Component Description CMU Note-Taker Tools Human Computer Interaction Institute Carnegie Mellon University Prepared by

1. Component Description CMU Note-Taker Tools Human Computer Interaction InstituteCarnegie Mellon University Prepared by: Bill Scherlis <scherlis@cs.cmu.edu> March 26, 1999

2. 1 - Overview • Note-Taker tools will: • Support structured synchronous and asynchronous collaborative note-taking by multiple people. • Directly integrate with presentation tools (PowerPoint), email (IMAP-based systems), shared file areas, sensor inputs, etc. • Provide a range of asynchronous collaborative services: • Information awareness and update • Messaging and annotation • Task-specific shared information structures • Structural differencing • Coordination and concurrency control • Use multimedia inputs for annotation, messaging, and control • Point, speak, request The Note-Taker technology baseline was initially developed in the CSpace project in the ITO/IC&V program.

3. Note-Taker builds on two ideas: Fabric: Representation for organizing collaborative information and linking it with external user-app objects. Fine-grain versioning Collaborative services Persistable Situated Events: Event architecture for linking object versions and replicas, and for maintaining consistency and awareness. Aggregation and filtering Logging and checkpoints 2 - Architecture Overview Assets Client Hosts Server(s) Serv MM designator Client-side controls&models PowerPoint Server Email Client-side controls&models PowerPoint Email Taskagenda Client-side controls& models COA table MM designator

4. 3 - Component Description • Asset — An information source/sink. • Examples: MS Office tools, task-specific note taking tools, email archives, shared file areas, sensor information streams, etc. • Generate situated events as state changes (e.g., in response to direct interaction by users) • Respond to request events from Note-Taker. • Client-Host — Maintain fabric models • Maintain local shadows/replicas of shared collaborative information. • Provide user-level interaction for Note-Taker services. • Provide view-maintenance services for visualization of models. • Server — Multicase event dispatch • Failure-robust

5. Asset API Assets manage complex structured objects Common event hierarchy Change, update, request, administrative, etc. Event API Transmission / wrapping beans-based events Event aggregation and filtering Messaging and annotation API Integrate with conventional IMAP-based email Integrate with multimedia sources/sinks Other message viewing mechanisms (e.g., map-situated) Model API Interact with versioned fabric model 4 - External Interfaces

6. 5 - Existing Software “Bridges” • Part 1 (Existing) - Assets include conventional commercial tools (MS Office, NTFS). • Part 2 (Functionality) - Asynchronous collaborative services for single-user commercial tools. Objects with memory of past states. • Part 3 (Protocol) - An event-based interaction using sites within assets to locate updates/changes and requests. Sites are named hierarchically (relative or absolute or with tags).

7. Part 1 (with other CPOF components) - LEIF: We expect that Note-Taker will interact directly with both LEIF Infobuses. We also intend to experiment with replacing the LEIF display model with a more semantically-rich model. MultiModal: We will use multi-modal inputs both to situate messages/annotations/commands in the information space and to provide their contents. Situating enables terseness, prioritization, structural browsing, etc. Part 2 (inputs) - Inputs are in the Note-Taker event format. The hierarchy of Note-Taker events can evolve according to needs. Part 3 (outputs) - Outputs can be either Note-Taker events or views of model structures. The API to the model structure can be evolved according to the needs of visualization components. 6 - Information Flow

8. Part 1 (interacting with other CPOF components) - Initial: CMU multi-modal components Potentially: Viewers: Visualization tools, directly or via LEIF. Assets: CPOF document types, directly or via LEIF. Parts 2, 3 (similarities and complementarities) - Note-Taker and LEIF: LEIF handles protocols and APIs in a way that can support Note-Taker. Note-Taker provides a wide range of services not present in LEIF: Collaborative services. Messaging and annotation. Structural differencing, versioning, and history. Semantically rich models. Persistence and name mgt. Distributed event processing 7 - Plug-n-play

9. 8 - Operating Environments and COTS Component Name Required Hardware Operating System Required COTS Language Any Java platform none Asset N/A Java Sun Java SDK. Win NT. Client Host Win NT device Windows NT Java Sun Java SDK. Win NT. Server Win NT device Windows NT Java Asset: PowerPoint MS Java & Sun Java Win NT, Office97, J++, Sun Java SDK Win NT device Windows NT Asset: Win NTFS C++, MS Java, Sun Java Win NT, Vis C++, J++, Sun Java SDK Win NT device Windows NT Asset: IMAP email Java Sun Java SDK Win NT device Windows NT Note: This applies to current and evolving Note-Taker components, not new multimedia components to be developed in CPOF/CMU or interfaces with components from other CPOF projects.

10. 9 - Hardware Platform Requirement • Windows NT device • 256 MB ram, 100MB disk (estimate, not including Office97)