243 research outputs found
The LAB@FUTURE Project - Moving Towards the Future of E-Learning
This paper presents Lab@Future, an advanced e-learning platform that uses novel Information and Communication Technologies to support and expand laboratory teaching practices. For this purpose, Lab@Future uses real and computer-generated objects that are interfaced using mechatronic systems, augmented reality, mobile technologies and 3D multi user environments. The main aim is to develop and demonstrate technological support for practical experiments in the following focused subjects namely: Fluid Dynamics - Science subject in Germany, Geometry - Mathematics subject in Austria, History and Environmental Awareness – Arts and Humanities subjects in Greece and Slovenia. In order to pedagogically enhance the design and functional aspects of this e-learning technology, we are investigating the dialogical operationalisation of learning theories so as to leverage our understanding of teaching and learning practices in the targeted context of deployment
Using the Java Media Framework to build Adaptive Groupware Applications
Realtime audio and video conferencing has not yet been satisfactorily integrated into web-based groupware environments. Conferencing tools are at best only loosely linked to other parts of a shared working environment, and this is in part due to their implications for resource allocation and management. The Java Media Framework offers a promising means of redressing this situation. This paper describes an architecture for integrating the management of video and audio conferences into the resource allocation mechanism of an existing web-based groupware framework. The issue of adaptation is discussed and a means of initialising multimedia session parameters based on predicted QoS is described
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Lyceum: internet voice groupware for distance learning
This paper describes the design, implementation and deployment of Lyceum, a groupware system providing students and tutors with real time voice conferencing and visual workspace tools, over the standard internet. Lyceum uses a Java client/server architecture to tackle a formidable set of networking requirements: multi-way voice communication with synchronous shared displays, scalable to hundreds of simultaneous users, running over normal modem connections via unknown internet service providers, on home PCs. Additionally, the design had to support multiple courses with different requirements. We describe the interdisciplinary requirements analysis, and iterative design process, by which an academic course team was able to specify and evaluate prototypes. We present the systemĂs architecture, describe the technical successes and failures from LyceumĂs first large scale deployment, and summarise its affordances for interaction and learning
Control Synchronous Web-Based Training Using Web Services
With the rapidly advancing technologies, training has been vital to keep companies competitive. Web-based training grows rapidly and attracts more attention for its most flexible manner. Virtual classroom is a form of synchronous web-based training. It provides real-time interactivity in learning process. I have developed a virtual classroom that uses Web services to control the audio/video transmission, chat box, whiteboard, and synchronous HTML presentation. Compared to an early implementation of the virtual classroom based on the Jini network, my Web-service based implementation has a significantly different control structure. My implementation has better interoperability
Co-present photo sharing on mobile devices
This dissertation researches current approaches to photo sharing. We have found that most current methods of photo sharing are not as compelling as traditional photo sharing - with the increasing in popularity of digital photography, consumers do not print photos as often as before and thus typically require a group display (such as a PC) to view their photographs collectively. This dissertation describes a mobile application that attempts to support traditional photo sharing activities by allowing users to share photos with other co-present users by synchronizing the display on multiple mobile devices. Various floor control policies (software locks that determine when someone can control the displays) were implemented. The behaviour of groups of users was studied to determine how people would use this application for sharing photos and how various floor control policies affect this behaviour
Un-constraining the medium: design software systems to support situated action
This dissertation is concerned with Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)
and in particular with ways in which insights from ethnomethodology can be melded
into the design of CSCW systems—a relationship that has been labelled technomethodology.
The dissertation outlines a number of possible ways in which system design
can learn from ethnomethodology and concentrates on one particular aspect—namely
that CSCW should look closely at its foundational assumptions and, if necessary,
re-specify any concepts which appear problematic in their formulation. [Continues.
A web-based approach to engineering adaptive collaborative applications
Current methods employed to develop collaborative applications have to make
decisions and speculate about the environment in which the application will operate
within, the network infrastructure that will be used and the device type the application
will operate on. These decisions and assumptions about the environment in which
collaborative applications were designed to work are not ideal. These methods produce
collaborative applications that are characterised as being inflexible, working on
homogeneous networks and single platforms, requiring pre-existing knowledge of the
data and information types they need to use and having a rigid choice of architecture.
On the other hand, future collaborative applications are required to be flexible; to work
in highly heterogeneous environments; be adaptable to work on different networks and
on a range of device types. This research investigates the role that the Web and its
various pervasive technologies along with a component-based Grid middleware can
play to address these concerns. The aim is to develop an approach to building adaptive
collaborative applications that can operate on heterogeneous and changing
environments. This work proposes a four-layer model that developers can use to build
adaptive collaborative applications. The four-layer model is populated with Web
technologies such as Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), the Resource Description
Framework (RDF), Protocol and RDF Query Language (SPARQL) and Gridkit, a
middleware infrastructure, based on the Open Overlays concept. The Middleware layer
(the first layer of the four-layer model) addresses network and operating system
heterogeneity, the Group Communication layer enables collaboration and data sharing,
while the Knowledge Representation layer proposes an interoperable RDF data
modelling language and a flexible storage facility with an adaptive architecture for
heterogeneous data storage. And finally there is the Presentation and Interaction layer
which proposes a framework (Oea) for scalable and adaptive user interfaces. The four layer
model has been successfully used to build a collaborative application, called
Wildfurt that overcomes challenges facing collaborative applications. This research has
demonstrated new applications for cutting-edge Web technologies in the area of
building collaborative applications. SVG has been used for developing superior
adaptive and scalable user interfaces that can operate on different device types. RDF
and RDFS, have also been used to design and model collaborative applications
providing a mechanism to define classes and properties and the relationships between
them. A flexible and adaptable storage facility that is able to change its architecture
based on the surrounding environments and requirements has also been achieved by
combining the RDF technology with the Open Overlays middleware, Gridkit
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