view of Web Pages)

–

Shared Web Search

(becomes shared

database query

)

–

Slide Show

–

White Board

(19)

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• Databases Linkage

–

JDBC

Link to

WebWisdom Database

–

Lotus Notes

Link to

Asynchronous Collaboration (Abandoned)

• _{Office and Authoring Tools}

–

PowerPoint

via shared display or

shared Java viewer

–

Microsoft Excel

using NetMeeting

–

Microsoft Word

–

shared visual C++

etc.

–

Combined Whiteboard /

Java object based PowerPoint like

authoring

system

–

Shared

emacs

editor -- shared programming

Capabilities of Tango -II

(20)

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• General Virtual University

Applications

–

Current

WebWisdom

hierarchical database system navigating through

35,000 foils and 750 foilsets

–

“

Raise Hands

” Applet to help teacher-student synchronous interaction

• _{Special Virtual University}

_Applications

–

Shared Java applets

to teach

physics

(spring, planets, vector cross

product)

–

Shared

visible human

illustrates biology teaching

–

Shared Java Applets used to teach

Java

!

–

Shared SmartDesk

system aimed at activities useful in

special education

with built in assessment

–

Untested

Quiz

and

Glossary

Support

The current Capabilities of Tango -III

(21)

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Shared Simulations -- Fluid Flow

(22)

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JavaScript Shared Browser with Dynamic

HTML -- “Pure” Client Event

• Shared Pointer added to Internet Assistant

PowerPoint on the Web

• Illustrates sharing of W3C Object Model

internal to documents

• DHTML “Heartbeat” recording shared events in last 60 seconds on application

specific “bar” which is locked above all windows -- addresses window clutter

More Powerful than Java Shared Browser

but currently less reliable

Partly as software newer and

(23)

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• Have some fun with

Multi-player games

–

VRML

Chess

–

JavaScript

Card Games and Internet Snap

–

Java

Othello

and

Rubic’s Cube

–

snakes and ladders

and could develop a bunch of similar “grid” games

• “Other”

Applications

–

TANGOsim

command and control system with shared tools (e.g.

mapping, weather) to use in scripted

crisis management

–

There is a very good

shared mapper

which is

a Java whiteboard

supporting

map backends

and general

shared drawing

–

Shared

Visualization

available for test

The current Capabilities of Tango -IV

(24)

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Architecture and

(25)

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Versions of Tango

• Currently most use is of

Tango 1.4

which gets s series of minor releases so

that now you download Tango 1.4.2.1

–

This is evolution of first generally useable version of Tango which was

released July98

• Available for Experimentation is

Tango 2

which has important but

evolutionary changes

–

Tango2 will become production version over next 4 months

–

There will a set of features (such as support of Internet Explorer) slated

for

Tango 2.1

which could be released in January 2000

• We have a version

MicroTango

(really an application change -- not a

system change) which is aimed at supporting Palmtop devices

(26)

26

T

ANGO

Interactive version 1.4

• T

ANGO

1.4 requires browser plug-in

• Compatible with Netscape Communicator

4.06+

and

4.5, 4.61

–

not compatible with earlier Netscape versions (

3.0+

) and not

compatible with MS Internet Explorer

–

TANGO 1 uses

LiveConnect and plug-in

architecture. Both

these technologies

are

available for Internet Explorer, but MS

implementation of LiveConnect is not fully compatible. IE

version of TI exists but is currently not available for public use

–

supported platforms: Windows’95/98/NT/2000, IRIX, Solaris,

Linux

(27)

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T

ANGO

Interactive version 1.4

• Supported browsers:

all Netscape 4 versions up

to Communicator 4.61 (not v. 4.6 as serious bugs

in browser!)

–

supports Netscape 4 security model

• digitally signed

plug-in Java classes

• Communicator version explicitly requires access

to privileged operations

–

user’s consent necessary

for T

ANGO

to run

(28)

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TangoInteractive System Architecture

• N:

Netscape Browser

• LD:

Local Daemon

• _CA:

_Control

Application

• _{AP: Applet}

• _{LA: Local Application}

• CS: Tango Java Server

• DB:

Collaboration

Database (XML now)

• HTTP:

Web Server

/ Object Broker

Client

Collaboration

Server

(29)

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T

ANGO

Architecture: Components

• Local Daemon’s

main tasks:

–

maintaining two-way communication

between user

applications, applets and central server

–

launching

local applications

–

passing messages

between applications running on the same

node

–

providing certain system level functionality not normally

available to Java applets, such as file access or printing

• The daemon is implemented as a

plug-in

to Web browsers.

(30)

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Architecture of Tango

Java Tango

Server

Netscape Browser

Tango

Daemon

Shared Applet 1

Shared Applet 2

Shared

Java/C++/..

Application

Socket Connections

(31)

31

T

ANGO

Architecture: Components

• Central Server

is the main communication element.

–

Local daemons

communicate with the

central server

–

Server maintains the

system state data

–

Server

routes messages

between applications participating in each session

–

All

application protocols

are

opaque

to the server

–

Currently, T

ANGO

users are restricted to only one collaboratory server at

any given time

• Server switch somewhat clumsy

• T

ANGO

server is

extremely stable

and

maintenance-free

(32)

32

T

ANGO

Architecture: Components

• Java applets

–

User applications written in Java,

downloaded

from an HTTP

server, and executed in browser environment

• Communication between Java applets and central server is also

maintained by the local daemons. Java applets communicate with local

daemon by calling its method functions

• Local Applications:

–

User applications which run as standalone programs are called

local applications

. Local application may be written in

any

programming language

• Communicate with the local daemon using sockets. The daemon is

(33)

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Implementation Details

• Daemon

provides a mechanism for

TANGO components such as Java

applets, central server, JavaScript

scripts etc. to talk to each other.

• TANGO

daemon

has been

implemented as a plug-in.

• Using

LiveConnect

mechanisms,

each applet residing in the same

page with the plug-in may obtain

its handle.

(34)

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T

ANGO

Architecture: Components

• Session Manager

provides TANGO GUI

–

Provides uniform application session and floor control for all TANGO

applications

• Launches

applications locally or remotely,

creates and connects

to

existing sessions,

exits

applications,

logs

into the system, etc.

• Routes

messages between applications on the same node

• Monitors

integrity of the distributed system

• User interface to the control application

auto-adjusts

to the operating

system

–

SM communicates with the system via LD

• The communication between

control application

and

local daemon

is

different

than in the case of standard Java applets since control

(35)

35

Events (Messages) and Data

• Since T

ANGO uses

central server

architecture, there are system

scalability concerns.

• System makes careful distinction between

event and data distribution

pathways

–

events are always distributed

via collaboratory server

–

data may be distributed via collaboratory server for thin data streams

–

voluminous data are either distributed

directly between application

instances

or delivered

from HTTP or other servers

–

peer-to-peer application data exchange may use

multicast

if necessary

(36)

36

T

ANGO

Architecture: Media Streams

For scaleability reasons, the

real time multimedia streams

are not sent via central

server.

–

Instead, we use a distributed

architecture

–

The architecture supports

multicast.

–

Session control remains with

the TANGO session

manager.

(37)

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Application Protocols

• _{A blueprint for a truly successful collaboratory system}

does not exist. Hence:

–

Need an

extensible system

with very few limitations.

–

System

must not

define application specific protocols,

application programming language, or limit in whatever

way functionality of collaboratory applications

• The essence of each collaboratory function

must be defined

by application

and by application only

(38)

38

Session Management

• _A

_session

_{is a group of application instances currently working}

together in the collaborative mode.

–

_{All (and only) applications belonging to the same session}

exchange information and may share behavior.

–

How particular application operates in collaborative mode

depends on this application characteristics.

• In all sessions there is one

master user

.

(39)

39

Session Management

• Master status is

dynamically transferable.

Floor control allows for

both master-master and master-slave relationship

–

Interpretation of this (e.g. ignore it) left to application-- Tango

“just” sets a flag

• TANGO

does not restrict

the number of concurrent sessions. There

may be multiple independent sessions of applications of the same

type.

• Messages from one application compatible with application of

another type

will be distributed transparently.

(40)

40

Session Management Functions

• Currently supported operations:

–

Local open

–

Remote open

(opens an instance on remote machine)

–

Global and limited remote open (open an instance on a group of

machines)

–

Session join

–

Local close/leave

–

Remote close

, including global remote close

–

Acquire and grant session master status

• SM implements “intelligent interface”

(41)

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Application Developers View

• _{For each supported mode}

–

C++

–

_{Java Applet or Application}

–

_JavaScript

• You can communicate between linked clients to preserve

state

–

_{“master” sends state changes to nonmasters}

• _{You can find out list of participants}

–

Who is master

etc.

(42)

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What About Tango 2

• Significant but evolutionary improvement to Tango 1.4

• Too a lot longer than expected and still in beta stage

–

production use is Tango 1.4

Capability

TI 1.4

TI 2.0

Core tools (BV, SB, WBD, Chat, etc.)

+

Shared dynamic HTML support

+

Shared Document Object Model

+ +

Shared Java applets

+

Shared Java in pages

-

+

Shared JavaBeans

-

+

SWING-based interface

-

+

User authentication

-

+

(43)

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Tango 1.4 Compared to Tango 2

Capability

TI 1.4

TI 2.0

Server licensing

-

+

File repositories

-

T2.1

Fully-integrated e-mail support

-

+

Listserv Support

- T2.1

“Awareness” service (like AIM)

-

+

Site-configurable/customizable interface

+

Internet Explorer support

-

T2.1

“Out-of-browser” implementation

- T2.1

Shared visualization

-

T2.1

Shared compute engine

+

(44)

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Applications of

(45)

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Applications of Web-based Collaboration

• Multi Player Games: Use Chat Rooms and digital VTC to establish context

– Share Java, JavaScript, VRML etc. games

– Tango has Card Games, Othello, Chess, Snakes and Ladders

• Crisis Management: Again use general tools (including whiteboard) and add shared maps and multimedia situation reports

• Command and Control: Military, Test and Evaluation -- any real time control of complex system

– support distributed experts who can be on call remotely and shared object is visualization of test results

• Collaborative Computing and Engineering: Here specialized shared objects are CAD, simulation and planning tools

• UpScale Web Commerce Sites with people available to help shoppers and lecture on demand

(46)

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Electronic Communities

(47)

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Crisis Management

(48)

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Play Games

(49)

08/13/20 ricetangotodayoct99 htt p://www.npac.syr.edu gcf @npac.syr.edu 49

Prepare

Data

disloc proxy

Post Process

Generate disloc input

disloc proxy disloc2simplex proxy simplex proxy compare

disloc

code written in C

disloc2simplex

script written in perl

simplex

code written in C

Front End:

Java Applet.

CORBA client

Middle Tier:

distributed objects

implemented in Java.

CORBA servers

Back End:

computing

resources

Iterate

Collaborative Earthquake Portal

(50)

50

(51)

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Real Time Synchronous

Collaborative Visualization with SV2

• SV2-Server :

Receiving and multi-casting the data, it contains two

computation engines: geometry and filter engines.Simulator

provides real time data to SV2-server.

• _{SV2-Client :}

_{It consists two parts, a client Manager and a Data}

Viewer. Data Viewer is implemented using JDK1.2 and Java3D API

• Large Data sets

and

Control messages

are

separated

(through SV2

Server and Tango respectively)

• Substantial computing

is needed on SV2-Server . This computing

time is critical to the

response time of the whole system

. Critical

Server portions written in C++. Rest of System Java

• _Usually

_simulator

_{is written in}

_{Fortran/C/C++}

_{instead of Java.In}

(52)

52

Data Viewer 1

Data Viewer 2

Client

Manager

Data Viewer 1

Data Viewer 2

Client

Manager

Tango

SV2 Server

Simulator

Control message Data

(53)

53

(54)

54

Basic Strategy for

(55)

55

Learning and Teaching the Curricula I

• So the students need to learn the material and they may need some sort of help

from a teacher or mentor

• In

self paced

or

asynchronous

learning, student studies material in his or her

own time and essence of this is a web site which may of course be generated from

a back-end web-linked database

–

optimal for

highly motivated

mature students such as those in continuing

education

–

electronic version of using a library

• In

synchronous learning

, teacher selects material from website and delivers it in

electronic virtual class rooms

–

Homework

is set from same website which remains a base asynchronous

resource

–

Natural when teachers insight delivers

motivation and clarification of key

material to student

(56)

56

Learning and Teaching the Curricula II

• In collaborative learning, teachers, assistants, students and the web resource interact in an electronic collaboration system

– Seems particularly valuable in K-12 arena

– Also natural model for collaborative research

• Note systems like Lotus Notes are “just web-linked object brokers” from this point of view (and again should be avoided as not built around modern object models)

• All approaches use basic asynchronous tools such as electronic mail, bulletin boards and searchable repositories

• Can record synchronous sessions for later asynchronous replay

• One need not chose any one approach as can support all of them with a

(preferably database back ended) web site linked to a suite of collaboration tools

• Note just as we can link asynchronous--synchronous--collaborative, we can also link education and training

(57)

57

What does Tango Interactive Provide?

• _{Overall Management}

_{of a lecture viewed as part of a learning}

environment built around a Web Resource

• Audio/Video Conferencing

• _{Chat Rooms}

_and

_{electronic mail}

_{for synchronous and}

asynchronous messages

• Shared Web Pages

which can come from a database

• _Whiteboard

_{for communicating visual material}

• Shared Java applets

which can be embedded in web pages to

allow interactive lesson components

• _API

_{to interface specialized resources -- Planning Tools, GIS}

(58)

58

So what do you do I?

• Author Curriculum using NO specialized systems or systems like

WebCT

that

produce HTML or preferably XML

–

Use pure

(D)HTML

,

PowerPoint

with

Java

applets for necessary

interactive components

–

Or put in

database

, (

XML

) file and map into above

–

For

Java

, interface to

Tango API

for sharing or automate with

TangoBean

–

A Single Scrolled HTML Page is all you need

–

Internet Export of PowerPoint is all you need …..

• Add pointers and other such “WebWisdom” helpful DHTML capabilities (we

can provide a filter)

• HTML Pages can be screenfuls (best?) or

scrolled

(59)

59

So what do you do II?

• Give your students

URL of system

• If desired use

registration database

• Set up necessary

infrastructure

with collection of individual machines and/or

class rooms

(PC’s are best)

–

teacher should/could have

multiple machines

to provide less cluttered display

• In a class room, establish

proxy server

and central machine for audio/video

conferencing

–

Note Tango is useful just in a

classroom

as each student gets a better quality

display than many central displays

• Test system for

–

Correct installation of

multimedia

–

Quality

of

Service

(60)

60

Design and Architecture of Curricula Material

• So the

architecture

is that of a set of web accessible

distributed

objects

which are designed to be as

modular

as possible

–

Natural size of basic “educational object” is about a

screenfull

• Initial design will be traditional -- include

–

Bunch of “

foils

” (electronic

presentation

)

–

Bunch of

HTML

pages (electronic

book

)

–

_{Bunch of}

_{multimedia dazzle}

_(today’s

_educational

CDROM’s

)

(61)

61

4 Approaches to Authoring of Back End Resource I

• In order of

increasing sophistication; cost; preparation time

and

presumably also in

increasing learning value

• Note “Low-end”

can be best solution in a case where curricula material

is changing rapidly

– Note Open University in England (best known distance education organization

uses high-end asynchronous material and for this reason cannot quickly switch to Java for introductory CS course)

• "Low-end"

typified by simple HTML and

PowerPoint

. Of course hand

written notes and postscript are even less sophisticated but these are

getting less important.

• "Enhanced Low-end"

typified by audio or video over web pages. Not

clear how editing is possible/desirable

–

This can be viewed as a pragmatic way of capturing details from the

busy lecturer who does not have the time to carefully prepare a more

sophisticated resource.

(62)

62

4 Approaches to Authoring of Back End Resource II

• "

Medium End"

such as

WebCT

,

Campus

product from

Blackboard

LLC

(mainly administrative, modest authoring), or

Cornell Virtual Workshop

where one provides knowledge at different levels of detail, glossaries,

quizzes and dynamic instructional nuggets.

• ”Traditional High End"

such as the classic

Multimedia CDROM

( or its

web equivalent) prepared by sophisticated authoring tools such as

Macromedia Director

and with possibly professionally produced videos.

• These will move towards Web Standards using

Web Video,

Java

plus

Dynamic HTML

and W3C based

XML

and

DOM

specification

• Note clear to me if authoring of

educational material

will differ from that

of “

ordinary documents

”

(63)

63

What’s wrong with Java Clients?

• There is no argument about Java the

programming language

-- there are

some issues about Java the

user interface

builder

• First there are the battles between Sun Netscape and Microsoft which

makes

Java on the client less robust

than Java on the server

• However Java allows to build

totally general users interfaces

and there

appear to be no rules and nothing equivalent to style sheets in

HTML/XML.

• Thus it does

not seem practical

to build

cross disability and cross

rendering device interfaces

for arbitrary

Java applet

interfaces

• On the other

JavaScript

and

dynamic HTML

can do many things that you

might have thought one needed Java for

(64)

64

What Else do you

(65)

65

The Virtual University I

• _{Motivated either by}

_{decreased cost}

_or

_{increased quality}

_of

learning environment

• Will succeed due to

market pressures

(it will offer the best

product)

• Is

technologically possible today

and can only get better

–

_{Main problem is pervasive}

_{Quality of Service}

_for

digital audio and video

• In

structured settings

like briefings, lectures etc., support is

easier as at fixed times and digital video of secondary

importance

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The Virtual University II

• “Centers of Excellence” (“

Hermits Cave Virtual University

”) is

natural entity to produce and deliver classes

–

Today

1 faculty delivers 2 courses a semester

-- each to say 25

students

–

Instead

3 faculty collaborate on 1 course

and deliver to some 200

students -- perhaps in multiple sessions (200 students required to

fund quality curricula and 200 students requires distance

education except in a few classes)

• University acts as an

integrator

putting together a set of classes

where it may only teach some 20% but acts as a mentor to all

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Managing the Curricula I

• So as we have

stored

all our material in a

database

, managing it is

equivalent to building an

administrative support system

for the

database

–

Administrative system is built in usual way as “

business logic

Javabean middleware

” running on a server and accessed from

some web client

• Web export from database should support Educom’s

IMS

standard

for

metadata

to allow convenient webwide searches of repositories

• One needs

special modules

that accommodate

–

PAPI

or Personal and Performance Information

–

Submission of

homework

of diverse nature

–

Laboratories including both

programming

and

science labs

–

Producing

composite lectures

from collections of base

educational objects (

re-use

)

(68)

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Managing the Curricula II

• One needs database technology for

–

Storing

raw curricula material

with facilities to re-use, edit,

produce summaries, re-order etc.

WebWisdomDB

–

Archiving

multimedia learning sessions

LecCorder

–

Managing the students PAPI: grades, homework and personal

data --

NPAC Grading Database

–

As discussed under Portals,

Blackboard

is a strong commercial

system

• One needs

web-linked seamless computing

to support

programming assignments

–

Using older NPAC

VPL

written in JavaScript to allow web

access to computer cluster for HPF and MPI (DoD

Gateway

activity

should produce better technology)

(69)

69

LecCorder Lecture Recorder

• Database must archive lessons with LINKED curricula material and multimedia delivery

• LecCorder is integrated hardware & software system and will record live trainings or digitize taped events &

publish on web quickly and easily as “foils over audio/video”

• Minimal human intervention

• Java viewer

• Good start but Incomplete -- need

– video server back-end for random access & search capabilities

– Converter for Real Audio/Video format

– Integration with WebWisdomDB courseware database system

– Support for Pointer events

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Current NPAC Grading Database

used to register Syracuse

and Online Courses

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71

Tango Status / Futures ?

• Tango 2

is about as good as you can do with current browsers

• When

W3C DOM

fully supported and

XML

is well established, we

can evolve Tango and

Shared Browser

to provide richer interactive

shared Web Pages

• Universal Access

for different devices (Fully capable and impaired

users) from

PalmTops

to PC’s

• Greater use of

XML Web components

to customize sharing of Web

Page components and specify dynamically and flexibly sharing policy

• Integration of asynchronous and Synchronous messaging Services

(Tango drivers Pager)

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New Enterprise Models for Universities?

• _{Distance Education is technically sound}

_{-- both synchronously and}

asynchronously -- today with very robust clear implementations available

over next 2 years

• Separate teaching mentoring

and

dormitory

role of University

• Teaching

and

grading

naturally performed by centers of excellence which

need at least an

order of magnitude more customers

than a single faculty in

order to be able to justify investment in course preparation and maintenance

• Continuing Education

of growing importance and natural area to attack

first --

corporate training

is serious competition here and commercial

deliverers have advantage?

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Where are we in Distance Education?

• We are meant to be short of employees trained in many important areas -- in particular computer science

• Syracuse has a few good course but Courses are incomplete and hard to keep up to date…..

• Nationally there is a complete set of excellent courses but most universities cannot offer quality complete program

• Technology for distance education is proven in concept and improving in robustness and functionality

• Networks are increasing in bandwidth …

• This will lead to much better learning environments and total happiness for students ……..

• There is one minor problem!

Existing University Infrastructure and K-12 Establishments will oppose

this

• They will accept my courses if given as Syracuse University but not if done through

Tango Interactive Today for Education and Training

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