Cooperative Editing Research Articles

Temporal Motifs Reveal the Dynamics of Editor Interactions in Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a collaborative setting with both combative and cooperative editing. We propose a new method for investigating the types of editor interactions using a novel representation of Wikipedia's revision history as a temporal, bipartite network with multiple node and edge types for users and revisions. From this representation we identify significant author interactions as network motifs and show how the motif types capture important, diverse editing behaviors. Two experiments demonstrate the further benefit of motifs. First, we demonstrate significant performance improvement over a purely revision-based analysis in classifying pages as combative or cooperative page by using motifs; and second we use motifs as a basis for analyzing trends in the dynamics of editor behavior to explain Wikipedia's content growth.

Tree Automata for Extracting Consensus from Partial Replicas of a Structured Document

In an asynchronous cooperative editing workflow of a structured document, each of the co-authors receives in the different phases of the editing process, a copy of the document to insert its contribution. For confidentiality reasons, this copy may be only a partial replica containing only parts of the (global) document which are of demonstrated interest for the considered co-author. Note that some parts may be a demonstrated interest over a co-author; they will therefore be accessible concurrently. When it's synchronization time (e.g. at the end of an asynchronous editing phase of the process), we want to merge all contributions of all authors in a single document. Due to the asynchronism of edition and to the potential existence of the document parts offering concurrent access, conflicts may arise and make partial replicas unmergeable in their entirety: they are inconsistent, meaning that they contain conflictual parts. The purpose of this paper is to propose a merging approach said by consensus of such partial replicas using tree automata. Specifically, from the partial replicas updates, we build a tree automaton that accepts exactly the consensus documents. These documents are the maximum prefixes containing no conflict of partial replicas merged.

TEI4LdoD: Textual Encoding and Social Editing in Web 2.0 Environments

In this article we describe how textual encoding is used in our current project of constructing a digital archive of Fernando Pessoa’s Livro do Desassossego [LdoD]. Our model for virtualizing the authorial and editorial forms of this unfinished work aims to create a dynamic archive that is open to user interaction and collaboration. A brief introduction to the theoretical rationale of the archive is followed by a description of our technical solution for TEI XML encoding that is responsive to dynamic changes over time. With our software architecture proposal for processing TEI markup, the Collaborative Digital Archive of the Book of Disquiet will be able to instantiate the cooperative and social editing functionalities of Web 2.0 environments.

Interest Aware Consistency for Cooperative Editing in Heterogeneous Environments

Cooperative editing applications enable geographically distributed users to concurrently edit a shared document space over a computer network. These applications present several technical challenges related to the scalability of the system and the promptness with which relevant updates are disseminated to the concerned users. This paper presents Cooperative Semantic Locality Awareness (CoopSLA), a consistency model for cooperative editing applications that is scalable and efficient with regards to user needs. In CoopSLA, updates to different parts of the document have different priorities, depending on the relative interest of the user in the region in which the update is performed; updates that are considered relevant are sent to the user promptly, while less important updates are postponed. As a result, the system makes a more intelligent usage of the network resources, since (1) it saves bandwidth by merging postponed updates and (2) it issues fewer accesses to the network resources as a result of both update merging and message aggregation. We have implemented a collaborative version of the open source Tex editor TexMaker using the CoopSLA approach. We present evaluation results that support our claim that CoopSLA is very effective regarding network usage while fulfilling user needs (e.g. ensuring that relevant updates are disseminated in time).

Document‐centric XML workflows with fragment digital signatures

AbstractThe use of digital document management and processing is increasing. Traditional workflows of paper forms are being replaced by electronic workflows of digital documents. These workflows often require multiple signatures to be added to the documents for authorization and/or integrity. We describe examples of digital workflows that illustrate problems with digital signatures: i.e. the use of digital signatures across entire documents results in signatures that can be unnecessarily invalidated by subsequent modification of the document. We propose the use of fragment signatures, which reduce unnecessary invalidation of signatures and enable greater concurrency in workflows. Our approach is document‐centric and does not use a centralized database. We report on an implementation that allows fragment signatures over document fragments as well as the attachment (or embedding) of other documents. This allows collaborative or cooperative editing to occur on parts of a document without disturbing unrelated signatures. We describe the lessons learned from our deployments and offer further ways to embed such signatures into other document types. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A New Multiple Versions Incremental Creation Algorithm

The multi-versioning technique based on object replication strategy can meet consistency model while the conflict operations occur in the cooperative graphics editing systems(CGES),but it does not efficiently solve conflict between non-geometry attribute operations and complex graphics objects. A new distributed multi-versioning model based on version replication is proposed for consistency maintenance of discordant conflicting operations according to the conflicting features and types of concurrent operations in CGES. To guarantee intention of conflicting operations, leaf-versions must be replicated from the original version based on the reduce strategy, and then applying conflicting operations to the corresponding object of the different replicated versions. The leaf-versions can be created by MOVIC algorithm in which the comparison-number of compatible operations is too much. A Fast Multiple Versions Incremental Creation (FMVIC) algorithm based on the compatible and conflict group is presented in this paper. The final versions constructed by the FMVIC algorithm is the same as that constructed by the MOVIC algorithm, but it can decrease the comparison-number of compatible operations and narrow the scope of comparison operations for the removing redundant versions.

ZFlow: Workflow for Cooperative Editing System

Enforcement of global cooperation urges the rapid growth of cooperative work. As a typical application of it, cooperative editing is widely used in many fields gradually, especially in knowledge intensive application. Workflow is a kind of automation technology by predefined process rules and tasks. It can bring us clarity in process control and management, which are two important facets in cooperative editing. Marriage of workflow and cooperation shows us an approach to achieve automation and convenient management as well as collaboration, thus gaining efficiency and regularity. We summarize the editing process flow as iterative phases including initializing, editing, coediting, reviewing and finalizing, which lays the foundation of incorporating workflow with cooperative editing. An activity-role based access control model, which uses activity to represent the editing task and uses role to effectively manage participants, is designed and applied in the workflow system. To get fine control grain, section, a logic part of the document, is used. We specially introduce the concept of subflow for section processing control and use section for cooperative editing control. To represent the workflow, we propose a workflow description language, which can be understood and processed by the workflow engine. As control logic in cooperative editing is quite different from that in individual editing, we put forward a novel workflow control algorithm, taking into account characteristics of cooperative editing. A temporal cooperative editing system applied the workflow system, showing it can deal with cooperative editing well, spare much human work, and offer clear process logic.

Congratulations on the 20th Anniversary of JRM

Congratulations on the the 20th year of publication of the Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics (JRM). I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to all those who have supported the journal since it premiered in June 1989. The JRM has the longest history among journals specializing in its field, Robotics and Mechatronics, and I am pround of the high reputation it has earned among researchers and engineers both within and outside of Japan. Upon this occasion, I recall the long-standing relationship between the Division of Robotics and Mechatronics (DRM), the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME), and the JRM. In 1988, Professor Emeritus Kazuo Yamafuji of the University of Electro-Communications, Associate Professor Makoto Kaneko of the Kyushu Institute of Technology, and I Kaneko, (associate professor of Kyushu Institute of Technology were working to reorganize the Industrial Machinery Committee (IMC) of the JSME to establish the DRM to meet the requirements of a new age. Prof. Yamafuji had heard that Keiji Hayashi, the publisher of Fuji Technology Press, was seeking a chance to publish a journal specializing in robotics, thanks to Hiroharu Suda's introduction of Mr. Hayashi to Prof. Yamafuji. As we three began preparing to set up the DRM in 1989, we also began preparing to launch the JRM. The JSME Board of Trustees accepted the establishment of the DRM and committed its positive support. After the DRM was established in April 1989, the JRM was inaugurated two months later in July 1989. These two efforts succeeded thanks to the contribution of these people and will grow as like twins hereafter. The DRM has demonstrated many active achievements among JSME divisions in providing activities useful to division members. It has earned a global reputation from overseas specialists in both robotics and mechatronics. Incidentally, the JRM editorial board consists of 20 Japanese editors and 10 overseas editors. Such an organization promotes a positive exchange among domestic and overseas experts, while the JRM promotes cooperative editing with the DRM on a high level of information. Again, I congratulate you and wish both the JRM and the DRM all the best in their ongoing dual presentation of scientific findings and knowledge.

Integrating AJAX and Web Services for Cooperative Image Editing

AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is a powerful Web development model for browser-based Web applications. While Web services essentially are universally accessible software components deployed on the Web and designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network. Because technologies that support both AJAX and Web services are XML-based, the two can leverage each others' strengths. More and more companies and organizations are taking advantage of this relationship, working to improve their Web applications through AJAX and Web services. Our system integrates the two for Web-based cooperative image editing. For message exchange delays and browser security limitations have hampered Web-based cooperative image editing. This integration resolves these issues and offers a framework for generic cooperative business processes

Undo as concurrent inverse in group editors

As an important mechanism for error recovery and exploration of alternatives in interactive and collaborative applications, an undo facility should have the capability of undoing any operation at any time. However, supporting undo in collaborative applications is technically challenging and none of the existing group undo solutions is able to offer such a capability. In this article, we contribute an undo solution with such a capability for group text editors. The basic idea is to interpret an undo command as a concurrent inverse operation by means of operational transformation. To cope with the high complexity of group undo, a generic undo framework has been adopted to separate undo policy from the undo mechanism and to separate transformation control algorithms from transformation functions. The proposed undo solution consists of a generic transformation control algorithm that is capable of generating, transforming, and representing valid inverse operations in any context, and a set of transformation functions that are capable of preserving undo-related transformation conditions and properties. Formal proofs are provided to show the correctness of the undo transformation control algorithm in achieving the required undo effect, undo property, and consistency properties. Solutions to the known undo puzzles are provided to show soundness of the transformation functions. A Web-based group text editor REDUCE (REal-time Distributed Unconstrained Cooperative Editing) has been implemented to demonstrate the feasibility and usability of the proposed undo and other technical solutions. The proposed undo solution is generally applicable to collaborative applications that support concurrent insertion and deletion on shared documents consisting of one or multiple dimensions of linearly ordered data objects with positional references.

Undo as concurrent inverse in group editors

As an important mechanism for error recovery and exploration of alternatives in interactive and collaborative applications, an undo facility should have the capability of undoing any operation at any time. However, supporting undo in collaborative applications is technically challenging and none of the existing group undo solutions is able to offer such a capability. In this article, we contribute an undo solution with such a capability for group text editors. The basic idea is to interpret an undo command as a concurrent inverse operation by means of operational transformation. To cope with the high complexity of group undo, a generic undo framework has been adopted to separate undo policy from the undo mechanism and to separate transformation control algorithms from transformation functions. The proposed undo solution consists of a generic transformation control algorithm that is capable of generating, transforming, and representing valid inverse operations in any context, and a set of transformation functions that are capable of preserving undo-related transformation conditions and properties. Formal proofs are provided to show the correctness of the undo transformation control algorithm in achieving the required undo effect, undo property, and consistency properties. Solutions to the known undo puzzles are provided to show soundness of the transformation functions. A Web-based group text editor REDUCE (REal-time Distributed Unconstrained Cooperative Editing) has been implemented to demonstrate the feasibility and usability of the proposed undo and other technical solutions. The proposed undo solution is generally applicable to collaborative applications that support concurrent insertion and deletion on shared documents consisting of one or multiple dimensions of linearly ordered data objects with positional references.

Formal design and development of a Corba-based application for cooperative HTML group editing support

This paper presents SEdit, a formally designed and developed application for collaborative HTML group editing support. The design model separates coordination from cooperation and communication, allowing different cooperation interfaces (ASCII support and HTML support) to be integrated with the same coordination system. The coordination protocol allows different users to simultaneously work on different parts of the shared document. This protocol has been synthesized from a formal description based on graph grammars.

LASTING BENEFITS OF COOPERATIVE EDITING FOR REMEDIAL FRESHMAN COMPOSITION STUDENTS: A FOLLOW-UP STUDY

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether cooperative editing had lasting benefits for remedial freshman composition students. Conducted 3 semesters after the original study, the follow-up study indicated that students who had been taught the application of standard written grammar through cooperative editing exercises in the initial remedial composition course made a significantly higher mean grade (p<.05) in first-semester freshman composition than students who had been taught in the remedial course using the lecture/discussion/textbook exercise method. Additionally, the experimental students had a higher retention rate (82%) in first-semester freshman composition than the control students (63%).

Development and evaluation of a distance learning system based on CSCW

This paper described a distance learning system, which allows Internet users to conduct a lesson in real-time from any kinds- attached computers. Participants can jointly view and edit relevant multimedia information distributed through Internet. Teachers and students can also simultaneously communicate by voice and text to discuss the problems. Teacher can broadcast streaming PowerPoint presentation in real time to network users. In addition to sliders, presenters can broadcast video and audio simultaneously to deliver a live multimedia show online, and store their presentations for on-demand playback. Teachers distributed in different places can also use cooperative editing tool to edit and encode existing digital content. We discussed some important design principles of the system. Then, the system configuration and the results of evaluation are also presented. The system has proved to be applicable to the distance learning based on CSCW (Computer Support Cooperative Work) in Internet.

Real time cooperative editing on the Internet

New research and a prototype implementation solve some fundamental problems in distributed, real-time, cooperative editing in the Internet environment. The REDUCE system's strategies include a novel consistency model and responsiveness techniques that permit arbitrary order in executing independent operations.

Achieving convergence, causality preservation, and intention preservation in real-time cooperative editing systems

Real-time cooperative editing systems allow multiple users to view and edit the same text/graphic/image/multimedia document at the same time for multiple sites connected by communication networks. Consistency maintenance is one of the most significant challenges in designing and implementing real-time cooperative editing systems. In this article, a consistency model, with properties of convergence, causality preservation, and intention preservation, is proposed as a framework for consistency maintenance in real-time cooperative editing systems. Moreover, an integrated set of schemes and algorithms, which support the proposed consistency model, are devised and discussed in detail. In particular, we have contributed (1) a novel generic operation transformation control algorithm for achieving intention preservation in combination with schemes for achieving convergence and causality preservation and (2) a pair of reversible inclusion and exclusion transformation algorithms for stringwise operations for text editing. An Internet-based prototype system has been built to test the feasibility of the proposed schemes and algorithms

Structured Cooperative Authoring for the World Wide Web

Alliance is a structured cooperative authoring application that allows people spread out across different locations to work together on document production and maintenance. It uses the World Wide Web as an infrastructure to accomplish distributed document management, asynchronous group awareness, and communication and cooperation among distributed authors. A particular feature of Alliance is that it can handle temporary disconnections from the network without disrupting the cooperative editing. In this article we report our experience in designing and implementing Alliance, focusing on the mechanisms that needed to be developed in order to support cooperative authoring using the Web.

Distributed Synchronization of Group Operations in Cooperative Editing Environments

This paper proposes a novel distributed algorithm for synchronizing group operations which maintain consistency of shared docu ments in cooperative editing environments In the proposed algorithm dependent operations are closely synchronized so that they are executed in the same causal order at all sites Independent operations are executed asynchronously as soon as they arrive In particular local editing oper ations can be executed immediately, leading to good responsiveness Moreover despite the possible out-of-total-order execution of independent group operations, a totally ordered consistent view of the shared documents is maintained at all sites when the system is at quiescent Each site makes decisions on operation ordering and synchronization based on its local status and piggybacked information in incoming requests, and no centralized coordinator or locks are used Therefore the algorithm is fully distributed without a single point of failure or performance bottle neck Preliminary simulation and experimentation have shown that the basic mechanisms used in our algorithm are correct effective and effi cient

Cooperative multimedia editing tool for enhanced group communication

We describe and sustain the decisions made during the conceptualization of a cooperative multimedia editing tool, which enables co-authors to cooperatively produce multimedia documents. The main goal is to enhance inter-user communication. Co-authors can communicate their ideas, drafts, guidelines and constraints to other co-authors using a mixture of communication patterns, media and document organization. They keep exchanging information (remotely or face-to-face), improving passages and modifying notes until a final document is achieved. Our efforts were on integrating concepts from collaboration support, multimedia document contents and multimedia communication rather than on making a specialized system for any of them. In an integrated manner, the co-authors can edit text, raster images and 2D-object-oriented graphics information. Moreover, one can communicate via a text, voice or video channel (possibly more than one simultaneously).

Using Multimedia to Support Cooperative Editing

AbstractBy Cooperative Editing we mean the coordinated manipulation of information by a group of authors. During the editing process the (co‐)authors need to communicate their ideas, drafts and constraints (remotely or face‐to‐face) until a final version of the information is achieved. For the different phases of this process ‐ discussion of ideas, editing, cross‐checking ‐ different media or media integration are adequate. Furthermore, analysing the transition from individual work to group work, within different human activities, two pitfalls are often detected if computer support is considered: a) technological communication difficulties, especially if the group is remotely located on heterogeneous hardware, associated with a fall in productivity and frequent social inadequacies of the group's computer support; b) the lack of integrated media processing tools available for group editing.In order to solve these problems, we suggest that Multimedia can be applied in two ways: to effectively support the necessary group communication links; and to enhance the expressiveness of the information edited. To test this statement we have been conceptualising and implementing a prototype system. Most of the techniques involved can be used in other tools that need multimedia capabilities or that support other specific types of group activities.The innovative aspects of the work are the use of multimedia techniques to support demanding applications, possibly on cross‐platforms, and the integration of several concepts to support cooperation.