The need for computer supported collaboration has grown over the last years and made collaboration processes an important factor within organizations. This trend has resulted in the development of a variety of tools and technologies to support the various forms of collaboration. Many collaborative processes, e.g. strategy building, scenario analysis, root cause analysis and requirements engineering, require various collaboration support tools. Within these synchronous collaborative applications to create, evaluate, elaborate, discuss, and revise graphical models, e.g. data flow, fishbone and brainstorming diagrams, play an important role. Currently, the necessary tools are not integrated and flexible enough to support such processes. In this paper, we introduce a synchronous collaborative brainstorming diagram editor that is integrated in a flexible group support system. By this our approach goes beyond the current state of the art as we can be seamlessly integrated with other collaboration support tools such as textbased brainstorming, voting, etc.
Working practices had an important growth over the years, especially on group
works - a group of people engaged in the execution of several objectives of a
common task
Many collaborative processes, e.g. strategy building, scenario analysis, root
cause analysis and requirements engineering, require various collaboration
support tools. Within synchronous collaborative applications to create, evaluate,
elaborate and revise graphical models by groups, e.g. data flow diagrams, work
structure breakdowns and fishbone diagrams. Currently, there is lake of support
on GSS for such processes. GSS must therefore offer users collaborative
environments where they can interact
In this paper we present a Collaborative Line-and-Symbol Diagramming
Component – CLSD Component which offers a collaborative environment to
manage graphical models and thereby their related collaborative processes. To
achieve such a collaborative environment we have been concerned with
awareness that as claimed by Dourish and Bellotti (1992) is defined as an
understanding of others activities, which provides a context for your own activity.
According to
In the remaining of this paper, we define a set of concepts required within GSS and for Collaboration purpose. After that, we present the requirement analysis giving a scenario of collaborative processes and thereby the set of requirements. In the next chapters the architecture, features and modeling of the CLSD Component are addressed. Before concluding this paper, we fully explain the approach used to implement the CLSD Component.
A Group Support Systems - GSS consists on a suite of tools for focusing and
structuring discussion, while it reduces the cognitive costs of communication and
information access among group members making a joint cognitive effort towards
a common goal
In the following we elaborate on the requirements that a GSS system has to fulfill allowing collaboration engineers to configure synchronous collaborative applications that actually fit specific collaborative processes, such as strategy building, scenario analysis, root cause analysis and requirements engineering. To illustrate these requirements we present a scenario of a collaborative strategy building process that uses collaborative diagramming and other collaborative applications, e.g. a text-based brainstorming. Two activities that can be considered in this scenario are: 1- a text-based brainstorming for strategy building; 2- a diagram-based brainstorming to organize, connect and manage strategies based on the data gathered in the previous activity (Figure 2).
In the above scenario, we have to support collaboration engineers in (R1)
designing collaborative processes, such as strategy building, root cause analysis,
and (R2) design suitable collaboration support. For that the GSS needs to support
(R3) the integration of components that support collaborative processes, by
allowing re-using of existing components
The list of requirements is based on the analysis of other existing Diagram Software, such as Banxia1, Smart Ideas2 and Ext Designer3. In this case, the requirements address the interaction that Collaborative Diagramming has to provide to groups while they participate in collaborative environments. It must be possible for group members to (R6.1) insert, import (text-based) and manage ideas into a diagram-based format, like our previous strategy building scenario. Following, ideas are (R6.2) diagram-based organized (clusters and color manager) and (R6.3) connect arrows (connect ideas through arrows). Lastly, group members can unintentionally provoke data conflicts between contributions and therefore it is required to provide (R6.4) feedthrough (Dix A., et al, 1993) context awareness with the scope (who has been doing what) of other members’ activities, consequential communication (Segal L., 1995) - data with their information and the resources that are nearby, and also (R6.5) trigged locking mechanisms when updates occur.
According to Ana B. Pelegrina, et al, 2010 there are GSS systems addressing
some of the requirements described above, however for our approach we have
chosen a GSS called Action Centers because it addresses all of the above
requirements and it fits with our purpose. Two parts form Action Centers: a
CACE editor and a Process Support System (PSS). The CACE editor is a tool to
design an effective work practice by defining the content and sequence of
collaborative activities that are packaged into the PSS
The Action Center therefore does not have any tools, as alternative these tools are plugged into the Action Center as components to simply make them available in the running system. So, the Action Center supports the design of collaborative applications (R1), and allows components (as our CLSD Component) to be assembled by Collaboration Engineers into the CACE editor (R2). These components have access to shared data (R4), are configurable (R3) and can be (re)-designed by other Collaboration Engineers. They usually consist of a user 1 Banxia (Decision Explorer) is a proven tool for managing software issues. Structure and analyse of qualitative information. More information can be found in http://www.banxia.com/dexplore/. 2 Smart Ideas concept-mapping software brings the power of visual learning to classrooms, through interactive white boards. More information can be found in http://smarttech.com/. 3 Ext Gui Designer is a graphical user interface builder for web applications. Developed by Sierk Hoeksma. More information can be found in http://www.projectspace.nl/. interface for displaying data shared in a group, some input mechanism, and business logic.
Furthermore, the Action Center provides two Javascript objects to manage data
and their updates – ActionCenterListener, and an ActionCentersAPI (R5) that
offers services to create and support the development of collaborative
components. Additionally, the data is managed through dynamic communication
channels using CometD4 to a Universal Data Model
Action Center does not address all requirements needed for Collaborative Diagramming. For that purpose, we implemented our (R6) CLSD Component that consists of an XML wrapper and an implementation in JavaScript with Ext JS5 and an extended library called Joint JS6. The JointJS library is used for (R6.1, R6.2 and R6.3) creating diagrams that can be fully interactive for both implementing a diagramming tool (as our CLSD Component) as well as simply for publishing diagrams.
The CLSD Component is a web-based application that supports the cooperation of group participants towards group work. For example, it might support the group in a text-based or a diagram-based brainstorming. Figure 1 shows the overall architecture of our approach. 4 The Dojo foundation. Cometd. More information can be found in http://cometd.org/. 5 Ext JS is a javascript framework for developers. More information can be found in http://www.sencha.com/. 6 Joint JS is a JavaScript library developed by David Durman, More information can be found in http://www.jointjs.com/.
The Diagram Manager is the core manager of our CLSD Component, it is
responsible for all processes of input and output and their distribution through the
overall system, and for all connections inside the Diagram and between the
Action Centers and the Diagram. Additionally, it connects with the Canvas
Manager that is the bridge between the core manager of our system and the user
Figure 2. The User Interface (UI) influences its degree of acceptance since it
allows communication, collaboration and coordination activities among several
users interacting with the system
Finally, another feature developed was the XML Serialization Manager, which is an output file that allows users to visualize their diagrams out of the Action Center.
Action Center in combination with CLSD allows us to support various different processes that require different forms of collaboration. Taking on consideration our previous scenario we take a closer look to the strategy building processes. Data is gathered from a text-based brainstorming (Outliner Component – First Activity) and stored into the UDM – Universal Data Model in Action Centers. The union of the Outliner Component with the CLSD Component (Second Activity) creates an Action Center, where the data, which is selected (identified) based on their relationship types and attributes by the Action Centers, is forward fetched (import) from the UDM and loaded (insert) to the CLSD Component. CLSD transforms it into a diagram-based format where group members can further manage and organize data as collaborative processes. Each single user controls the selection and manipulation of data and until he or she is finished no one else can have access to manipulate that specific data. For that purpose at each moment (through notification mechanisms) concepts shows a locking icon and a scope of action (feedthrough) of the user who is manipulating it.
Working practices can become even more productive when supported by GSS.
They are becoming widely used thanks to the improvement of network
infrastructure, communications, and development tools
In this article, we presented a Collaborative Line-and-Symbol Diagramming Component – CLSD Component assembled in a CACE editor to address the above challenges. A collaboration support tool that consists of a XML wrapper and an implementation for creating diagrams that can be fully interactive for both implementing a diagram-based brainstorming session to manage collaborative processes as well as simply for publishing diagrams. Furthermore, group members can insert, import (text-based) and manage ideas into a diagram-based format through a collaborative environment provided by the GSS system.
In future work, we will observe how practitioners and experts interact with our
CLSD Component. We want to use the results to improve the flexibility and
usability
The authors would like to acknowledge to all colleagues from University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro - UTAD and Technological University of Delft TU Delft that contribute to the development of our Collaborative Line-andSymbol Diagramming Component.
This work has been partially supported by the FP7 EU Large-scale Integrating Project SMART VORTEX (Scalable Semantic Product Data Stream Management for Collaboration and Decision Making in Engineering) co-financed by the European Union. For more details, visit http://www.smartvortex.eu/
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