Architecture of the artifact-based collaboration system matrix

Abstract

The UNC Collaboratory project is concerned with both the process of collaboration and with computer systems to support that process. Here, we describe a component of the Artifact-Based Collaboration (ABC) system, called the Matrix, that provides an infrastructure in which existing single-user applications can be incorporated with few, if any, changes and used collaboratively. We take the position that what is needed is not new tools but better infrastructure for using familiar single-user tools collectively. The paper discusses the Matrix architecture, a Virtual Screen component, and generic functions that provide conferencing, hyperlinking, and recording of users' actions for all applications.

Integrating infrastructure

“…The ABC open hypermedia system [30] contains a component known as the Matrix [19] that employs a homogeneous integration technique to incorporate a wide range of third-party applications. The technique takes advantage of a service of the X windowing system which allows the Matrix to detect when an application creates a window and presents it on screen.…”

“…In actuality, the support for these capabilities is not entirely automatic, however the Matrix is designed to keep the applicationspecific code required to use the Matrix's hypermedia capabilities at a minimum. See [19] for details.…”

Conferencing and collaborative computing

“…For these reasons, although Lauwers and Lantz (1990) lobby for centralized computer conferencing architectures, they conclude that modern window systems make this task very difficult to achieve. However, emerging groupware toolkits make it possible to adapt single-user applications to collaborative settings with only a few changes aimed to combat these shortcomings (Bentley et al 1994;Jeffay et al 1992; Knister and Prakash 1990; Patel and Kalter 1993; Patterson et al 1990; Roseman and Greenberg 1992). The resulting application is thus collaboration-aware.…”

The architecture and implementation of a distributed hypermedia storage system

“…ABC has six key components (Jeffay et al 1992): the Distributed Graph Storage system, a set of graph browsers, a set of data. application programs, a shared window conferencing facility, rea.…”