Sharing views and interactions with single-user applications

Abstract

Abstract-Although work is frequently collaborative, most computer-based activities revolve around software packages designed to be used by one person at a time. To get around this, people working together often talk and gesture around a computer screen, perhaps taking turns interacting with the running "single-user" application by passing the keyboard around. However, it is technically possible to share these unaltered applications-even though they were originally designed for a single user only-across physically different workstations through special view-sharing software. Each person sees the same image of the running application on their own screen, and has an opportunity to interact with it by taking turns. This paper discusses the various roles and responsibilities of the view-sharing software that must be considered during its design and evaluation: view management, floor control, conference registration by participants, and handling of meta-level communications. A brief survey of existing shared view systems is provided for background.

Modeling, simulation, and practice of floor control for synchronous and ubiquitous collaboration

“…The policy means that a user has control of an object during only short-term dragging, where dragging means pressing a button over an object which he wants to use and releasing the button when he relinquishes the use of the object. Greenberg [17,18] classified the floor control schemes for turn-taking between participants with view-sharing applications. He discussed some floor control mechanisms implemented in the view-sharing applications and showed as an example that explicitly managing (or designing) turn-taking floor control with viewsharing (of full screen) applications in a windowed environment is difficult without disturbing the shared view to explicitly activate floor control from user's perspective because there is no room to display information about current state of the floor in the shared full screen.…”

Multi-user, multi-display interaction with a single-user, single-display geospatial application

“…Greenberg [5] surveyed and discussed a large body of research performed with the goal of providing shared-views across distributed sites. In this work, the research focuses on ensuring that the same view is displayed on different remote machines so that separated users have a shared context for collaboration.…”

Building flexible groupware through open protocols

“…Open protocols are a generalization of work on floor control in the SHARE system [6,7]. Under that system, floor control is used to mediate access to a shared terminal.…”