Annotation management: a Group decision support system for nurses tasks

International audienceWe develop a 5-year empirical investigation that is giving us broad and deep insights to characterise activity management in the palliative ward of an oncology hospital, and offer effective support for group decision-making and collaborative activity of caregivers. Following this observation period, we propose a software prototype based upon annotations in which dealing with patients’ state and evolution is a complex organisational task. We based our conception of an annotation tool on the observations of the rich writing practices of medical professionals. We rely on the innovative strategy of intermediate management to introduce a new technology able to bridge heterogeneous, valuable data flows that addresses both management support and activity support in a single tool

Co-authoring with structured annotations

Most co-authoring tools support basic annotations, such as edits and comments that are anchored at specific locations in the document. However, they do not support metacommentary about a document (such as an author’s summary of modifications) which gets separated from the document, often in the body of email messages. This causes unnecessary overhead in the write-review-edit workflow inherent in co-authoring. We present document-embedded structured annotations called “bundles ” that incorporate the meta-commentary into a unified annotation model that meets a set of annotation requirements we identified through a small field investigation. A usability study with 20 subjects evaluated the annotation reviewing stage of coauthoring and showed that annotation bundles in our highfidelity prototype reduced reviewing time and increased accuracy, compared to a system that only supports edits and comments. Author Keywords Collaborative writing, collaborative authoring, structure

Designing a Web Application for Simple and Collaborative Video Annotation That Meets Teaching Routines and Educational Requirements

Video annotation and analysis is an important activity for teaching with and about audiovisual media artifacts because it helps students to learn how to identify textual and formal connections in media products. But school teachers lack adequate tools for video annotation and analysis in media education that are easy-to-use, integrate into established teaching organization, and support quick collaborative work. To address these challenges, we followed a design-based research approach and conducted qualitative interviews with teachers to develop TRAVIS GO, a web application for simple and collaborative video annotation. TRAVIS GO allows for quick and easy use within established teaching settings. The web application provides basic analytical features in an adaptable work space. Key didactic features include tagging and commenting on posts, sharing and exporting projects, and working in live collaboration. Teachers can create assignments according to grade level, learning subject, and class size. Our work contributes further insights for the CSCW community about how to implement user demands into developing educational tools

DOCSCOLLAB : UMA FERRAMENTA DE AUXÍLIO À EDIÇÃO COLABORATIVA

Ferramentas de suporte à edição colaborativa visam contribuir para o desenvolvimento da expressão escrita, habilidade tão necessária em todas as disciplinas e níveis educacionais. Este artigo propõe um estudo sobre editores colaborativos e  apresenta  uma ferramenta web simples que adiciona novas funcionalidades de coordenação, cooperação e comunicação ao Google Docs. A ferramenta desenvolvida possibilita a criação de um fórum de discussão cujos tópicos estejam vinculados a documentos  em processo de edição. Além disso, ela permite a criação de uma árvore de alocação de tarefas que auxilia no gerenciamento das atividades do grupo envolvido na edição colaborativa de documentos. A ferramenta é operacional e está disponível para usuários através de sua instalação em servidor local

Collaborative knowledge building with shared video representations

Online video has become established as a fundamental part of the fabric of the web; widely used by people for information sharing, learning and entertainment. We report results from a design study that explored how people interact to create shared multi-path video representations in a social video environment. The participants created multiple versions of a video by providing alternative and interchangeable scenes that formed different paths through the video content. This multi-path video approach was designed to circumvent limitations of traditionally linear video for use as a shared representation in collaborative knowledge building activities. The article describes how people created video resources in collaborative activities in two different settings. We discuss different modes of working that were observed and outline the specific challenges of using the video medium as shared representation. Finally we demonstrate how an analysis of collaborative dimensions of the shared multi-path video representation can be applied to discuss the design space and to raise the discourse about the usefulness of these representations in knowledge building environments

Awareness support for learning designers in collaborative authoring for adaptive learning

Adaptive learning systems offer students a range of appropriate learning options based on the learners’ characteristics. It is, therefore, necessary for such systems to maintain a hyperspace and knowledge space that consists of a large volume of domain and pedagogical knowledge, learner information, and adaptation rules. As a consequence, for a solitary teacher, developing learning resources would be time consuming and requires the teacher to be an expert of many topics. In this research, the problems of authoring adaptive learning resources are classified into issues concerning interoperability, efficiency, and collaboration.This research particularly addresses the question of how teachers can collaborate in authoring adaptive learning resources and be aware of what has happened in the authoring process. In order to experiment with collaboration, it was necessary to design a collaborative authoring environment for adaptive learning. This was achieved by extending an open sourced authoring tool of IMS Learning Design (IMS LD), ReCourse, to be a prototype of Collaborative ReCourse that includes the workspace awareness information features: Notes and History. It is designed as a tool for asynchronous collaboration for small groups of learning designers. IMS LD supports interoperability and adaptation. Two experiments were conducted. The first experiment was a workspace awareness study in which participants took part in an artificial collaborative scenario. They were divided into 2 groups; one group worked with ReCourse, the other with Collaborative ReCourse. The results provide evidence regarding the advantages of Notes and History for enhancing workspace awareness in collaborative authoring of learning designs.The second study tested the system more thoroughly as the participants had to work toward real goals over a much longer time frame. They were divided into four groups; two groups worked with ReCourse, while the others worked with Collaborative ReCourse. The experiment result showed that authoring of learning designs can be approached with a Process Structure method with implicit coordination and without role assignment. It also provides evidence that collaboration is possible for authoring IMS LD Level A for non-adapting and Level B for adapting materials. Notes and History assist in producing good quality output.This research has several contributions. From the literature study, it presents a comparison analysis of existing authoring tools, as well as learning standards. Furthermore, it presents a collaborative authoring approach for creating learning designs and describes the granularity level on which collaborative authoring for learning designs can be carried out. Finally, experiments using this approach show the advantages of having Notes and History for enhancing workspace awareness that and how they benefit the quality of learning designs

How local government policy workers use information: An interview study and design recommendations

Most information behaviour research focuses on information seeking and stops short of looking at what people do with information after they have found it. Furthermore, the information behaviour of local government policy workers has not been widely studied. We conducted semi-structured interviews with local government policy workers from UK local authorities and local government organisations. This was with the aim of examining how these policy workers use information to prepare documents. During the interviews, we asked the policy workers to demonstrate how they extracted information from source documents and how they made use of it. We found that the document preparation process involved three key phases: (1) information management (storing and recording information retrieved online for later use), (2) writing and editing (extracting information from source material and using it to support the writing process), and (3) review and sign-off (managing an iterative process of obtaining feedback from multiple stakeholders and making amendments). We discuss key challenges the interviewees faced during each of these phases and make recommendations for the design of future digital information environments aimed at providing holistic support for local government policy workers’ information use behaviour

Modelo para la anotación colaborativa de textos literarios digitalizados

La digitalización de documentos está revolucionando nuestro mundo. El concepto de un documento en papel o en cualquier otro medio físico está desapareciendo poco a poco. Esta digitalización paulatina de todos los documentos, añadida a los que ya están digitalizados, o se crean ya en formato digital desde el inicio, nos permite observar que en un futuro cercano la utilización de estos medios será masiva debido a su versatilidad y accesibilidad frente a los ya clásicos libros en papel. El problema surge al darnos cuenta de que lo que se digitaliza es la información base, pero la información subyacente, aquella que no aparece intrínsecamente en los documentos y que los consumidores de estos recursos completan con sus anotaciones, queda olvidada, al no existir medios de creación y manipulación de anotaciones lo suficientemente precisos y completos como para cubrir las necesidades de los usuarios. Este proceso digital de anotado nos abre la puerta a un nuevo medio de aprendizaje en nuestras escuelas y universidades a través de los documentos de estudio digitalizados, proporcionando una interacción entre el profesor y el alumno muy diferente al medio actual y permitiéndonos explotar técnicas sociales de estudio mediante el anotado colaborativo. Actualmente existen múltiples programas que permiten el anotado de documentos de manera parcial o total, variando entre sí tanto en el mecanismo de anotación como en el tipo de documento anotado. Este trabajo valorará las diferentes elecciones respecto al modelo y sistema de anotado elegidas por los distintos anotadores del mercado, presentará un modelo de anotado colaborativo digital de libros digitalizados enfocado a la enseñanza, y describirá y evaluará una aplicación llamada @note, que está basada en dicho modelo. [ABSTRACT] Document digitalization is changing our world. The concept of a document in paper or in any other physical medium is slowly disappearing. This gradual digitalization of all the documents, added to those already digitalized, as well to those created in digital format from the beginning, lets us realize that in the near future the use of these resources would be massive due to its versatility and accessibility compared to the classic books on paper. The problem arises when we realize that the target of digitalization is the basic content, but the underlying information that does not appear intrinsically in the documents, and which consumers of these resources complete with annotations, is discarded. It is due to the absence of means allowing the creation and manipulation of annotations, which are accurate and complete – enough to meet the user needs. This digital annotation process makes possible new learning environments in our schools and universities based on digitized documents of study, providing an interaction between the teacher and the students that substantially differs from the current media, and which allow us to exploit social learning skills through collaborative annotation activities. Currently there are many programs that enable the partial or the complete annotation of documents. These programs vary from each other both in the annotation mechanism as in the nature of the annotated documents. This research work evaluates the different choices of existing annotation systems and models. It also proposes an annotation model oriented to the collaborative annotation of digitized books in learning settings, and it describes and evaluates a working application called @note, which is based on this model