ShareTone：以Web為基礎之協同系統

Abstract

本論文專注並探討設計與實做協同系統，所涵蓋的各種相關概念及方法。我們強調建立協同系統時，應該賦予足夠的便利性及使用彈性，才能更大尺度做到支援人與人之間能容易地透過網際網路及透過數位內容的媒介，做深入互動。我們設定的主要目標是在於建立具有使用彈性及可延伸性的協同系統設計架構，以便用於打造各種不同型態的協同系統。我們的成果可以著名的知識建構層級來作概括。 在資料傳送技巧的層面，我們建立了以事件傳遞為主要基礎的覺察式協同開發架構，並能同時支援「資料主軸式」及「動作主軸式」協同應用之開發方法我們也建立了幾個特殊具有彈性且能動態建構的事件產生工具，藉此可提高所開發之元件的可重複使用性及自動化性能。我們並進一步運用這個覺察式協同開發架構，幫助開發協同式演算法之視覺化工具，甚至用來將一個好用而結構龐大的單人使用的文字編輯器，轉介成為多人即時互動性文字編輯器，藉此驗證了我們這些開發技巧的實用性與便利性。 在資訊分享技術的層面，我們建立了一個ShareToneDesktop 平台，具有支援可客製化之內容型別及具有工作流處理能力之內容管理功能，這部分的開發我們利用了許多應用軟體開發社群的成果。另外我們也建立了以內容層面為主的整合機制讓同步協同的應用元件能彈性而一致化地整合融入至非同步資訊分享平台。 在知識管理平台的層面，我們為從事演算法研究與教學之學者、教師、及學生，建立了以演算法為主軸之解決問題環境。實務上，我們藉此大量運用前兩部分所開發的技術與元件。這個解決問題的環境，提供我們一個組建大規模協同系統所需之各種元件的適用性與可用性之測試案例。 總結上，我們整合了發展建立協同系統所需的各種軟體元件及開發工具，並集中於ShareTone 網站http://www.sharetone.org。我們希望這個技術性導向的網站能成為日後建構更強大、更多功能協同系統設施的基礎，以便能更多方位地協助人們建立群組知識，甚至進行各種不同型態的協同合作，提升工作品質與成效。

In this dissertation we focus on collaborative systems. We study the concept,technical issues involved, and the design and implementation of a collaborative system. We emphasize the efficiency and flexibility of building a collaborative system that supports diverse content-based interactions among people through network communications over the Internet. A main objective of this dissertation is to build a collaborative framework that is flexible, extensible, and can be used to construct any type of collaborative system. Our work can be summarized by following the hierarchy of knowledge building. For data delivering, we create an event-based collaboration awareness development framework that supports both data-centric and operation-centric methods. We also create some special dynamic and flexible event generation tools to enhance the degree of reusability and automation. With this collaboration aware framework, we further create a complicated collaborative algorithm visualization tool and wrap a single user text editor into a collaborative editor. For information sharing platform, we build a ShareToneDesktop platform with the capabilities that support customizable content types, and workflow-enabled content management developed by the 3rd parties. We also establish a content based integration mechanism for composing synchronous collaborative components into an asynchronous information sharing platform. For knowledge management, we build a computational problem solving environment for algorithmic researchers, teachers and students who make heavy use of the components created in the previous two parts in practice. The problem solving environment serves as a test case of the applicability and usability of these components of which a large scale collaborative system is composed. As a result, we incorporate all the software components and development tools into the ShareTone website http://www.sharetone.org. We hope this ShareTone website can serve as a basis for constructing even more powerful and versatile collaborative system to help people do collaboration and build group knowledge more efficiently and effectively.