Design of a Collaborative System
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
DESIGN OF A COLLABORATIVE SYSTEM Minjun Wang Geoffrey C. Fox EECS Department, Syracuse University, U.S.A Community Grid Laboratory, Computer Science Community Grid Laboratory, Indiana University, U.S.A Department, School of Informatics and Physics 501 N Morton, Suite 222, Bloomington IN 47404, U.S.A Department, Indiana University, U.S.A [email protected] [email protected] Abstract In this paper we introduce the design of a new Making Impress collaborative across computers is collaborative system in distance education, e-Learning useful in e-Learning, web conference and distance and online conferencing – collaborative Impress education. applications. Impress is a presentation application in Open We have developed collaborative Impress applications Office/Star Office; it has similar functionality as which make use of the functions of Open Office/Star Microsoft PowerPoint. Office, and collaborate between the Master and Making Impress collaborative across computers is Participating clients so that they share the same useful in e-Learning, web conference and distance presentation slide display. education. We use a common message broker, Narada Message We have developed collaborative Impress applications Broker [2, 3], as the underlying messaging environment which make use of the functions of Impress, and [4] to communicate messages between the clients in a collaborate between the Master and Participating clients session. so that they share the same presentation slide display. We realize the shared event idea in collaboration [5, 6]. We use a common message broker, Narada Message It uses event messages in the controlling of a presentation Broker, as the underlying messaging environment to process. Compared to shared display, the short text communicate messages between the clients in a session. messages save great bandwidth over the Internet. This We realize the shared event idea in the collaboration. It realization is fast and efficient. Shared event model uses event messages in the controlling of a presentation should be a great paradigm in collaboration. process. Compared to shared display, the short text This realization of collaborative Impress applications messages save great bandwidth over the Internet. This implies a complementary effort to and also a further realization is fast and efficient. Shared event model research area in Open Office/Star Office. should be a great paradigm in collaboration. 2. Shared Event Model Key Words A commonly used model in collaboration is Shared Collaborative System, Open Office, Shared Event. Display. In this model, some amount of screen image in a format (e.g. bitmap) is sent over the networks between the collaborating computers each time when the image of the 1. Introduction screen is changed, either partially or totally. The Remote Desktop Connection of Microsoft Open Office [1] is an open source office suite; it has Windows XP and VNC (Virtual Network Computing) [7] similar functionality as Microsoft Office suite. Because it are using this model. is free downloadable, and every one has an opportunity to It is appropriate in situations especially where the develop and contribute to the resource using a broad screen output is random, like online meeting, discussion, range of programming languages and protocols, it has the sharing data (text, graph, image, etc.,) or impromptu features such as availability, usability, extensibility, presentations using some software. popularity, and versatility. It is people’s common property The disadvantages of Shared Display include: and wisdom. • It consumes big bandwidth of the networks Impress is a presentation application in Open because of the image transferring. Thus it is Office/Star Office; it has similar functionality as relatively slow and the latency is big. Microsoft PowerPoint. • The feeling of using it is not smooth. The underlying communication environment to communicate waiting time depends on the amount of image messages between the clients in a session. of a screen that needs to update. The worst The master client lectures and broadcasts its event case is when the image changes abruptly, say, messages to all participating clients. the whole screen. The applications make use of the functions of Open Let’s examine a case of using presentation files in Office/Star Office, and collaborate between the Master collaboration, such as Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt) or and Participant clients so that they share the same Open Office/Star Office Impress (.sxi) files. Each slide in presentation slide display. a presentation file is different and the content of a whole On the hosts of both the master and the participating screen needs to update. In this case, the disadvantages of clients, one should have installed Open Office/Star Office Shared Display behave to the worst. suite or just the Impress application, and should deploy or To solve this problem, a competent collaboration download beforehand copies of presentation files to be in model is meant to take place and play an important role. a lecture. The Impress presentation files are deployed in We believe a “lightweight” model, Shared Event consistent directories between the hosts of the master and Model, will work efficiently and gracefully. the participating clients. The idea is to catch event messages in the driving side Thus, the structure makes it possible to collaborate (let’s call it Master Client) of collaboration during a between the clients by communicating only text messages. presentation session, send them through common message The master client captures events like “file opened”, brokers to the other accepting side (Participating Clients “slide changed” during a session of a lecture, translates or Participants), and render the slide displays over there. them into text messages and sends the messages to the The event messages are short text strings, as “Presentation participating clients through Narada message broker. The Open”, “Slide Change”, etc. participating clients then render the show of the lecture The presentation files are deployed or downloaded to according to the directions of the received messages. This same directories on the hosts of both the Master and way, they work synchronously in collaboration. Participating clients before a session begins. This way, the This is illustrated in Figure 1. collaborative applications can locate, open and navigate through them. This model overcomes the disadvantages of Shared NaradaBrokering Message Service Display, and therefore has these advantages: • It is fast and efficient, because the small text string messages greatly reduce the network traffic, and because it makes full use of the computing power of both sides. • It gives consistent and smooth feelings of 0 1 2 N presentations. The size of the messages are small and approximately equal, so the time Master Client Participating Clients for transferring them should remain in a relatively constant range, just as mentioned in Figure 1. The collaboration between the Master client the paper “The Rule of the Millisecond.”[8] and the Participating clients via the NaradaBrokering At the same time, because this model makes use of Message Service modern common message brokers, it shares the advantages of the brokers such as tolerance and quality of service. It also contributes to Peer-to-Peer Grids 4. New Concept for Collaboration computing [9, 10, and 11]. Collaboration like web conference, distance education Some features in Open Office/Star Office are meant to and e-learning is a trend in today’s information revolution, be elegant for universal programming and the Web. They and the usage of presentation files accounts for a include Universal Network Object (UNO) technology, considerable proportion in all the visual aids. So, Shared diverse programming environment, fine-grained Event model is playing and will play an important role Application Programming Interfaces (API), and Frame- and show its power. Controller-Model Paradigm. They form a new concept for modern programming, and global Collaboration [12]. 3. Collaboration Structure 4.1 Universal Network Object In the collaborative Impress applications, one type is of Master client, and the other is of Participating client, or UNO is a component technology that is designed for Participant. Both of the client types cooperate with a universal programming and application. Components in common message broker, Narada Message Broker, as the UNO can interact with each other across programming languages, component technologies, computer platforms, Office is neat, efficient and secure. As an instance, it has and networks. very similar methods as COM/DCOM for connecting UNO works with programming languages such as C++, objects, like Java, Java Script, Visual Basic, VBScript, and Delphi. queryInterface(), UNO is the base component technology for Open addRef(), Office/Star Office; it can also cooperate with other deleteRef(), component technologies like Java Beans and Microsoft … COM/DCOM [13]. UNO is available on UNIX, Linux People who are familiar with COM/DCOM technology and Windows platforms, thus has the features of will feel comfortable in coordinating Open Office objects availability and popularity. UNO makes it possible that in developing and using its functionality, yet take all the components are able to collaborate through networks. In a advantages of Java language, such as its features for the word, just as its name implies, UNO enables objects to Web and Internet. function well across networks, and makes universal programming and