- Part 4

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4. Collaboration Tools

Web based collaborative engineering is based on tools to overcome the distribution of the involved partners in time and location. Modern information and communication technology offer a wide bandwidth of such innovative tools besides conventional tools. Main classes of tools for Web based collaborative engineering are summarized in the following sections.

4.1 Conventional Tools

Conventional tools use the available material and electronic transport and communication channels. They are applied and well-tried over a long time in academia and practice. Examples for such conventional tools are:

• mail
• phone
• fax
• meeting (face-to-face)

Mail enables an efficient asynchronous transport of material based objects all over the world based on traffic systems like aviation, railway, trucks and finally the postman. In high tech countries the mail systems are optimized to ensure a transport time for letters and parcels within 24 hours. Phone enables a synchronous audio communication between two partners and a telephone conference with several partners. Mobile phone provides this service independent from a special location. Fax offers the opportunity to exchange nearly synchronous written information by fax machines with specified protocols on phone network systems. Face-to-face meetings support all levels of collaboration between the present partners. Pre-requisite of a face-to-face meeting is the presence of the meeting partners at the same time at the same location - this requires coordination in the time schedule and travel effort in case of distributed partners.

Table 1: Conventional Tools

4.2 Web based Tools

Web technology enable the development and application of innovative net based tools for collaboration. These tools support nearly all tasks for collaborative engineering over distance and over time shifts. They are mostly part of systems for 'computer supported cooperative work' (CSCW) also called 'groupware'. Tools can be used for:

• information exchange
• information sharing
• conferencing
• reporting management tools (documents, coordination, work-flow management)

General properties of these tools are described in some details in the following sections.

4.2.1 Information Exchange Tools

The World Wide Web is a distributed information system and supports information exchange for communication. Information exchange is a relationship between at least two collaboration partners: information sender and information receiver. In case of an uni-directional information exchange the information is sent from the sender to the receiver without response. In case of a bi-directional information exchange sender and receiver are changing their roles for a feedback. Sender and receiver can be one, a selected or an open number of persons (cardinal number of relationship). Typical examples for information exchange tools in the Internet are:

• email
• mailing list
• newsgroup
• chat rooms

Email is a one-directional asynchronous communication between two persons. Email can contain text and attach each kind of computer based multi-media information presentation. Email reply enables a bi-directional communication. Mailing lists enable the same kind of information exchange but for a selected number of receivers. Newsgroups are mail archives readable and writable for several partners based on the email technology. They offer one-directional communication for selected communication members or open communities. Chat rooms are bi-directional synchronous communication tools for selected or open communities based on text exchange.

Table 2: Classification of Information Exchange Tools

4.2.2 Information Sharing Tools

The Internet and the World Wide Web offer the innovative feature to set up, store and manage common information bases in networks. This feature allows to share information in networks independent from individual information on local computers. Information sharing is a relationship between at least two collaboration partners to share common information in common information bases. Access to these bases is managed by different levels for access and security to read, write, extend and delete information. Typical Web based tools for information sharing are:

• file server
• document server
• newsgroup
• bulletin board
• white board
• application sharing

File servers are based on the ftp and NFS protocol and enable the sharing of files in a hierarchical file system independent of the semantic content of these files. They can be used in hydroengineering to share all kinds of project relevant computer based information, esp. data files, CAD drawings and traditional word processing documents as well as software products.

Document servers provide the opportunity to share Web based documents. Each Web server in the Internet is a document server. Document management tools support the administration and retrieval of documents. Document servers and document management tools can be used in an engineering project to share all information represented in Web based documents. Based on the integrated approach of interactive multi-media Web based documents for presentation, visualization, analysis and documentation document server are the core of a Web based project platform in engineering.

Newsgroups are efficient tools to share emails under an hierarchical structure. They are useful as communication record systems of email communication. Newsgroup servers collect and manage the emails of the partners and provide them on demand. All communication partners can get access to this message system.

A bulletin board provides a sequential list of small messages. They can be used to inform a group of collaboration partners about new events or available resources and to record the progress of the project by protocols. Contrary to newsgroups bulletin boards are mostly managed editorial by a responsible person e.g. the project manager.

A white board can be used to share graphical and textual sketches in a window. All partners have the same window content on their screen. Simple text editor and graphic drawing tools provides functionality for simultaneous joint editing on the white board.

Application sharing is based on the transmission of window content and control actions (mouse, keybaord) over net. This tools enable partners at different locations to share the user interface of an application running on the computer of one partner. All partners have the same window content on their screen, one partner has the control on the user interface. This allows the remote control of software applications without any special software installations on the local computer.

Table 3: Classification of Information Sharing Tools

4.2.3 Conferencing Tools

Conferencing supports meetings of persons to discuss problems in a complex process between the different partners with roles and rules. Traditional conferencing is a matter of face-to-face meetings. The Internet and the World Wide Web offer an alternative by tele and video conferencing. Substantial difference between traditional face-to-face meeting and new Web based tele-meeting is the spatial distribution of the participants:

• face-to-face conferencing: same location, same time
• Web based conferencing: different location, same time

Tele-conferencing in the World Wide Web or via tele-communication networks (Phone, ISDN, ADSL) is an efficient support tool for personal online communication which demands audio and video transmission between communication partners. The audio/video transmission is not a complete replacement for face-to-face meeting with a multi level communication (e.g. mimic and gestic expressions).

Conference Management

Leading of a tele-meeting and voting during a meeting for agreements is different and needs adapted meeting techniques. Examples for the leading of a tele-meeting are:

• chauffeur model
• interactive model

The chauffeur coordinates the activities in the meeting and has exclusive information access rights. He coordinates the member contributions and has the complete control over the conference. The other meeting partners have reduced rights, e.g. they can only read information. This is more strict comparable to face-to-face meetings with interruptions and special atmospheres.

The interactive model is more simple. All meeting partners have the same rights. This can easily leads to concurrent activities ('window war', 'scroll war') using the principle of 'What You See Is What I See' (WYSIWIS). Strict WYSIWIS means all conference members are getting the same presentation with absolutely the same context in public windows. Scroll war can arise, when one user wants to read a document part and holds the corresponding window scrollbar but another user tries to scroll at the same time to read other parts. Window war can arise, when two users try to put two different windows into the foreground of the common conferencing environment. Weak WYSIWIS introduces private and public windows to overcome this situation. The joint work is only done in public windows, each user has his own private windows. On the other hand, the user has to decide in which window area (public or private) he acts. The single common cursor for the common working environment is extended by one or more cursor for the private working environment. The user interface becomes more complex comparable with the strict WYSIWIS conferencing.

Voting Methods

Examples for voting methods during tele-meetings are the majority voting, weighted majority voting, multi-dimensional voting and dynamic voting mechanism. For majority voting the majority of the meeting partner has to vote for a decision. Weighted majority voting uses the same mechanisms but with different weights for the more and less important voters. Small voting groups may be established by assigning zero weights to decrease communication effort. Multi-dimensional voting is based on voting weights and quorums defined in several 'dimensions' (voting matrix). These enable pro-decisions to be gained in a specific number of multi-criteria decisions. Dynamic voting uses voting weights and quorums which may be dynamically re-assigned and enables decision e.g. in partitioned networks (only some voting partners are available).

Conferencing Systems

Examples for conferencing systems for the World Wide Web are:

• NetMeeting (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/netmeeting)
• CU-Seeme (http://www.cuseeme.com)
• MBone based systems (http://www.mbone.com)

These systems are composed by tools for audio and video transmission, text based chat, graphic based whiteboard, application sharing and session management. Application sharing is an important feature for distance learning in education and training as well as for discussion between experts based on special software application. Most video conferencing systems support audio/video transmission and application sharing only between two partners. This will be overcome by time.

4.2.4 Reporting Tools

Reporting is traditionally a matter of text processing with integrated functionalities for graphics and table based calculation by single persons. These documents are prepared by conventional documentation systems and mostly printed on paper. Exchange of these documents can be realized by file server, when all partners use the same documentation system or system compatible document formats. Examples for conventional documentations systems are StarOffice of Microsoft Office.

Web based documents change this world towards interactive multi-media technical documents with more complex functionality for authoring and reading. Section # deals with this new type of documentation for technical reports. Efficient tools for reporting of Web based documents are still not available but basic tools like HTML editors, generators and converters (see section #) allow the application of Web based documents with some more effort today.

Web based documents are platform independent and therefore easy to handle in a heterogeneous and distributed collaboration environment. The exchange of Web based documents can be performed by information exchange tools like email. Document sharing is supported by Web server for HTML based documents.

4.2.5 Management Tools

Project management demands on several different management topics such as document management, time management for coordination, work-flow management and resource managements.

Document management systems support the storage, archiving, classification and retrieval of documents. They are based on back-up file systems and meta information systems. The back-up file systems realized the physical storage of the documents. A simple example is the hierarchical file system of Window and Unix operations systems. Meta information systems are used for classification and retrieval. Each document got an entry including all related attributes meta information such as author, date, title, type, format, version, keywords, related engineering project. These meta information can be used to search documents by a set of logical operation on the attributes.

Time management can be realized in the World Wide Web by calendar functionality. Several tools provide time schedule tables for event definition such as meetings and deadlines in combination with email reminder. A simple time schedule management in educational projects can be realized by shared HTML files including time tables. The same solution (tables in shared HTML files) can be used in small projects for resource management.

Standard work-flow management tools support predefined working processes but have to be adapted for the flexible working processes in civil and hydro-engineering projects. This is still a domain of research and development activities. Today there are a lot of tools for work-flow management, but they are mostly not developed as real Web based application. Work-flow management is based on a work-flow process model, which defines all activities, their relations and the corresponding resources. Tools support the design and follow of the working process in a project. Example for a typical work-flow management tool is MSProject with an integrated HTML converter to present the project plans in the World Wide Web. A more simple but maybe efficient way for educational exercises is to set up work plan tables in shared HTML files on a Web server.

For larger projects in practice we recommend the application of complex group ware systems (such as lotus notes, BSCW) which provides integrated document, time, resource and work-flow management. The benefits of these functionalities can be only achieved by a careful design of the work plan and work-flow of the projects. This effort is out of the scope of a one week exercise in education.

© FM April 2001

Preface | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4