Final Assignment
Define a new feature in Communities of Practice which could be generically applied in a CoP. Then think of an implementation of your idea on our own portal; could be a real implementation (with help of the developers), or demo or mock-up. The eventual winner(s) will be acknowledged on our portal
Brain Storming of Ideas
- Focus Groups ~ Group listing that is linked to Profile page and Desktop. These groups are created by the members to develop discussion, Q&A, etc. on a specific topic area. Groups will allow for focused emails and discussion between people of similar topic interests. Groups are a public feature for interaction. Group interaction will be highlighted on the member desktop.
- Events Calendar ~ allow members to create event items and invite other members to participate in the event. Events can be private invite only events or public all are welcome events. Private events only get listed on the Calendars of the members invited. Public events are listed on the public calendar. Private Calendars and key "Portal sponsored" events are listed on the members desktop.
- Live
Content Communication~ Private Chat, Public Chat, 1-on-1 chat, Group chat, Pure text chat, Audio Chat, Video Chat. Create Chat Rooms on the fly for instant use or create a chat room for a scheduled event. Allow the chat to be completely interactive where everyone is a participating member or limit the interaction that some of the memebers are able to have. Provide the option to archive the content into a public/private database to be accessed from the site. Private archives will only be accessable to the people that attended the chat.
- Rating Review System ~ Provide a system where members can rate the quality of products companies members systems etc giving a "Star" or number rating of the item along with a comment/Review of the product/service/member.
- Building Product Information ~ Pull information from other databases (Sweets Catalog, Reed First Source Catalog, Participating Manufacturers, etc) to build a continually updated resource for researching building materials for use in the healthcare industry. Also pull information from the rating Review System to determine how other members of the portal feel about specific products.
Feature Developed ~ Live Communication
Feature Description ~ Live Communication is a feature to merge text, audio, and video chat into one feature. The long term goal is for the entire process(s) to be integrated into one large system. The demo pages shown; along with the text description below, work around the idea that this feature has reached the one large system level. After the function is described as envisioned further details will be elaborated on interim steps that could be taken toward reaching the long term goal.
Feature Components
- Member Profile Page ~ The member profile page will have a list a contact options that will only be avaliable if the member's settings is allowing contact from other members. If the member is not accepting contact by the different method those options will not be shown. Private email will be relocated to this list of options. When a Live Communication option is selected then the proper communication window will open contacting the specific member being contacted. (see demo link below)
- Navigation Menu System ~ This is self explanitory and will be added to the basic member navigation system. (see demo link below)
- Communicator Window ~ This will be a pop up window that can be set to load when the user logs on to the portal. The option for the Communicator software to run automatically on log in will be a setting that each member selects in the profile settings. The default option is off so that the member is in control of when the program runs. The communicator window will show the members colleagues that currently have the communicator software running. It will also show a list of other Portal members who have the software running. The member status selection allows the member to tell other members basic avaliability from being avaliable, busy (but still might be able to talk), or away from the computer but will see the message when they return. One other status option is Invisible, this selection allows the member to be signed on but not be shown on any other members communicator list. The communicator window allows members to quickly access meeting rooms and schedule future meeting rooms. (see demo link below)
- Private Meeting Window ~ Is a "typical" chat window between 2 members. Other than basic chat features this Private Meeting feature will have the option to run audio and video. It will also allow for a transcript of the communication including audio and video feeds that occured during the meeting. When a member selects the audio or video feature the other member will receive a selection prompt to accept/decline the mode of communication being chosen.
- Public Meeting Window ~ The public meeting window will be a basic chat room situation. Like the Private meeting feature, the public meeting feature will also have the option for members to initiate audio and video feeds along with creating an archive of the meeting.
- Video Meeting Window ~ the major difference between the video meeting window and the Public Meeting Window is the user interaction. The video Meeting Window adds more features than just seeing video feeds of the other users. The video meeting allows for shared desktops/program, moderator control of who can manipluate the display at any given time, public and private conversations etc. Of course there is the ability to record the Public meeting information: video, audio and text. The Private conversations that occur between members will not be recorded.
- Meeting Schedule Page ~ The meeting schedule page allows members to schedule and create meeting rooms in advance. Along with scheduling the meeting, the member creating the meeting will then be able to send an invitation to other members with the name of the meeting room and the date of the event. Once scheduled, the meeting will be added to the calendars of every attending member along with the public calendar. The meeting will not be added to the public calendar if it is set to be a private meeting. (see demo link below)
- Record Archive Page ~ When a members selects the archive button at the end of a meeting, this page will show up. It will allow the member to add or further develop the meeting description, add a title to the meeting, tag the meeting, determine if the meeting is to be stored publicly or privately, and also determine what category the meeting should be stored in.
- Public Archives ~ The Public archives will be a set of pages in the Portal Wiki that stores all archived meetings. The meetings will have an individal wiki page that stores the meeting time and description along with a link to the archived meeting. All text communication in the meetings will have an html transcript produced so that the search engine will be able to access that information along with the general description.
- Private Archives ~ The private archives will be a subset of the personal blog. This is where transcripts/recordings of meetings will be stored when set to private. Only the person scheduling the event can determine if the archive of the event is to be public or private. All private meetins will only be saved to private archives. The only way for them to be saved to the public archive is with approval from both members involved in the meeting.
Assignment Files ~ These pages may brake at any time and some of the information links may not work like normal. These are demo pages only.
Taking Steps toward the final Product
Currently we do not have access to one fully integrated software that does all of the functions that this function wants to do. in the mean time there are ways to simulate the functionality. Members can be encouraged to install skype in order to use the voice and video conferencing functions that skype has. It also will allow members to have access to the system via cellphones. As for video conferencing software, users can be directed to interface with Webex to run video conferences there. Then they could call in using skype to get the audio functions that would be desired. Another Video conferencing software that is showing promise is Palbee. Palbee does not have as many bells and whistles as Webex but they are about to begin beta testing of a website API to allow users the ability to run Palbee off of their own website rather than having to go to Palbee to run the software. |
