Collaborative Technologies

Potential for Learning, Education and Training

Collaborative technologies are the outcome of pursuing the communications potential of the information and communications technologies. It is widely recognised that collaborative technologies have potential application for learning, education, and training environments, and many products are commonly available.

However, most collaborative learning environments that were developed in the first decade of the World Wide Web were closed systems and not able to interoperate (share data) with each other.

The purpose of developing standards in this area is to promote interoperability between collaborative applications and data.

Collaborative Technologies in Learning Environments

Collaborative technologies used in learning environments can consist of software tools (plug-ins) that enable communication and sharing of information between users/students.

Most of the tools used within a collaborative learning environment were originally developed as stand-alone tools for which standards and protocols have been specified.

Examples of software tools that are used in collaborative learning environments include email, chat, instant messaging, forums, and file sharing.

Protocols and specifications

Exchange of information using email is accomplished through adherence to well established protocols and specifications including POP3, SMTP, MIME, HTTP.

LDAP and WebDAV

Other specifications that are used in collaborative learning environments include LDAP and WebDAV. LDAP enables users to locate online resources (files, devices etc) on the Internet or Intranets. It is based on X.500, which is a standard for directory services within a network. WebDAV supports file management between users on the Internet. The working group responsible for it is part of the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium).

HTML and XML

Web-based collaborative applications, such as chat rooms and forums, rely on standards such as HTML and XML to present and exchange information.

HTML is a ‘markup’ language that describes how data is to be presented within your browser and XML provides a set of rules for structuring and describing data (XML has developed into the base for a wide variety of standards and specifications on the World Wide Web and elsewhere).

All of the above technologies and standards represent a small, but widely used, subset of what is available to software developers for building applications that communicate with each other, and that will often be found supporting collaborative environments.

However, they fall short of defining a model for describing a collaborative environment.

In education and training, collaborative learning environments are used to support learning and there is a need to describe the collaborative environment that supports this.

IS/IEC JTC1 SC36 WG2

The International Standards Organization (ISO) specifies a framework for describing the structure and characteristics of a collaborative workplace for learning. This is known as ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36 WG2.

JTC1 is a Joint Technical Committee between ISO and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). SC36 is sub-committee 36, which was formed to work on information technology for learning, education, and training. This sub-committee is composed of five working groups. Working Group 2 (WG2) was formed to work on collaborative technology and has created a draft proposal titled ‘Collaborative Technology – Collaborative Workplace’. It is this paper that proposes a framework for describing the structure and characteristics of collaborative workplaces for learning.

25 items in this category.

1. Attention.XML
   Category: Collaborative Technologies
   
   Attention.XML is an open standard, built on open source, that helps keep track of what attention metadata, what web users read, spend time on, and should be paying attention to. Attention.XML is an XML file (specifically an XOXO file) that contains an outline of feeds/blogs, where each feed itself is an outline, and each post is also an outline under the feed. This hierarchical outline structure is then annotated with per-feed and per-post information which captures such information as, the last time the feed/post was accessed, the duration of time spent on the feed/post, recent times of feed/post access, user set (dis)approval of posts.
   
   

2. Australian Flexible Learning Framework Collaborative Interoperability
   Category: Collaborative Technologies
   
   This project aims to extend access to resources for the VET sector by focussing on improved information management and greater adoption of national technical standards.
   
   

3. Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP)
   Category: Collaborative Technologies
   
   The Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) is an open XML technology for real-time communication, which powers a wide range of applications including instant messaging, presence, media negotiation, whiteboarding, collaboration, lightweight middleware, content syndication, and generalized XML routing. The open XML communications technology was developed by the Jabber open-source community in 1999, formalized by the IETF in 2002-2004, and continuously extended through the standards process of the XMPP Standards Foundation.
   
   

4. Government 2.0 Projects in VPS: an introduction to managing risk
   Category: Collaborative Technologies
   
   This document is designed to help users understand the potential risks of Gov 2.0 projects, how to manage these risks for a successful Gov 2.0 project and how to use the VPS Gov 2.0 Risk Management Plan to formalise their approach to managing risks. Gov 2.0 risks are manageable, and mitigation approaches for specific project situations are possible. Gov 2.0 encompasses a number of new approaches and social media technologies (such as open collaboration, Facebook and Twitter).
   
   

5. hCalendar
   Category: Collaborative Technologies
   
   hCalendar is a microformat standard, - a simple, distributed calendaring and events format, based on the iCalendar standard (RFC2445), suitable for embedding in (X)HTML, Atom, RSS, and arbitrary XML. hCalendar is one of several open microformat standards.
   
   

6. hcard
   Category: Collaborative Technologies
   
   

   hCard is a Microformats simple, open, distributed format for representing people, companies, organizations, and places, using a 1:1 representation of vCard (RFC2426) properties and values in semantic HTML or XHTML. hCard is one of several open microformat standards suitable for embedding in HTML, XHTML, Atom, RSS, and arbitrary XML.

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7. Internet2 Commons
   Category: Collaborative Technologies
   
   Internet2 Commons seeks to bring research and academia together with technology leaders from industry, government and the international community, Internet2 promotes collaboration and innovation that has a fundamental impact on the future of the Internet.
   
   

8. KnowNow
   Category: Collaborative Technologies
   
   KnowNow contain models and information on the use of Web 2.0 technologies.
   
   

9. Metadata for Images in XML Standard (MIX)
   Category: Collaborative Technologies
   
   The MIX schema is an XML schema for a set of technical data elements required to manage digital image collections. The schema provides a format for interchange and/or storage of the data specified in the Data Dictionary - Technical Metadata for Digital Still Images (ANSI/NISO Z39.87-2006). MIX is maintained for NISO by the Network Development and MARC Standards Office of the Library of Congress with input from users.
   
   

10. Open Data Definition
    Category: Collaborative Technologies
    
    

    The Open Data Definition (ODD) is an XML based data portability format designed to be simple and flexible. It consists of an XML framework plus an extension format defining the keywords, classes and required items of metadata. ODD takes the view that existing data portability standards are, despite being powerful, much too complex for widespread adoption. The format is made up of a handful of core components with minimal nesting, which allows the support for import/export, syndication and live streaming.

    
    
    

11. Open Data Definition
    Category: Collaborative Technologies
    
    The Open Data Definition (ODD) is an XML based data portability format designed to be simple and flexible. It consists of an XML framework plus an extension format defining the keywords, classes and required items of metadata. ODD takes the view that existing data portability standards are, despite being powerful, much too complex for widespread adoption. The format is made up of a handful of core components with minimal nesting, which allows the support for import/export, syndication and live streaming.
    
    

12. Outline Processor Markup Language (OPML)
    Category: Collaborative Technologies
    
    OPML an XML-based format that allows exchange of outline-structured information between applications running on different operating systems and environments.
    
    

13. Peer-to-Peer Working Group
    Category: Collaborative Technologies
    
    The Peer-to-Peer Working Group was organised to facilitate and accelerate the advancement of infrastructure best-known practices for peer-to-peer computing.
    
    

14. Personal Data Interchange: vCard and vCalendar
    Category: Collaborative Technologies
    
    Personal Data Interchange (PDI) occurs every time two or more individuals communicate, in either a business or personal context, face-to-face, or across space and time. Such interchanges frequently include the exchange of informal information, such as business cards, telephone numbers, addresses, dates, and times of appointments. Augmenting PDI with electronics and telecommunications can help ensure that information is quickly and reliably communicated, stored, organized and easily located when needed. This Internet Mail Consortium site contains information and standards for vCard and vCalendar.
    
    

15. Podcasting and iTunes: Technical Specification
    Category: Collaborative Technologies
    
    This document covers technical aspects of podcasting and preparing RSS feeds using Apple's iTunes. Topics include: submission and feedback processes; an example feed, iTunes RSS tags, common mistakes, additional resources and iTunes categories for podcasting.
    
    

16. Roadmap for open ICT ecosystems
    Category: Collaborative Technologies
    
    The Roadmap for Open ICT Ecosystems is a user-friendly guide for policymakers and technologists offerings tools for understanding, creating, and sustaining open information and communication technologies ecosystems.
    
    

17. RSS 2.0 Specification
    Category: Collaborative Technologies
    
    RSS is a Web content syndication format. Its name is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication. RSS is a dialect of XML. All RSS files must conform to the XML 1.0 specification, as published on the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) website. This document represents the status of RSS as of the second half of 2002, version 2.0.1. It incorporates all changes and additions, starting with the basic spec for RSS 0.91 (June 2000) and includes new features introduced in RSS 0.92 (December 2000) and RSS 0.94 (August 2002).
    
    

18. RSS Autodiscovery
    Category: Collaborative Technologies
    
    RSS autodiscovery is a technique that makes it possible for browsers and other software to automatically find a site's RSS feed. Autodiscovery informs users that a web site offers a syndication feed. When a browser loads a page and discovers that a feed is available, it displays the common feed icon in the address bar. Users can click the icon to subscribe with the browser's RSS reader or the user's preferred reader. This specification describes how web publishers can support autodiscovery by adding an HTML header to web pages.
    
    

19. RSS for Developers
    Category: Collaborative Technologies
    
    From the MSDN XML Developer Center this site provides RSS resources including the Microsoft Simple Sharing Extensions Specification and Microsoft Simple List Extensions Specification. It also offers news and advice for RSS developers with the aim of realising the potential of RSS to improve integration of information delivered across software and services.
    
    

20. SIOC Core Ontology Specification
    Category: Collaborative Technologies
    
    The SIOC (Semantically-Interlinked Online Communities) Core Ontology provides the main concepts and properties required to describe information from online communities (e.g., message boards, wikis, weblogs, etc.) on the Semantic Web. This document contains a detailed description of the SIOC Core Ontology.
    
    

21. Social Graph API
    Category: Collaborative Technologies
    
    

    The Social Graph API makes information about the public connections between people on the Web, expressed by XFN and FOAF markup and other publicly declared connections, easily available and useful for developers. The API returns web addresses of public pages and publicly declared connections between them. The API cannot access non-public information, such as private profile pages or websites accessible to a limited group of friends.

    
    
    

22. TrackBack Technical Specification
    Category: Collaborative Technologies
    
    This document describes TrackBack, a framework for peer-to-peer communication and notifications between web sites. The central idea behind TrackBack is the idea of a TrackBack ping, a request saying, essentially, 'resource A is related/linked to resource B.' A TrackBack resource is represented by a TrackBack Ping URL, which is just a standard URI. Using TrackBack, sites can communicate about related resources.
    
    

23. Videoconferencing Cookbook - Emerging Collaborative Technologies
    Category: Collaborative Technologies
    
    This site contains information about Simple Internet Protocol (SIP), wireless and satellite video, application and data sharing and teleportation technologies.
    
    

24. WebDAV - IETF Standard for Collaborative Authoring on the Web
    Category: Collaborative Technologies
    
    Explanatory paper on WebDAV written by James Whitehead and Meredith Wiggins. WebDAV is a set of extensions to the HTTP 1.1 protocol allowing users to asynchronously and collaboratively edit and manage files on remote web servers.
    
    

25. WebDAV - IETF Standard for Collaborative Authoring on the Web
    Category: Collaborative Technologies
    
    

    Explanatory paper on WebDAV written by James Whitehead and Meredith Wiggins. WebDAV is a set of extensions to the HTTP 1.1 protocol allowing users to asynchronously and collaboratively edit and manage files on remote web servers.