| Abstract: | To support many different group activities such as computer and
network based meeting, seminar, conference, tele-lecturing, group
project, team work, student instruction and club in a virtual university,
a general framework based on a room metaphor or model is used to
develop a desktop groupware system, called virtual collaboration
room (VCR) that enables teachers and students to flexibly and
naturally conduct their collaborative teaching/learning/working over
the Internet without constraints on collaboration type, working style,
group scale and system platform. As important component in our
integrated educational system, University21, the VCR is discussed
how to be employed and managed in a virtual university. With the use
of Java applets for system implementations, users can enter the VCR
from any standard Java enabled Web browser. VCR consists of user
panel, object cabinet, object panel, a variety of objects in workspace,
workspace panel. An object in VCR has a life cycle from birth, alive
to death, and attributes such as owner, state, access mode, handler, and
persistence. To further improve the quality of collaborations, natural
object control and rich awareness function are fully supported. |
