Collaborative Features

Barry Norton

February 2015

Schedule

• In previous workshops:– Dominic has presented a project overview

– Barry has given a technical overview of search features

– Alan has provided some intuition of what search between concepts means

• In this presentation we will cover some of the early features for collaboration

• In future workshops we will cover:– Data Annotation (March)

– Image Annotation

– Forum & Workflow (advanced collaborative features)

Project Update

• Previously we introduced: – Sarah Mengler (RA)

– Alan Outten (UI/UX)

• We are now joined by:– Chris Dijkshoorn (Placement from VUA)

• Next week we hope to be joined by:– Daniela Butano (Lead Developer)

• As suppliers we are about to start our second contract with metaphacts:– Peter Haase (Architect)

– Artem Kozlov (Developer)

Background:

Information Workbench

• Wiki, like Wikipedia (Media Wiki) allows:

– pages to be written in simple ‘mark-down’

– collaborative editing

• Plus visualisation and interaction via ‘widgets’:

Background:

Rijkstudio Sets

• User-defined collections

• Focussed on images/image regions

• Sharable:

Background:

Spotify Playlists

• User-defined lists of tracks

• Can be shared, often used for collaboration and

(it’s not a stretch to say) back up articles:

Intuition

• In Spotify playlists are just lists of tracks

(ignoring even albums)

– If one were researching and communicating about

music, one would want to collect and share:

• tracks, albums, artists, labels, etc.

• In Rijkstudio sets are just images or image

regions

– If one were researching and communicating about

cultural heritage, one would want to collect and share:

• people, places, events, materials, techniques, etc.

RS Search and Sets

• The new UI design for search, informed by the last workshop, produced by Alan and narrated by Dominic are now available:

http://www.researchspace.org/home/project-information/design

http://youtu.be/VUGMlDc9B5w

RS Search and Sets (cntd.)

• In last workshop we gave intuition how one

search (e.g. for objects) can be used to start a

new search (e.g. for people):

RS Search and Sets (cntd.)

• In last workshop we gave intuition how one

search (e.g. for objects) can be used to start a

new search (e.g. for people):

RS Search and Sets (cntd.)

• However, we actually plan to offer four options in

choosing search terms:

Arbitrary object by

autocomplete

RS Search and Sets (cntd.)

• However, we actually plan to offer four options in

choosing search terms:

Arbitrary object by

autocomplete

Existing search

yielding objects

RS Search and Sets (cntd.)

• However, we actually plan to offer four options in

choosing search terms:

Arbitrary object by

autocomplete

Objects already

visited and copied

to clipboard

Existing search

yielding objects

RS Search and Sets (cntd.)

• However, we actually plan to offer four options in

choosing search terms:

Arbitrary object by

autocomplete

Objects already

visited and copied

to clipboard

{User-defined

sets/collections of

objects

Existing search

yielding objects

RS Search and Sets (cntd.)

• Furthermore, we plan to allow users to build up

sets/collections from search results:

RS Search and Sets (cntd.)

• Furthermore, we plan to allow users to build up

sets/collections from search results:

Copy individual

result to clipboard

RS Search and Sets (cntd.)

• Furthermore, we plan to allow users to build up

sets/collections from search results:

Copy individual

result to clipboard

Create new

set/collection with

individual result as

first member

RS Search and Sets (cntd.)

• Furthermore, we plan to allow users to build up

sets/collections from search results:

Copy individual

result to clipboard

Create new

set/collection with

individual result as

first member

Add individual

result to existing

set/collection

RS Search and Sets (cntd.)

• Furthermore, we plan to allow users to build up

sets/collections from search results:

Copy individual

result to clipboard

Create new

set/collection with

individual result as

first member

Add individual

result to existing

set/collection

Create new

set/collection with

all results

Motivation

• I have from Richard Parkinson and Malcolm Mosher respective manuscripts that list objects:

– in an endnote to the manuscript source (i.e. not published)

– distributed across footnotes

• Potential advances:

– manage these collections during research;

– aid collaborative research;

– ease publication of linked (reproducable) results.

More later, but first some questions…

Questions

• We’ve used both the terms

– ‘set’ –• consistent with Rijkstudio,

• (for better and worse) mathematically valid;

– ‘collection’ –• possibly more intuitive,

• potentially ambiguous wrt museum collections;

• less intuitive for sets of, e.g., events.

• Perhaps ‘user-defined collection’? Alternatives?

Questions (cntd.)

• There’s a subtle difference between:

– saved search definition –

• re-runs search, perhaps as part of a larger search;

– saved search results –

• never change (even if subject data does),

• can be manipulated (explicitly add or remove

members).

• Is this too confusing? Useful?

Questions (cntd.)

• One can imagine (as a technologist) making sets more structured

– e.g. hierarchical:• define a set of Naukratis objects,

• define a subset of BM Naukratis objects,

• define a different subset of religiously-themed Naukratis objects.

• Is this over-complicated? Would users be happy with such sets without formal relationships between them?

Clipboard vs. Sets vs. Pages

• Sets (/Collections) are deliberately defined as homogenous

– e.g. an object set can only have objects added

• Sometimes one might want to keep track of a collection of entities

– e.g. a set of places, and the objects found there, and their original owners

• The clipboard will be a heterogenousassembly of copied entities (i.e. not just one entry – cf. Microsoft Office)

We’ll come back to this in next workshop on Data Annotation….

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipboard_manager

Clipboard vs. Pages

• We had considered ‘shared clipboards’

• The Information Workbench platform

however motivates different approach:

– The platform will provide a page per object,

person, place, event, etc.

– Search results (later forum posts, textual

annotations), etc. themselves become pages

– As a Wiki, it’s natural that users can make new

pages

User-Defined Pages

• User-defined pages:

– allow simple authoring of text in ‘mark-down’;

– could be aided further with a WYSWYG editor (with buttons for formatting, rather than mark-down);

– would be a target for pasting from clipboard (objects, places, etc. also image/regions and later beliefs and arguments);

– naturally become a target for clipboard copying.

User-Defined Pages

• Although speculative we could even view pages as collaborative ‘proto-publications’:

– attach argument and belief (see next workshop) into larger discussions;

– typed links (so, instead of just pasting you specify whether this supports your narrative, whether you’re contradicting it, etc.);

– draft sections of papers;

– tie together and automate article publication with data publication.