Creative Services for Web and Education

CSCW: Prospectus of Sakai Widget

1. Goal

   The Sakai system will be improved through better communication features, more customization and social networking, protected workspaces and accountability.

2. Overview

   Communication: Better communication will be supported from a chat application like Trillian that can connect multiple traditional chat clients such as Yahoo Messenger, MSN, offer the choice of 3-D avatar chat like IMVU and VoIP like Skype for the users. Chat histories will be searchable and sortable by date, people and key words. Chats can be public to the class or private between two classmates. This chat feature will allow easier and freer communication which will increase a sense of social presence in the online environment and support interdependencies within the group. Chat will be available between classmates whether a user is signed into Sakai or not. Communication will become more organized, convenient and transparent.

   Customization and Social Networking: Each classmate will create a customizable profile with contact information. Additional components can be embedded as desired, for example, portfolio Web sites, Faceboook/MySpace/YouTube pages, Second Life avatars, del.ic.ious/mag.no.lia links or personal blogs. Users can choose as much or as little as they want to share. Including these components allows a quicker building of community within the group. The Sakai interface itself will be customizable so that sections can be moved around in an AJAX style of drag and drop similar to iGoogle, depending on the user's preferences.

   Accountability: A historical record of posts will be available so that when posts are edited, the initial posts are available through a link.

   Protected Workspaces: Currently Sakai offers a workspace for individuals called My Workspace. This worksite will also be available for groups within a class and called Our Workspace. This protected workspace will allow more freedom for groups to work where they are not visible to classmates but the instructor can still see their thinking process. The Workspace will offer integrated collaborative tools like Google Docs.

3. Challenges

   There are programming issues because the applications are written in different languages. The universal chat feature will need to be sense what system is being used and correctly sync them up so dial-up users who are text-only can interact with others who might be signed into 3-D chat. The system would need to automatically adjust.

   For example, I chat in Yahoo Messenger with someone who uses MSN Messenger. If I try to add a special Yahoo-only feature such as a fish tank IMvironment, the program automatically disables it so that we are in the same plain text environment. There are economic issues with combining different products due to competition in the industry. They are user issues since not all users are equally comfortable and proficient with the technologies. There are interpersonal issues because not all people can work closely together in a trustworthy environment.

4. What's Been Done

   Systems that support self-expression, chat and social networking dominate the internet. Statistics demonstrate their widespread use. Social networking Web sites: MySpace (67,067,733 site visitors during Sept. 2007), YouTube (47,417,527) and Facebook (24,211,448). (Retrieved Oct. 11, 2007, from http://siteanalytics.compete.com/facebook.com+youtube.com+myspace.com/?metric=uv)

   Chat clients: AOL Instant Messenger Estimated User Base: 53 million active users, Yahoo! Messenger Estimated User Base: 21 million active users, MSN Estimated User Base: 29 million active users and ICQ Estimated User Base: 15 million active users. (Retrieved Oct. 11, 2007, from http://reviews.digitaltrends.com/guide59.html)

   Online environments that incorporate these components will attract more users and encourage stronger interpersonal relationships. Facebook already includes text chat and has an alpha application starting which combines IMVU 3-D chat into it. Sites like iGoogle and My Yahoo offer easy customization with AJAX where users can drag and drop their components.

5. What's Been Said

   From my interview with my classmate, I learned that more chat and more conveniently organized chat would be helpful to the process of work completion. From my own experience, I know that it's easier to work with people that I know and like. When I talk with them, see their photos, read their blogs, hear their stories and watch their videos, I understand them better. I can more successfully adapt my work style to fit their personality.

6. Standards

   The system will be based on the current open-source Sakai system. Web and accessibility standards will apply to the new features.

7. Wild Ideas

   Choice of 3-D environment: 3-D Users will be able to log into Sakai and chose a 3-D/multimedia environment or plain text environment. The integration of 3-D avatars like IMVU will allow users to completely customize their look with choice of clothing, hair, skin color, accessories and surroundings.

   Universal translator: Text translators like Babel Fish will become so accurate that anyone can take the same online course, regardless of location and language. For example, if a person who speaks Swahili logs in, they will experience the course with all its posts and resources in Swahili. Someone else will see them all in Spanish.

8. Experts

   Online communication researchers, Web designers, experts on social networking and chat, application programmers, multimedia specialists, usability experts, education psychologists and students taking online courses will be consulted during the design and development process and during the testing phases.