Cooperative Work with Multimedia

ISBN-13: 9783540583158 / Angielski / Miękka / 1994 / 291 str.

Malcolm K. Crowe

Opis

The purpose of this book is to present a project from the ESPRIT Specific Programme of European Research and Development in Information Technology, project number 6310, known as MMTCA: Multimedia Toolbox for Cooperative Applications. This project ran from 1992 to 1994, and concluded with a product which is probably of great usefulness to all business organisations. MMTCA enables managers to set up arrangements or to delegate tasks involving cooperation between people in different places using standard Windows software tools for what-you-see-is-what-I-see (wySIWIS) cooperation. MMTCA is the only product that delivers all of these points. Several trends in 1994 lead the authors to believe that MMTCA will become more important over the coming months: - the continuing popularity of personal computers and Microsoft's Windows operating system, - the growing importance of computer-supported cooperative work, and - the availability of powerful networks and satellites for wide-area communica- tions. In MMTCA it is not necessary for the manager to know anything about com- puter programming, but merely to have a user's working knowledge of the appli- cation software (spreadsheets etc.) that is used in his office. The MMTCA approach envisages two stages where MMTCA's facilities are used: - by the manager: setting up or organising work to be done, - by the participants: carrying out the resulting tasks.

Spis treści

1 Computer Supported Cooperative Work and MMTCA.- 1. Cooperative Work.- 1.1 Business Organisations and Group Work.- 1.2 Group Processes.- 1.3 Availability of Technology.- 1.4 Coordination and Group Process.- 1.5 Workflow.- 1.6 Desktop Conferencing Systems.- 1.7 Information Sharing in Cooperative Work.- 1.8 Use of Existing Applications and Distributing Documents.- 1.9 Groupware Systems.- 2. Reflections on Requirements.- 2.1 What Cooperation is to be Supported?.- 2.2 Communicate, Cooperate, Coordinate.- 2.3 Workflow Management Software.- 2.4 An example: Cooperative Engineering Design.- 2.5 Cooperative Interaction.- 2.6 Shared-Input versus Shared-Output.- 2.7 Lightweight or Heavyweight Cooperation?.- 2.8 Conference Awareness.- 3. The MMTCA Approach.- 3.1 Organising Work to be Done.- 3.2 The Procedure Task Action Model.- 3.3 MMTCA Architecture.- 3.4 User Tools and Services.- 3.5 Carrying out the Tasks.- 3.6 Procedures and Metadocuments.- 3.7 Tool Integration.- 2: Using MMTCA.- 4. Organising work to be done.- 4.1 Authorising MMTCA Users.- 4.2 Procedure Design.- 4.3 The Metadocument Browser.- 4.4 Tool Profile Editor.- 5. Carrying out the tasks.- 5.1 Logging in to MMTCA.- 5.2 Intray.- 5.3 Registering for a Cooperative Session.- 5.4 Participating in a Cooperative Session.- 5.5 Floor Passing in a Cooperative Session.- 5.6 Metadocument Tray.- 5.7 Procedure Tray.- 5.8 User Tray.- 5.9 Session Tray.- 5.10 External Services.- 5.11 Ready-To-Run Cooperative Session Setting.- 5.12 Customising the Environment.- 5.13 Logout Process.- 6. Case study: Banking.- 6.1 The Pilot Hardware Architecture.- 6.2 Existing System for Mortgage Credit.- 6.3 Prototype Application.- 7. Case study: Shipping.- 7.1 The Shipping Application Environment.- 7.2 Technology Background.- 7.3 Application Background.- 7.4 Scenario and Workflow.- 7.5 The User Interface.- 8. Case study: Computer Integrated Manufacturing.- 8.1 Elements of the CIM Application Scenario.- 8.2 Mechanical Parts Design.- 8.3 Quality/Production Review.- 8.4 Interaction between Designers, Materials Engineer and Purchasing Officer.- 8.5 CAD Training.- 3: A Technical Introduction.- 9. MMTCA Architecture.- 9.1 MMTCA Kernel.- 9.2 The Network Manager.- 9.3 Organising Work to be Done.- 9.4 Carrying out the Tasks.- 10. MMTCA Installation.- 10.1. Node Installation.- 10.2 Server Installation.- 10.3 Videoconference.- 11. The MMTCA Database.- 11.1 MMTCA Database Overview.- 11.2 Procedure definition (PD) tables description.- 11.3 Metadocument (MD) tables description.- 11.4 Administration (ADM) tables description.- 11.5 Concepts of Operation.- 11.6 Task Script Executor.- 11.7 Event management.- 11.8 Cooperative Session Control.- 12. Application Program Interface.- 12.1 Server Connection and Login Functions.- 12.2 Workflow Functions.- 12.3 Cooperative Session Functions.- 12.4 Database Access Functions.- 12.5 File Transfer Functions.- 12.6 Server Messaging Functions.- 12.7 DDE Commands.- 12.8 MMTCA API Examples.- 12.9 Structures.- References.