[unrev-II] Bootstrap Collaborative Concept Mapping Space

From: Gil Regev (gil.regev@epfl.ch)
Date: Thu Jul 27 2000 - 08:26:29 PDT

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    As promised at the June 15 meeting at SRI, I created a Bootstrap discussion
    space with my collaborative concept mapping applet. It is available at
    http://icapc4.epfl.ch/bootstrap. You can get in with following login and
    password:
    login: Bootstrap
    password: Bootstrap

    If you find that this is useful and want a personal account, pleas let me
    know.

    This applet is in effect a collaborative space for creating concept maps
    that are connected with an underlying information space. Content such as
    documents, Web pages or simple text can be attached to any concept and
    relationship. There's a set of snychronous and asynchronous tools to help
    with the awareness of others and with collaboration. For instance, concepts
    moved by another user will move on your screen with a slight delay, you will
    see a message informing you of who moved the concept and when. Small post-it
    notes, called comments, can be attached to any concept and any user can
    contribute to them in the form of a lasting chat. Concepts can be private or
    public and you can create multiple spaces where you can create maps from
    scratch.

    All the concepts, relationships, content etc. are stored in a relational
    database which resides in a server in my office so even if the client applet
    stops responding you don't lose any data. The applet communicates with the
    server through http requests and XML which go through most corporate
    firewalls.

    The best platform to run the applet on is unfortunately MS-Windows (95, 98,
    NT) even though it is pure Java. As far as my testing goes, the Java support
    on Mac and Unix are not as good. The Apple virtual machine hangs very
    easily. Netscape on the Mac doesn't have AWT 1.1 and won't run the applet.
    Netscape on Unix doesn't show all the buttons in the applet window...

    Knoware is an on-going project and we can not garantee the quality of
    service. Sometime the server dies and we need to restart it and sometimes we
    make updates to the software which create disruptions as well.
    I'll be more than happy to get your feedback on this tool.

    Gil

    ****************************************************************
    Gil Regev
    Institute for computer Communications and Applications
    Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL-ICA)
    CH-1015 Lausanne, SWITZERLAND
    email: gil.regev@epfl.ch
    Web: http://icawww.epfl.ch
    Phone: +41-21-693-6790
    Fax: +41-21-693-6610
    Portable: (078) 637-5116
    ****************************************************************



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