On 9/7/00, I sent an interesting email with links regarding CASCADE based on
Doug's augmentation theories.:
> The CASCADE (Computer Augmented Support Collaborative Authoring and Document Editing)
> project is based on the augmentation theories of Engelbart (1984,1988,1992). CASCADE was
> developed to augment and aid document review tasks. Reviewers communicate through documents
> and annotations created. A number of tasks are off-loaded from reviewers or inspectors so that
> more time and effort can be allocated for the primary (review) task. In addition, CASCADE’s
> interaction style using point-and-clicking, in-line, color-coded and form-based annotations - are
> intuitive and “natural” for reviewing textual documents. This would be true for software
> artifacts, e.g. source code listing. From this perspective, software inspection tasks could be
> facilitated by the use of the CASCADE system. CASCADE involves SGML/XML, hypertext,
> multimedia, DBMSs ,network protocols, system design, visualization, data mining, social
> computing, and intelligent agents to name a view. CASCADE is an email-centric environment that
> allows groups of people to work together writing, revising, commenting, and discussing
> documents. CASCADE offers a number of notable features including, placement of annotations
> at specific locations, color coded labeling, flexible comment classifications, and navigational
> tools. With minor reorganization and a few enhancements, CASCADE can serve as a testbed for
> asynchronous software inspection research.
>
> CASCADE, has been developed to augment commenting and review on electronic documents, is a
> three-tier client server application. Its design was guided by four principles most simply
> described as: augmentation, information utilization, visualization, and agents. Each is briefly
> elaborated on here.
>
> Augmentation. Given some task, only a small portion of the subtasks require cognitive
> processing (Engelbart, 1961; Engelbart, 1962). In CASCADE, the system is so structured as to
> offload the mechanical tasks to the computer. For example, making a hypertext comment
> requires 10-15 actions (depending on how the process is defined). Only one of these tasks,
> writing the comment itself, actually requires the commenter - the rest can be done by the
> system. “Augmentation”, as used by Engelbart (1984,1988,1992), involves task analysis and
> redesign to create a set of processes that optimize the human side of the human computer
> interaction. CASCADE currently augments comment and comment review processes. This current
> research will extend the augmented processes to inspection and defect collection.
>
> Information Utilization. Zuboff (1984) uses the term “informating” to refer to a process
> where an information stream generated by a computer is used to improve the process. She draws
> parallels between automation and information, and automating and informating. CASCADE uses
> information about documents, groups, and actions to inform simple functions. For example,
> sending mail begins with the subject, recipient, and originator fields of a mail note filled in.
> CASCADE knows the email addresses, and how group members like to receive their mail. Clicking
> one button attaches the document. The user simply types the note and the document is sent out.
> This kind of redesign is called “information” in the Zuboffian sense of the term as a direct
> parallel to “automation”.
>
> Visualization. The visualization of data can increase the speed with which targets of
> opportunity can be addressed. CASCADE has a set of visual navigation tools that increase the
> speed with which sets of documents, document components, and areas within documents can be
> accessed. Current research is aimed at assessing the utility of these tools contrasted with other
> mechanisms for accessing particular documents. Apart from navigational tools, CASCADE
> provides visualization tools, that augment activity analysis, tracking and reporting on various
> forms of activity in a way that supports different views, and controls access to a large complex
> document set.
>
> Agents. There are many things that we would like others to do for us. With advances in
> computing power and techniques, it is increasingly possible to design simple software programs
> (agents) that appear to be intelligent (in some cases the learning algorithms and control logic
> merit that title). In CASCADE, the current plan for agent design focuses on simple
> “contribution” agents that do little tasks on behalf of the user. For example, the communication
> agent keeps track of where people “live” when they are using CASCADE. Knowing that, the agent
> can check those places when someone wants to contact them. The CASCADE communication agent
> does just this. It keeps track of who a user wants to talk to and watches for them. When found,
> it let’s the user know, and if the timing is still right, sets up an interactive talk session.
> CASCADE is a multiple-platform three-tier client-server application and its screen is divided
> into four main panels. Across the top are menus. Across the bottom are status and informational
> panels. On the left-hand side of the CASCADE screen, there is a file
> navigational panel showing the user available documents and folders. The majority of the screen
> is the main viewer where the document is displayed. To make a comment, the user simply clicks
> the mouse at a target location in the document. The comment creation and review dialogs allow
> comments to be entered and comment types to be classified. Once a comment is created, it will
> appear as a color coded label inside the document and will be available for all users to view.
> Users can quickly identify comments through an intra-document navigational facility, called the
> mural bar, located at the right most of the
> window. CASCADE also has a number of security features. User privileges and document
> permission enforce accessibility and operations inside CASCADE.
> http://www.sis.pitt.edu/~cascade
>
> "This research is still in its early stages. A number of questions are still being explored. Among
> these are the development of an optimized application protocol and refinement of the database
> structure. There are also questions about overall process efficiency that may require violation
> of some of the conceptual principles of DBMS design. While locking has been implemented at a
> gross level in the current version, a more accurate assessment of the capability of the system
> will have to await the implementation of element level locking which is currently being
> implemented. Also, the incorporation of augmented XML document construction and XML
> document display will represent an important step in the refinement of the system as a usable
> system for practical application."
>
> References
> Appendix E, Bordin Sapsomboon thesis (Shared Defect Detection : The Effects of Annotations
> in Asynchronous Software Inspection)
> http://www.sis.pitt.edu/~cascade/bordin/inspection.html
>
> *Off-loading routine tasks to computer for allowing humans to focus on high-level cognitive
> tasks
> http://www2.sis.pitt.edu/~cascade/bordin/bordin_presentation.ppt
>
Jack Park wrote:
> From: Jack Park <jackpark@verticalnet.com>
>
> > Home page is http://www.atp.nist.gov/atp/proposers.htm
>
> >From that page, we motor around and eventually stumble on this one:
> http://www.sis.pitt.edu/~cascade/
>
> "Welcome to the home page for CASCADE. CASCADE is a research initiative to
> study the development of net based collaborative authoring systems. CASCADE
> stands for Computer Augmented Support for Collaborative Authoring and
> Document Editing. Over the last couple of years, I have made a number of
> presentations of CASCADE. I have selected two that provide slightly
> different introdcutions for inclusion here: "
>
> There is even software you can download. Not open source, near as I can
> tell.
>
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jan 12 2001 - 12:19:59 PST