Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput – Computer conferencing – Cooperative computer processing
Reexamination Certificate
1999-02-02
2003-05-13
Burgess, Glenton B. (Department: 2757)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput
Computer conferencing
Cooperative computer processing
C709S217000, C709S248000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06564246
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to collaborative work by a plurality of participants using computers connected together via a network and, more particularly, to a real-time collaboration system in which each participant can have multiple views of the shared workspace, the views of the shared workspace of different participants are not necessarily the same or homogeneous and, further, the participants may have independent views of the workspace.
2. Background Description
Software for collaborative work, i.e., work involving many users and/or agents falls into two categories of use. One is termed asynchronous collaboration and the other, synchronous collaboration. Examples of software for asynchronous collaboration are groupware such as Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange. These along with other examples such as discussion groups where data is changed batchwise have the characteristic that neither do they require, nor do they particularly cater to the concurrent presence of many users and agents in the work environment. The work environment can include all users and agents that use computers that are connected to each other by networks such as the Internet or intranets. In contrast to software for asynchronous collaboration, software for synchronous collaboration is designed to cater to concurrent users and agents. It includes collaboration tools such as chat, concurrent whiteboards and the more sophisticated Same Time environment. These tools provide for real-time interaction among groups using the same shared workspace. Whatever be the workspace—document, spreadsheet, CAD drawing, etc.—it can be seen and modified by the collaborators, simultaneously. Modifications to the workspace are made available to all group members, immediately and synchronously.
Commonly available synchronous collaboration tools place significant restrictions on the kind of shared workspaces. Chat programs operate on text files and concurrent whiteboards operate of shared bitmap images. If a team of users wants to synchronously update, say, a spreadsheet using a concurrent whiteboard, then the team members have to individually update their local spreadsheet copies while staying in synchrony using images of the spreadsheet shared through the whiteboard. The ability to share a larger variety of workspaces than text files and bitmap images, and the ability to view and edit them using their native applications, i.e., collaborate by application sharing, has only recently become available. However, this ability comes with the restriction that all participants are allowed basically the same, shared view of the workspace. In some cases this commonality of view is described as WYSIWIS, i.e., What You See Is What I See. This restriction overlooks the need that effective collaboration may require individual users to have a plurality of views of widely different characteristics for both seeing and editing the synchronous, shared workspace.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Effective real-time collaboration among possibly widely dispersed participants requires making a multiplicity of different views of the shared workspace available to individual participants. In the invention disclosed herein, multiple views per participant are provided. Each view can be shared between a different subset of the participants. The subset can be a singleton set, which means that the view can be an independent view—the participant with such a view can work with the synchronous workspace, alone or on his own. Within any set of participants sharing a view, the data seen through the view need not be identical for each participant. Since the view need not be homogeneous, i.e., it can be heterogeneous, then beyond some common data each participant can see different data through the view. The invention provides a user interface for the multiple views it supports and for their control. The interface includes a separate/shared window for each view, bookmarks for views, and control buttons/inputs. The invention provides support by which participants can align their views by, say, using a “GOTO” command from one view to another, or by overlaying one view on another. Participants can modify the workspace through views in synchronized manner provided that the sharing and access rights of the views allow them to do so. Sharing and access rights, and the authority to change other's rights can be changed dynamically.
The invention provides a means for carrying out synchronous collaboration wherein collaboration participants are individually allowed a variety of views of the shared workspace. The invention includes a user interface for viewing. For simplicity, one participant per client or collaboration software frontend process running on a user's machine is assumed in this introduction section. In this invention, participants of a collaboration session can choose to have any number of shared, synchronous views of a shared workspace wherein each view has more than one viewer sharing the view and each viewer has his own separate client for accessing the workspace (see assumption above). The number of such views can be zero, which means that the participants have at most either shared, synchronous views of a solitary viewer each or only independent, synchronous views of the shared workspace.
Each individual participant can see a shared view of the workspace in a separate window in his client. The shared view can be seen by participants in a homogeneous manner. In a homogeneous presentation, each participant sees the same portion of the workspace that other participants sharing the view see. The display characteristics, e.g., scale, font syntax can be different, but the data exposed in each participant's window is the same. In a heterogeneous presentation each participant sees some data that is required to be common for all participants sharing the view. In addition, each participant can also see data that is not required to be common for all participants. The data that is required to be common can be delineated from other data by, say, a surrounding bounding box. Thus, for example, viewers can be sharing a text document in which the common data everyone is looking at is a paragraph. Some viewers can be seeing just the paragraph in their shared windows. Some viewers can be seeing the paragraph and some text lying below it. Some viewers can be seeing the paragraph and text above it. Other viewers can be seeing other combinations of the paragraph and text.
The display characteristics (syntactic characteristics) of each viewer's heterogeneous shared window can be different. Within the common region of a shared view (e.g., the delineated region of a heterogeneous shared window and the entire region lying within a homogeneous shared window), the usual tools of shared manipulation are available. For example, participants can manipulate a shared cursor in this region and annotate/select portions of the region. All such changes are synchronized as usual and are made available in the window for the shared view of each participant. The invention provides support for participants to form interest groups for carrying out synchronous collaboration in different parts of the shared workspace. The interest groups operate on the shared workspace concurrently, as a part of the total synchronous collaboration involving all participants. Participants in an interest group can form, say, one shared view for themselves, and the windows for the view are made available within the membership of the interest group only. Support for forming interest groups, for having shared views per interest group, for dynamically starting and/or discontinuing any interest group, for dynamically changing the members comprising any interest group, for dynamically blocking out dynamic changes in the membership of any interest group, for keeping interest groups anonymous, and for keeping the presence of any interest group unknown outside its membership is provided by the invention in order to increase the flexibility of synchr
Kumar Suresh
Varma Pradeep
Burgess Glenton B.
Coca T. Rao
International Business Machines - Corporation
Kupstas Tod
Whitham Curtis & Christofferson, P.C.
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