Architectural Design and Prototyping of Co-PPGIS: A Groupware-Based Online Synchronous Collaborative PPGIS to Support Municipality Development and Planning Management Workflows

Co-PPGIS has a wide variety of applications like municipal planning, emergency response, public health and security, etc. The main focus of this chapter is on the development and design of a Web Collaborative PPGIS (Co-PPGIS) infrastructure. As part of municipality’s planning and management services, Co-PPGIS is developed for real-time map sharing application system. Co-PPGIS is an effective and essential online meeting system for supporting group collaborations on geographic information such as maps and imageries, and capturing and sharing of local/domain knowledge in real time. Co-PPGIS permits amalgamation of geospatial data and collaborator’s input in the form of geo-referenced notations. It incorporates coherent components as map sharing, real-time chat, video conferencing, geo-referenced textual and graphical notations. The study aims to focus on public participation and geo-collaboration facilitated with information sharing, interactive geo-conferencing, real-time map, and data sharing with tools to draw features or add annotation to the map while discussions, uploading documents, and live communication. Co-PPGIS provides an efficient and reliable platform that will significantly reduce the time to acquire, process, and analyze data. The significance of this study is to contribute to existing public participation practices, to municipal planning, to decision-making, or to geographic information science

Applications of computer communications in education.

Applications of computer communications can be used in many ways in education. An overview is given of a number of categories of computer communications applications in learning-related activities. Particular attention is given to a new type of system called a course-support environment. In this type of system a database is integrated with Web-based tools and applications, and used to generate a course-support environment accessed via a standard Web browser. Some examples are given. The article moves on to an overview of various issues confronting the acceptance of computer communication systems in educational settings, and indicates some of the ways in which computer communications engineers will have to deal with those issue

Desktop multimedia environments to support collaborative distance learning

Desktop multimedia conferencing, when two or more persons can communicate among themselves via personal computers with the opportunity to see and hear one another as well as communicate via text messages while working with commonly available stored resources, appears to have important applications to the support of collaborative learning. In this paper we explore this potential in three ways: (a) through an analysis of particular learner needs when learning and working collaboratively with others outside of face-to-face situations; (b) through an analysis of different forms of conferencing environments, including desktop multimedia environments, relative to their effectiveness in terms of meeting learner needs for distributed collaboration; and (c) through reporting the results of a formative evaluation of a prototype desktop multimedia conferencing system developed especially for the support of collaborative learning. Via these analyses, suggestions are offered relating to the functionalities of desktop multimedia conferencing systems for the support of collaborative learning, reflecting new developments in both the technologies available for such systems and in our awareness of learner needs when working collaboratively with one other outside of face-to-face situations

Requirements engineering: a review and research agenda

This paper reviews the area of requirements engineering. It outlines the key concerns to which attention should be devoted by both practitioners, who wish to "reengineer" their development processes, and academics, seeking intellectual challenges. It presents an assessment of the state-of-the-art and draws conclusions in the form of a research agenda

The CSCW paradigm for software development

People work together to solve a wide variety of problems using different forms of cooperation for each class of problem. Modern technology is complex, and therefore it is unusual for an individual to attempt the development of a major project single-handedly. In an attempt to provide computer-based support for the problems that arise when two or more people attempt to cooperate to perform a task or solve a problem, the area of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) becomes relevant. The software development process almost invariably involves cooperation that crosses group, professional, and subcultural boundaries. The complexity of software development demands that highly integrated groups of analysts, designers, and users are involved in the process. Many development activities may occur concurrently. The area of CSCW and advanced information technology, with its enormous capabilities for transmitting and storing information, holds considerable promise for the software development process