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Creating Shared Information Spaces to Support Collaborative Design Work
Smart Internet Technology Research Group

Aims

- Elicit user requirements for supporting the collaborative work of engineering designers,

- Design, development, and implementation of a web-based prototype system,

- Field assessment of the system

Introduction

- LIRE (living Repository) system was designed to facilitate the asynchronous, distributed, collaborative work of engineering designers in a large company.

- It extends the notion of shared information spaces and builds on existing research in computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) and workflow management systems (WFMS).

Methodological Issues

- We employed information flow analysis to develop information flow maps of the product development and Research Support departments:

*click image to enlarge

*click image to enlarge

- The information flow maps along with observation and interview data were used to elicit the specific requirements for the LIRE system.

 

LIRÉ Features

- Document Organization

- References Between and Annotations to Documents

- Searching for Documents through Multiple Means (attributes, classification, keywords)

- Delivery on Standard Hardware and Software Platforms

- Document Formats and Translation

- Groups, Ownership of Documents, and Access Control

LIRÉ Architecture

- LIRÉ has a standard three-tier architecture. The top layer is the user interface using html protocol. The middle layer is a web server that communicates with the web browser client and the lower storage layer comprising ORACLE DBMS and the file system. The other modules of LIRÉ include a text search module using off the shelf software and Babel, a document transformation system. The architecture of LIRÉ is extensible and designed to be continually modified to meet previously unanticipated requirements reflecting newer contingencies that arise over time.

*click image to enlarge

Contact

Joseph G. Davis
[in collaboration with: E.Subrahmanian, S. Konda et al.]
*This research was sponsored by the institute for Complex Engineered Systems at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh .
 
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