Document version: 4
Date: June 14, 2007
Authors: Nathalie Van de Wiele (ePrep), Sandy El Helou (EPFL), Jan Mikáč (INRIA Rhône-Alpes), Irène Vatton (INRIA Rhône-Alpes), Vincent Quint (INRIA Rhône-Alpes), Michel Buffa (INRIA Sophia Antipolis)
The scenario described in this document proposes activities and uses of tools for the ePrep Community of Practice that is composed of teachers in “classes préparatoires aux grandes écoles” (CPGEs), professors and researchers of “grandes écoles” and universities, members of institutions, representatives of companies, geographically disseminated in France and French-speaking countries, all involved on a voluntary basis to conduct activities for the development of "classes préparatoires aux grandes écoles" through the use of ICT (CoP member list online, in French: www.eprep.org/Communaute/Annuaire.htm).
The remainder of this document is structured as follows. First of all, the needs of the community are described as well as the objectives of the scenario in response to these needs. Then, the section "methodology" presents the steps of the elaboration of the scenario in a participatory design perspective. In this, information regarding the involved parties from the community and from Palette in the elaboration of the present scenario as well as the time sequence of actions is provided. The section "Design and description of the scenario" describes the scenario itself and its different possible options. It also presents in summary the sequence of events of the scenario (in tables) and some comments on the use of Palette tools in the scenario. At the end, the conditions of participation (i.e. the conditions required for implementing the scenario by the community) are presented as well as the scenario validation procedures planned with the community. Finally, a further development, in response to a need that the ePrep CoP members will have in a soon future, is evoked.
The target audience is:
At the time when the
ePrep CoP is emerging from the ePrep community of interest which has grown
over the years (on a voluntary involvement of the members), a crucial need
has been identified: the ePrep CoP needs a new tool that will be used for all
its activities (“Activity of managing ePrep as a CoP” and
“Specific activities”). This tool should be a workspace to
share information, to improve cooperation, to retrieve archive content, and
should have awareness functionalities. This workspace should be structured
activity-per-activity, including non-moderated specific mailing-lists (with
structured email archives - at the time being, the ePrep CoP has not
identified a forum* as a short term need), specific space for documents
sharing and agendas for each activity, etc. Beyond this tool, other specific
tools have been identified as needs for specific activities.
*The Palette forum for the ePrep CoP is not concerned by this remark (this
forum is dedicated to exchanges between Palette researchers and ePrep CoP
members about the Palette tools invoked in the present scenario - see section 3).
2.1.1 Needs for the activity of developing ePrep as a CoP
The role of the coordinator of the ePrep CoP in developing the CoP is to:
In response to this organisation, the role of the members of the ePrep CoP is to collaborate inside the specific activities they are involved and to collaborate with the coordinator.
The workspace evoked above is the main need for this activity.
2.1.2 Needs for the specific activities of the ePrep CoP
The specific activities described below have been defined by the CoP members themselves, in relation with the coordinator of the ePrep CoP and after the advice of the ePrep Orientation Committee, chaired by the President of the Conférence des grandes écoles, and the ePrep Development Committee, chaired by the Director of the CNED Institute of Lyon . With time some new activities may be defined.
The aims of the present scenario towards addressing the needs of the ePrep CoP are:
The people involved in the production of the present scenario as well as the time sequence of events are as follows:
The next steps are described in the section 6 (Validation procedures).
The following diagram (Diagram 1) describes the actors of the ePrep CoP involved in the scenario using a Mot representation:
Diagram 1: actors of the ePrep CoP involved in the scenario
4.1.2 Services and functions offered by the Palette tools invoked in the scenario
The functions offered by e-Logbook that are invoked in this scenario are summarized below.
Note that other functions may be included after the validation of this scenario by the target audience (see section 1.2) and the validating Palette researcher.
SweetWiki is a new semantic Wiki engine, developed using semantic Web technologies.
SweetWiki implements the concept of "social tagging": using a WYSIWYG editor, the user can tag pages, pictures, add new tags just by typing them, etc. The semantic search engine Corese is then used transparently on these tags. If the user types a given tag in the tag search form, he/she will get all objects tagged with this tag or its sub-tags. The user will be proposed all the related tags that, in turn, link to other relevant documents.
SweetWiki also offers a folksonomy editor (the set of tags is called a "folksonomy"). Any user may "organize the tags".
SPARQL queries can be embedded in any page so as to provide dynamic content, for example all the pages about a given topic. The same mechanism is used for awareness: at the bottom of each page, a user can find the pages related to the tags he/she is interested in.
SweetWiki ontology defines the main concepts in a Wiki and can be queried at any time using SPARQL requests. The user can even embed SPARQL requests in the middle of a document and display the results in a table or any other presentation. Users are provided with a library of queries that they can use to include dynamic content in their pages.
SweetWiki works with two search engines: the Lucene search engine (à la google) as well as the Corese semantic search engine for semantic search.
Amaya is a Web editor, i.e. a tool used to create and update documents directly on the Web. Browsing features are seamlessly integrated with the editing and remote access features in a uniform environment. This follows the original vision of the Web as a space for collaboration and not just a one-way publishing medium.
Web documents are structured documents described in HTML and more recently in XHTML. XHTML defines a set of structured elements like divisions, headings, paragraphs, lists, list items, inline elements, tables, cells, etc. The presentation of Web documents exploits the document structure and it is clearly separated. With CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), the user may attach a set of presentation rules (colors, fonts, etc.) to a selected piece of its structured document.
Amaya includes all editing functionalities of a Word processing, but it also provides help to manage the document structure and its presentation. With Amaya, the user can easily insert, delete, copy, paste, and transform the XHTML structure of edited documents. A document generated by Amaya is always correct and is accessible by any Web browser.
Hypertext links are important elements on the Web. Amaya provides specific commands to create and manage these links, and it allows the user to work on several documents at a time to facilitate this management.
Amaya supports several of XML syntaxes. It allows users to browse and edit Web documents containing mathematical expressions based on MathML (a XML language to represent maths). This functionality is quite useful for some users in the educational domain. Amaya is also able to display scalable and animated graphics coded in SVG (a XML language to represent vectorial graphics).
Finally, Amaya includes a collaborative annotation mechanism. Annotations are external comments, notes, remarks that can be attached to any Web document or sub-part of document. This mechanism lets one add information about a document he/she cannot edit.
Palette version
With Amaya, it's possible to build a large variety of Web documents. Some are institutional pages, technical reports, slides shows; others are curriculum vitae, address books, agendas. All these kinds of Web documents have their specific conceptual components. By example, menus and events for institutional pages, chapters and sections for technical reports, slides for slides shows, etc. Today, document authors have to manage the mapping between these specific components and the current edited XHTML structure. This implies for document authors some XHTML expertise and a well known of the target document structure.
New Amaya version will be extended with the notion of templates. A template is a document with fixed contents and holes where the user can insert information. In some cases templates look like a form as those provided by content editors. A template defines the skeleton of the document, by example a slide show. It declares components that are specific to that document type. By example, a slide show template declares a slide component that generates a division with a class attribute "slide" and includes a heading followed by a list of items. At the same time, a template indicates where components must or may appear in the document, how many occurrences is mandatory or possible, etc. Often, a template comes with a complete set of presentation rules.
Once an expert has described a template and its presentation, a common user can quickly and easily generate a document instance belonging to this template. The document skeleton is automatically generated and the user has just to add personal information. In accordance with the template, components are proposed to the user to be inserted at the right position in the edited document instance. With that approach, Amaya becomes a customized document editor for the user.
LimSee3 is a multimedia authoring tool that proposes simple and efficient document editing through an extensive use of models (also called templates or patterns) and an adaptive user interface.
Basically, a LimSee3 document describes the logical, spatial and temporal relationships that exist among some set of media assets. These assets are referenced by, but not integrated into the document, so that they remain freely reusable. Furthermore, they can be local or distant.
LimSee3 puts a stress on the presentation logics rather than on its technical constraints. In order to be more than a mere collection of media assets, our documents define a hierarchical structure that reflects the meaning of the presentation. Structuring makes the authoring process more intuitive.
LimSee3 relies on a template mechanism which allows users to create and modify complex documents with minimal effort. A template can be seen as a structured “document-to-fill in”: some parts are provided and there is no need to worry about them, other parts are waiting for a user-supplied content. During the instantiation, the user is guided by the application.
Finally, LimSee3 offers a graphical user interface which can be customized with user preferences. Moreover, the user interface can adapt to a particular template, making it more natural to use.
4.1.3 Services and tools already used by the community
The subject of the scenario presented below is the following (real situation): the ePrep CoP is preparing the second ePrep thematic workshop to be held in Lyon on November 5 & 6, 2007, on the theme "the ePrep CoP: which tools for which projects?" (see www.eprep.org/thematic_workshops.htm#second). At this workshop, the coordinator of the ePrep CoP and each "thematic referent" (see section 4.1.1) will present a communication about the use of the Palette tools in their activities (activity of developing the ePrep CoP for the coordinator, specific activities for the "thematic referents").
The roles of the coordinator of the ePrep CoP are:
The roles of ePrep CoP members are:
4.2.2 Composition of the scenario for the ePrep CoP
The scenario for the ePrep CoP is composed of one general scenario and three specific scenarios:
The following diagram (Diagram 2) shows the links between the Palette tools in the general scenario for the ePrep CoP using a Mot representation:
Diagram 2: the Palette tools in the general scenario for the ePrep CoP
4.2.3 General scenario: the use of e-Logbook for the activity of developing ePrep as a CoP, linked to the use of SweetWiki, Amaya and LimSee3 for each specific activity
First, the coordinator of the ePrep CoP structures e-Logbook for the CoP and dynamically invites CoP members to join it; the members join e-Logbook and manage their user profiles and notification preferences. Then, while the members are working on their specific projects, uploading and downloading assets on e-Logbook, the coordinator follows-up the development of the CoP through the awareness functionalities of e-Logbook, taking herself part in these projects.
Diagram 3: static view of the workspace for the ePrep CoP in e-Logbook (status after steps 1 to 3 in the scenario)
The following diagram (Diagram 4) describes the general scenario for the ePrep CoP using a Mot representation.
Diagram 4: general scenario for the ePrep CoP
4.2.4 Specific scenario: the use of SweetWiki for the activity "Wikiprepas"
Nathalie Van de Wiele, coordinator of the ePrep CoP, was a Physics teacher in CPGE until 2001. Within the CoP, Nathalie is the "thematic referent" of the " Wikiprepas" project. She will present the first results of this project at the second ePrep thematic workshop (November 5 & 6, 2007). Nathalie decides to focus her presentation on two aspects: the edition of an article on Wikiprepas, the consultation of an article on Wikiprepas. The scenario below describes the two situations: Nathalie edits an article on Wikiprepas, and a student in CPGE searches a definition on Wikiprepas.
Please note that the contribution to Wikiprepas is reserved to ePrep CoP members. These members are registered by the administator of Wikiprepas and below to the "editors group", while the students in CPGE below to the "readers group". In a short term, awareness functionalities will be implemented in SweetWiki for the two groups, the editors and the readers (to take benefit of these awareness functionalities, the readers will have to register on the Wiki).
Nathalie edits an article on Wikiprepas
Nathalie decides to write an article on Wikiprepas about Isaac Newton. She logs in the Wiki, navigates to the "Famous Scientists" subspace and creates a page directly from her Web browser. Just after she pressed the Create "New Page" button, she starts editing it in a WYSIWYG editor integrated in the Wiki. This WYSIWYG editor is very similar to a small Word processor with all the common formatting features, spell checking and some wizards for helping creating multimedia content (pictures, audio, streamable videos) or hyperlinked content (linking pages together directly from the editor).
Nathalie types an introduction and includes some appealing pictures at the beginning of the document. Then, she decides to reuse some pedagogical content she already wrote using a Word processor, she copies and pastes this content into the WYSIWYG editor. The formatting of the new text is globally preserved (italics, bold, titles, tables, lists, etc.) but is also "aligned" to the look'n'feel of the rest of the documents on the Wiki (polices, colors, etc.). Before saving the page, she adds some tags using an "intelligent textfield", on the right of the page, that proposes auto-completions on already existing tags as she types the first letters of the tag she is going to use. For example, if she types "Is", the name "Isaac Newton" will be proposed, indicating how many users have used it so far. Nathalie chooses to "join" the others and clicks on "Isaac Newton". She also adds a tag "work in progress" to specify that the document is a work in progress. She may remove this tag later...
During the save process a "version" of the page is created. Every time a modification occurs on a page, a new version is added: the whole history of every page is always kept on the system. This is very securing for the authors as they can never loose or "break" anything even if they remove whole parts of the content by mistake. A few hours later Nathalie decides to continue editing the document... She finds the document easily by typing "Is" and validating "Isaac Newton" on the list proposed by auto-completion. The list of documents tagged with "Isaac Newton" is displayed, sorted from the most recent to the oldest one. Documents by Nathalie are proposed first if she logs in the Wiki. She clicks on the page she created ealier and edits it. She makes some small corrections and decides to add further informations about Isaac Newton, but on another page of Wikiprepas, as this one is becoming too long. She quits, creates a new page, and decides to add some multimedia content: one video found in an external Website and one video she has got on her hard drive. She creates the new page, and starts inserting the multimedia content directly from the editor using the "Insert video" wizard: she indicates the URL of the external video, the local video is uploaded on the server and automatically converted on the fly into a streamable format. She may resize the videos directly from the editor, add tags on these videos to make them searcheable.
She chooses the tags "Isaac Newton" and "multimedia". Again, these tags already exists and she only has to type 2 or 3 characters before the auto-completion mechanism proposes the right tags. She saves the page and decides to link it from the first page. She edits the first page, and uses the "Internal link" wizard to link the second page. Without quitting the WYSIWYG editor, a wizard helps her finding the page she wants to link in (this wizard uses the AJAX technology and sends query to the server). She may sear the pages by typing the beginning of the name of the page, choosing to see the pages she created or contributed to. Once she finds the page, an hyperlink is created.
Then she wants to ask Jacques, a colleague of her, to help improving the content of the first page. She sends an email to Jacques, indicating the URL of the page. Jacques logs in Wikiprepas and looks at the page that Nathalie created. He sees some typos and decides to add one paragraph. He edits the page directly from the editor and starts modifying the page content. Just before saving, he adds a new tag: "theory of gravitation".
Jacques is an expert user of the Wiki, he goes to the "folksonomy editor" embedded in the Wiki and looks at all the tags used by the ePrep CoP. He creates a new "tag/category" named "theories" and drags and drops "theory of gravitation" under the "theory" tag just created, in a very similar way he uses the Windows explorer to move or copy files. He also copies the "theory of gravitation" tag under "Isaac Newton" and moves "Isaac Newton" under "Famous scientists". By "organising" the new tag, he knows he will improve the search and navigation features of the Wiki.
By default, creators or contributors to the Wiki pages are automatically registered to get emails when a page content is modified. Nathalie soon gets an email indicating that Jacques made some modifications to the Isaac Newton page she created. In the email she sees a summary of the modifications, the date of modifications, etc. She may click directly on the link in order to open the page in a Web browser. A "see history" and "see diffs" link is provided so that she may track precisely the updates made by Jacques.
Complex awareness features are provided by the Wiki : RSS streams are proposed for tracking changes on the whole Wiki or on subspaces of the Wiki, in addition, users may register to get emails every day or at every changement of pages or subspaces of their choice. A more original mechanism is proposed : it is possible to be alerted when a new page is created on a given topic or if an existing page related to a given topic is updated.
Finally, Nathalie decides to create a new category in Wikiprepas, a new subspace (or "Web") to publish a new page. She uses the "Create Web" features that is proposed to the ePrep administrators and creates a subspace named "Engineering sciences". She decides to publish a first document in this subspace but, this time, she has a very complete Word document. She uses the "Import from Office" feature of SweetWiki. She browses her hard disk in order to find the .doc file, then chooses a name for the Wiki page she is going to create. She is already looking at the home page of the "Engineering sciences" subspace so the page will be by default created in that subspace. Automatically the document is uploaded and converted into an editable HTML page, including the pictures. Nathalies makes some small modifications, tags the page and saves it.
Jacques, who subscribed to the RSS feed of the Wiki, can see in his RSS browser that a new page has been created in the Wiki. He clicks on the link and looks at the page. He sees that Nathalie created it, and he registers to be notified in case this page is updated again.
Nathalie asks other collegues to look at the pages she created, and suggests to them to improve the content. Finally, after a few days, the content reaches a quality that satisfies all ePrep CoP members involved and the tag "work in progress" is removed.
A student in CPGE searches a definition on Wikiprepas
A student is looking for information on the "theory of universal gravitation". He types in the "Tag search" textfield "gra". As soon as he types, the auto-completion mechanism proposes "theory of gravitation". He validates this choice by clicking on it. A page displays links, pictures and videos that have been tagged by this keyword.
At the very top is the page dedicated to the theory of gravitation, but other links propose the page "Isaac Newton", even if this one has not been tagged with such a tag. This link has been inferred because Isaac Newton is related to the theroy of gravitation, thanks to Jacques who put "Theory of gravitation" under "Isaac Newton".
The student clicks on the first choice and looks at the page about the theory of gravitation. Using the folksonomy, SweetWiki proposes faceted navigation links on the right side and bottom of the page:
Finally, the student comes to the Isaac Newton page, and finds very interesting the biography of this famous scientist, he then click on the "Famous Scientists" category tag and spends some time looking at other scientist's biographies. He decide to register to this category so that he will be notified when a page "talking about" famous scientists is created or updated. One remarkable point is that if the page "theory of gravitation" is updated, he will be notified as well, indeed this page is related to Isaac Newton in the sense its classification has "Isaac Newton" as one of the super category.
4.2.5 Specific scenario: the use of Amaya for the activity "ePrep francophone platform"
Damien Decout, member of the ePrep CoP, is a Physics teacher in CPGE in Libreville, Gabon. Involved in the "ePrep francophone platform" project (he is the "thematic referent" for this project), he decides to use Amaya to develop pedagogical content to put on this platform. He will present this online content at the second ePrep thematic workshop (November 5 & 6, 2007) as a concrete example of using Amaya for the "ePrep francophone platform" project. The scenario below describes how Damien edits his pedagogical content with Amaya.
This content includes:
Damien decides to use Amaya, as he discovered that the tool provides all the support he needs to create this complete pedagogical content: Amaya provides the usual features of a Word processor, but it also supports all the features needed to publish, share and link documents on the Web. In addition, it handles efficiently document structures such as divisions, headings, lists, tables, mathematical expressions based on MathML (a XML language to represent maths), and scalable, animated graphics coded in SVG (a XML language to represent vector graphics).
Damien has to learn about this new kind of tool, but he quickly discovers the benefits he can draw from using it. He works in a single consistent environment for producing all types of documents. He does not have to use a collection of closed tools, a text editor for the text of the tutorial, a math editor for formulas, a table editor, a slide show editor, and finally a Web tool to publish the material on the Web.
Damien starts to work on the tutorial. In Amaya he uses a template that defines the exact components he needs: titles, chapters, sections, sub-sections, figures, references, etc. With this template, the creation of the tutorial is very easy. The initial structure is automatically generated. He just has to provide the content of the components. Creating new sections, sub-sections, figures, etc. with all their structure is done by a single click. He only needs to know a few XHTML elements to be inserted in components such as sections and sub-sections. These XHTML elements can be easily created through the buttons provided by Amaya. When needed, he enters mathematical formulas and symbols with the help of dedicated tools. He can insert images or drawings that illustrate the content. He adds links to web resources that give complementary information about the current content.
Once a chapter is written, Damien decides to write the corresponding exercises in the exercise books. He uses the same tool, with a different template, and he can copy/paste any piece of the tutorial here.
Then, Damien generates a slide show for each lesson. He uses Amaya again, with a specific template that defines such components as slides, incrementally displayed lists, etc. The slide shows are very easy to build starting from the material already available in the tutorial. He gets copies of important definitions, mathematical formulas and illustrations from the tutorial, and he pastes them in the appropriate slides. He does not have to worry about such details as character size or fonts, which are very different in a textbook and in slides. The tool automatically applies the right style and enlarges the drawings. The slide show is uploaded on the web server in a single click. Like him, his colleagues can now use their favorite Web browser to present the slides to their students. The most advanced browsers, such as Firefox, will allow them to display the content slide by slide during the lesson, showing complex content, including MathML equations and SVG graphics.
When the first version of the tutorial is complete, Damien decides to publish it on his private Website to get feedback from some colleagues. Before saving the document, he gives Amaya the email addresses of these colleagues. This list is stored in the document itself, so that every time the document is updated, all these people will receive a message informing them that a new version is available for review. His colleague Katia has a look at the tutorial. She suggests to extend a chapter of the tutorial and Damien agrees. She makes the changes directly on the Web with Amaya; their colleagues receive a notification message and are then free to read the latest version.
Ali was also using Amaya to write a set of exercises for his students. He uses the "Send by email" command from Amaya to send this document to Damien. Damien is very happy to receive this contribution and it includes it his exercises book, before making a few changes to adapt it for his class.
4.2.6 Specific scenario: the use of LimSee3 for the activity "International cooperation between CPGEs and similar establishments"
Olivier Granier, member of the ePrep CoP, is a Physics teacher in CPGE who performs his physics courses using a PowerPoint slide show including equations, animated schemas, and hypertext links. Involved, within the ePrep CoP, in the "International cooperation between CPGEs and similar establishments" project (he is the "thematic referent" for this project), he decides to build a multimedia course to be exchanged in the framework of a distance training with the Polytechnic National Institute F. Houphouët Boignyin Côte d'Ivoire on the theme "Oscillateurs, portraits de phase". For that, he plans to film his own course with a digital camera and then to use LimSee3. He will present this multimedia course at the second ePrep thematic workshop (November 5 & 6, 2007) as a concrete example of using LimSee3 for the "International cooperation" project. The scenario below describes how Olivier builds his multimedia course with LimSee3.
Olivier opens LimSee3 and loads the Conference presentation template. This template already proposes a spatial layout suitable for his purpose: a main window to present the slides, a smaller window to show the video sequence and a box where the table of contents would appear. Some pre-defined interactive widgets (as stop, play, rewind buttons) are provided too.
The application prompts Olivier to import the video sequence, which he does by selecting the corresponding file on the disc. Then, he imports his slide show in the same manner.
The application automatically extracts the title of each slide and proposes an initial table of contents. The list of titles is already made interactive in the sense that clicking on a title brings up the corresponding slide. However, the slide show is not yet synchronized with the video sequence.
To achieve the synchronization, Olivier has an easy option. He starts playing his video-recorded presentation in LimSee3 and every time he wants the next slide to appear, he hits a special "synchronizing" button in the application. The application associates slides and time-stamps in the video sequence on the fly, so that when Olivier finishes playing the video, all table-of-content entries are synchronized with a slide and with a portion of the video sequence. Of course, if Olivier wishes to go faster, he can take a more manual option: using LimSee3 in the manner of a media player, he can fast-forward, pause, rewind etc. through the video sequence, so to find the synchronization points in less time.
The presentation is now ready to be published. To make it even more user-friendly, Olivier decides to perform some improvements. He wants to provide a better structure to the table of contents: in fact he wishes to split the currently plain list of slide titles into several chapters. To this end, Olivier groups table entries into larger sets and provides a title for every set (such as "Introduction", "A first example", "Theoretical results" etc.). Now, the table of contents is organised in a hierarchical way, since it contains several chapters that contain the basic entries. If necessary, Olivier can keep going by splitting large chapters into several sections and so on. The immediate consequence of structuring the table of contents is an easier-to-read and easier-to-navigate presentation of its contents. Moreover, since all medias are synchronized, Olivier has also implicitly provided a chapter/section structure for the slides and for the video sequence.
Finally, Olivier saves the document on his computer for future reuse. Directly form LimSee3, he also publishes it on his Website, making it immediately visible.
Possible further developments
Since Olivier has provided a title for every slide, he has implicitly given a description to the embedded equations or schemas. Furthermore, the text of his slides give a sort of annotation to the equations and to the schemas. Such implicit information could be used by knowledge-management tools to better index the equations and schemas which would be reused by other collegues to build their own courses (see section 7).
| Step | Sequence of events | Expected Results and Evaluation Criteria | e-Logbook requirement | Notes |
| 1 | The coordinator of the ePrep CoP creates and organizes new workspaces within e-Logbook for the CoP | - | - | - |
| 1.1 | the coordinator creates the main workspace "ePrep CoP" | to provide the CoP with a virtual environment to assure its development | to create a main activity | - |
| 1.2 | the coordinator defines the role "member" for this activity and defines a set of rights associated with this role | to allow the members to take part in the development of the CoP | to define a role and its associated rights for a main activity | - |
| 1.3 | the coordinator creates three sub-workspaces | to create project teams inside the CoP | to create sub-activities | - |
| 1.4 | the coordinator links semantically these three sub-workspaces to the main-workspace by the link "is a project of" | to show the signifiance of each CoP project regarding the whole CoP | to link semantically a sub-activity to a main activity | - |
| 1.5 | the coordinator defines two different roles with the sets of associated rights for each sub-workspace (the role "active member" and the role "observer") | to allow members to join a project team (and other members to be informed of the work in progress, even if they are not team members) | to define roles and associated rights for a sub-activity | - |
| 1.6 | the coordinator creates a dynamic link between the main workspace and each sub-workspace by a dynamic invitation to the members of the main workspace to join each sub-workspace with the role "active member" or "observer" | to allow members to join a project team (and other members to be informed of the work in progress, even if they are not team members) | to link dynamically a sub-activity to a main activity | - |
| 1.7 | the coordinator uploads assets in the main workspace and in some sub-workspaces | to set up the work to be done in each team | to upload assets | - |
| 2 | ePrep CoP members join e-Logbook | - | - | - |
| 2.1 | the coordinator dynamically invites ePrep members to join e-Logbook | to form the project teams | to invite dynamically members to join eLogbook | - |
| 2.2 | the members join the main activity "ePrep CoP" and choose or to be "active member" or "observer" in each sub-activities | to form the project teams | to accept a dynamic invitation | - |
| 2.3 | the members manage their user profiles and notification preferences | to let the members choose the degree of their involvment in the whole CoP or in the project teams (the only way for a CoP that members are joining on a voluntary basis) | to manage the user profiles and notification preferences | - |
| 3 | Members upload assets in the sub-workspaces for which they are active members | to begin the work inside the project teams | to upload assets | - |
| 4 | Tagging assets | - | - | - |
| 4.1 | the coordinator puts a private tag on an asset | to allow each member to mark off the assets which have a specific interest for him/her | to put a private tag | - |
| 4.2 | a member puts public tags on assets | to allow each member to share information upon assets with other members | to put public tags | - |
| 5 | Linking assets and activities | - | - | - |
| 5.1 | a member links two assets uploaded in different workspaces | to allow the members to build themselves interconnections between their projects | to link two assets | when a link is created between two assets uploaded in two different sub-workspaces, it would be interesting that, automatically, these sub-workspaces were linked together (semantically) |
| 5.2 | the coordinator links semantically two sub-activities | to allow the coordinator to decide of collaborations between two projects | to link semantically two sub-activities | - |
| 6 | Artifact-based awareness | - | - | - |
| 6.1 | the coordinator consults the statistics upon three assets downloaded in one sub-workspace | to provide the coordinator with an indicator of the CoP activity | artifact-based awareness | - |
| 6.2 | the members are informed that the coordinator has uploaded a new asset concerning a demand about these three assets | to assure the coordination of the team work | artifact-based awareness | - |
| 7 | Actor-based awareness | - | - | - |
| 7.1 | the members are informed of the arrival of a new member | to develop a friendly "team-spirit" | actor-based awareness | - |
| 7.2 | members are informed of the creation of a new sub-activity | to develop the opening of the CoP towards new activities | actor-based awareness | - |
| 8 | Activity or task-based awareness | - | - | - |
| 8.1 | The coordinator reminds the members of the deliverable deadlines | to assure the coordination of the team work | activity or task-based awareness | - |
| 8.2 | A member responds to this request uploading the first draft of a deliverable | to respond to a request | activity or task-based awareness | - |
Nathalie edits an article on Wikiprepas
| Step | Sequence of events | Expected Results and Evaluation Criteria | SweetWiki requirement | Notes |
| 1 | Nathalie creates a new page about Isaac Newton | to easily edit a page (in the adapted subspace) with text and pictures, to tag the elements, and to save the page in a very secure way | - | - |
| 1.1 | She logs in Wikiprepas and navigates to the "Famous Scientists" subspace | - | can be structured in subspaces (or "Webs") | - |
| 1.2 | She creates a new page using the Create "New Page" button | - | to offer several possibilities for creating new pages (using the Create "New Page" button is one of them) | - |
| 1.3 | She edits the new page: she types the introduction, includes some pictures, copies and pastes pedagogical content she already wrote using his Word processor | - | to have an integrated WYSIWYG editor, similar to a small Word processor | some ePrep CoP members regret that, at the moment, they cannot copy/paste content wrote using an OpenOffice editor or a LaTeX editor |
| 1.4 | She tags the elements of the page | - | to have an "intelligent textfield" offering auto-completions on already existing tags | the tag "work in progress" may be used too |
| 1.5 | Nathalie saves the page | - | to save a "version" of the page kept by the system | during the "save" process a "version" is created, and every time a modification occurs on a page, a new version is added (the whole history of every page is always kept on the system) |
| 2 | Later, Nathalie improves the document | to easily refind a document to be improved | - | - |
| 2.1 | She finds easily the document by typing "Is" and she improves it | - | to use a list proposed by auto-completion for finding easily any document | the list of documents tagged with "Isaac Newton" is displayed from the most recent to the oldest one |
| 2.2 | She saves the updated page | - | - | - |
| 3 | Nathalie creates a second page to be linked to the first one she has created | to easily edit a page including videos and to easily link this page from another | - | - |
| 3.1 | She creates a new page, edits it (including an external video and a local one, resizing the videos from the editor and tagging them) and saves it | - | to propose an "Insert video" wizard, to offer the possibility to resize the videos and to tag them | - |
| 3.2 | She links the second page from the first one | to propose an "Internal link" wizard and a wizard for finding the page to be linked | the wizard for finding the page to be linked uses the AJAX technology | |
| 4 | Nathalie asks to her colleague Jacques, expert user of the Wiki, to improve the content of the first page | to work collaboratively on the Wiki thanks to its complex awareness functionalities, and, for an expert user, to improve the search and navigation features of the Wiki thanks to its "folksonomy editor" | - | - |
| 4.1 | Jacques logs in, adds one paragraph and a new tag, using the "folksonomy editor" | - | to have a "folksonomy editor" embedded, offering the posssibility to create categories and subcategories for organising tags | - |
| 4.2 | Nathalie is automatically informed of the modifications made by Jacques | - | to automatically inform the contributors to the Wiki when a page is modified, giving them a summary of the modifications, the date of modifications, etc. thanks to a "see history" or "see diffs" link | RSS streams are proposed to be informed, every day or at every changement on the Wiki, when a page is created or updated |
| 5 | Nathalie, as an administrator of Wikiprepas, creates a new subspace, then she edits a new page in this new subspace, using a Word document | to structure the Wiki in subspaces (for the administrator), and to edit a page from a Word document (the Wiki converting automatically this document into an HTML page) | - | - |
| 5.1 | She creates a new subspace | - | can be structured in subspaces (or "Webs") thanks to the "Create Web" features | - |
| 5.2 | She edits a new page in this new subspace from a complete Word document (with text and pictures), she tags the page and saves it | - | to offer an "Import from Office" feature for converting automatically a Word document into an editable HTML page, including pictures | some ePrep CoP members regret that, at the moment, SweetWiki cannot convert an Oppen office document or a LaTeX document into an editable HTML page |
| 6 | Jacques is informed that a new page is created and he registers to be notified when the page is updated | to be informed when a page is created or updated thanks to the RSS streams of the Wiki | - | - |
| 7 | Nathalie asks other colleagues to improve the content of her pages | to work collaboratively on the Wiki thanks to its complex awareness functionalities | - | - |
A student in CPGE searches a definition on Wikiprepas
| Step | Sequence of events | Expected Results and Evaluation Criteria | SweetWiki requirement | Notes |
| 1 | The student is looking for information on the "theory of universal gravitation" using the "Tag search" functionality | to easily find an information on the Wiki | to propose a "Tag search" textfield with an auto-completion mechanism | the Wiki also proposes a "Keyword search" textfield with an auto-completion mechanism |
| 2 | SweetWiki provides the student with the list of the documents tagged by the keyword "theory of gravitation" | the page dedicated to the theory of gravitation is the first of the list, but even the documents not directly tagged by the keyword "theory of gravitation" are listed | to infer links thanks to the "folksonomy editor" | - |
| 3 | The students consults the page dedicated to the theory of gravitation | for each page, using the folksonomy, SweetWiki proposes faceted navigation links | to propose navigation links by tag, by "Category", or by "Related tags" | - |
| 3.1 | He explores the documents linked to the tags used on the page | - | to display the tags used on each page, with their respective number of documents sharing that tag and links to explore these documents | - |
| 3.2 | He explores the documents linked to the "Category: theories" and the "Related tags: Isaac Newton" | - | to propose a navigation by "Category" or by "Related tags" | - |
| 4 | The students consults the "Isaac Newton" page and the pages concerning other "Famous Scientists"; he registers to be informed when a page is created or updated in this category | to propose awareness functionalities to everyone interested in the Wiki (not only to the contibutors) | to inform the registrated users of the pages created or updated in the category (or linked to the category) they have registered | - |
| Step | Sequence of events | Expected Results and Evaluation Criteria | Amaya requirement | Notes |
| 1 | Damien writes the chapters of the tutorial | - | - | - |
| 1.1 | He opens Amaya and loads the tutorial adapted template | - | to propose well adapted templates | - |
| 1.2 | To write a chapter, he provides the content of the components, entering mathematical formulas and symbols when needed, inserting images or drawings that illustrate the content, adding links to web resources for complementary information | to work in a single consistent environment for producing all types of documents (text editor, math editor for formulas, table editor...) | to edit text based on HTML, mathematical expressions based on
MathML, animated graphics coded in SVG (all XML languages)
to add links to web resources |
- |
| 2 | Damien writes the corresponding exercices in the exercice book | to work in a single consistent environment for producing all types of documents | - | - |
| 2.1 | He loads the exercices adapted template | - | to propose well adapted templates | - |
| 2.2 | He copies and pastes any piece of the tutorial | - | to easy copy/paste from one template to another | - |
| 3 | Damien generates a slide show for each lesson | to work in a single consistent environment for producing all types of documents (slide show editor) | - | - |
| 3.1 | He loads the slide show adapted template | - | to propose well adapted templates | - |
| 3.2 | He copies and pastes any piece of the tutorial | - | to easy copy/paste from one template to another, automatically applying the right style and enlarging the drawings | - |
| 4 | Damien asks his colleagues a feedback on the first version of his pedagogical content | - | - | - |
| 4.1 | Before saving the content, Damien gives Amaya the mail addresses of his colleagues | - | to automatically inform the listed colleagues when an updated version of the document is available for review | - |
| 4.2 | Damien publishes the content on his personal website | to work in a single consistent environment for producing all types of documents (web tool to publish the material on the web) | - | - |
| 4.3 | Katia suggests to extend a chapter | - | - | - |
| 4.4 | Damien agrees, so, Katia makes the changes directly on the web with Amaya | - | for each colleague, to update the content directly with Amaya | - |
| 4.5 | Their colleagues receive a notification message when the latest version is edited by Katia | - | to automatically inform the listed colleagues when an updated version of the document is available for review | - |
| 5 | Damien includes in his content a contribution from Ali | - | - | - |
| 5.1 | Ali sends from Amaya a document to Damien | - | to use the "send by mail" Amaya command | - |
| 5.2 | Damien includes this contribution in his exercice book | - | - | - |
| Step | Sequence of events | Expected Results and Evaluation Criteria | LimSee3 requirement | Notes |
| 1 | Olivier opens LimSee3 and loads the Conference presentation template | to provide the teacher with a suitable environment to perform his multimedia course | to propose specific templates | - |
| 2 | Olivier imports in LimSee3 the video sequence and the slide-show | to gather the slide-show and the video sequence on the same support | to load various types of media objects and to propose a main window to present the slides and a smaller window to show the video sequence | - |
| 3 | LimSee3 proposes automatically an initial interactive table of contents, extracting the title of each slide | to provide the teacher with a first structured multimedia course | 1-to propose a box where the table of contents would appear
2-to create automatically an interactive table of contents extracting the title of each slide |
- |
| 4 | Olivier achieves the synchronisation using the special "synchronisation" button in the application | to provide the teacher with an initial synchronized multimedia course | to associate slides and time-stamps in the video sequence on the fly | - |
| 5 | Olivier splits the current plain list of slides titles into several chapters | to dispose of a table of contents organized in a hierarchical way, easier-to-read and easier-to-navigate | to structure the initial table of contents | - |
| 6 | Olivier saves the document and publishes it on his Website | to have a multimedia course ready for future use by students and for collaboration with colleagues | to publish a document on a Website, directly from LimSee3 | - |
The ePrep CoP, which is developing itself on a voluntary basis, does not have any infrastructure to install and operate new tools. Therefore, the tools invoked in this scenario have to be implemented, at least during the experimentation period (i.e. for the duration of the Palette project), with the help of the Palette partners:
Amaya and LimSee3 will be downloaded by each member, on their own computer. The documents produced with these tools will be stored in e-Logbook (or uploaded on the ePrep francophone platform for the Amaya documents).
There is no specific interconnections to build between the Palette tools and the ePrep CoP existing tools described in section 4.1.3, except for the emailing services, if the future developments of e-Logbook include these type of services (see section 4.4.3 below).
Among the group of needs of the ePrep CoP (see section 2.1), two needs are not covered in this scenario. They could be covered by future developments of e-Logbook:
The ePrep CoP members are all volunteers to use the Palette services (they have integrated the ePrep CoP on this basis: see the ePrep Website - French version - www.eprep.org/Communaute/Membres.htm).
Concerning competences, the more often, the ePrep CoP members have the specific skills required to learn the use of the Palette tools invoked in the scenario, but it remains a difficulty in using SweetWiki for the "Wikiprepas" project. This difficulty concerns the use of the folksonomy/ontology editor offered by SweetWiki.
A solution would be to adopt the "social tagging" way to allow CoP members to build cooperatively their own folksonomy. This solution will be facilitated by the further developments planned for SweetWiki to make the folksonomy/ontology editor more user-friendly.
The scenario described in this document is evaluated, in a participatory design approach, by the members of the ePrep CoP and the Palette researchers as and when the activities described above are performed (see the "life-cycle" of the scenario, section 3), and especially on the occasion of the "ePrep CoP day" (see the account in French: www.eprep.org/Communaute/CoP1.htm), then, more formally, by the validator of the scenario in his "Validator's account".
Next validation steps will take place with the evolution of the scenario (according to the evolution of Palette services, taking into account the interoperability of tools, see section 7). The second ePrep thematic workshop to be held in Lyon on November 5 & 6, 2007, on the theme "the ePrep CoP: which tools for which projects?" (see www.eprep.org/thematic_workshops.htm#second), will be the occasion to validate these further developments.
A need that the ePrep CoP members will have in a soon future, to help them in the production of new pedagogical content in the framework of their projects (the "Wikiprepas" projet, the "ePrep francophone platform" project, or the "International cooperation" project), is to retrieve easily the contents already produced for these projects.
The tools used to produce these contents are:
The idea is to provide the CoP members with one tool able to retrieve these three types of pedagogical contents.
This development is linked to the tagging functionnalities or annotation mechanism of the tools invoked in the scenario (e-Logbook, SweetWiki, Amaya, LimSee3) and induce a reflection about the interoperability of these tools (reflection already opened on the Palette forum dedicated to the ePrep CoP).