Papers in PDF format

W3Client
Figure 1 : The Co-Learn WWW gateway communication architecture
IV. Conclusion & Perspectives :
The Co-Learn users can now use the Web to configure their co-operation environments. They can also use it as
an animation assistant during their co-operation sessions by dynamically setting up the tools, participants and
roles involved in the virtual room. This functionality is offered thanks to a Dynamic View Generation
mechanism which allows to inspect and to edit the data encapsulated in Smalltalk objects representing the
organisation.
A drawback of the actual implementation using HTML forms and CGI scripts is at the interface level. Since we
decided not to use frames because they are not included in the last HTML version (and then not supported by
all WWW browsers), it was impossible to enhance the interface with Smalltalk-like browsers (which would
better merge global and detailed views) in the management pages. Using the Java language should avoid this
difficulty and allow to maintain durable connections between the client and the Co-Learn server. This way we
could support group feedback.
The system we described here has been implemented to be integrated with a courseware development and
publishing system based on HyperG [D’Halluin et al. 1996] to constitute a multimedia distance education
global environment on the web, in the framework of the MODEM European project. The Co-Learn side of this
global environment will manage the co-operative activities space and the HyperG side will manage the
documents space. During the next months, we will enhance this Co-Learn browser to better support the time
dimension of the activities space and to allow the management of technical resources (e.g. audio-bridges ). In
the long term, this tool will allow meta-management by supporting design, development and integration of
new co-operative activity types and roles in the Co-Learn object-oriented framework.
V. References
• Roles
• Rules
• Environments
• Participants
• Courses
• Rooms
• Tools
Co-Learn server
CSCW Kernel
Smalltalk
Image
&
Gemstone
Data Base
Authentication
Ask
Answer
Transaction End
Netscape,
Mosaic,
...
W3 server
[Madsen 1989] C. M. Madsen (1989) Approaching Group Communication by Means of an Office Building Metaphor. First
European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (ECSCW'89). 449 - 460.
[Hammainen, Condon 1991] Heikki Hämmäinen, Chris Condon (1991). Form and room : Metaphors for Groupware.
COSC 91/ACM. 95-104.
[Benford 1991] S. Benford (1991). A Real World Metaphor for a CSCW Environment . CoTech WG2 Internal Document.
[Engelbart 1992] Douglas C. Engelbart (1992). Toward high-performance organizations : a stratgeic role for groupware.
CSCW 92 Proceedings. 77-100.
[Hoogstoel 1992] Frédéric Hoogstoel (1992). Au croisement de trois interfaces ... l'assistant d'animation : un agent
informatique au coeur d'un collecticiel, in [TELEC 1992].
[TELEC 1992] TELECOM Paris (Eds) (1992). Document de travail des quatrièmes journées sur l'ingénierie des Interfaces
Homme-Machine IHM'92. TELECOM Paris 92 S 004.
[Fitzpatrick, Kaplan, Tolone 1995] Geraldine Fitzpatrick, Simon M. Kaplan and William J. Tolone (1995). Work, Locales
and Distributed Social wOrlds. 1995 European Conference on CSCW (ECSCW ’95), Stockholm. 1-16.
[Hoogstoel 1995] Frédéric Hoogstoel (1995). Une approche organisationnelle du travail coopératif assisté par ordinateur.
Application au projet Co-Learn. Data Computer Ph. D. Thesis, Université des Sciences et Technologies de Lille,
France.
[Appelt 1996] Wolfgang Appelt (1996). CoopWWW - Interoperable Tools for Cooperation Support using the World-Wide
Web. ERCIM Workshop on CSCW and the Web, Sankt Augustin, Germany.
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