TUTORIALS - CTS 2010


T1:  Spatial Computing for Networked Collaboration    3 hrs
Jacob Beal
BBN Technologies, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

T2.  The Use of HCI and HRI to Improve Emergency Response    5 hrs
Holly A. Yanco, University of Massachusetts - Lowell, Massachusetts, USA
Jill L. Drury, The MITRE Corporation, Bedford, Massachusetts, USA

T3.  Capitalization of Collective Knowledge:  From Knowledge Engineering, Multi-agents to CSCW and Socio Semantic Web    4 hrs
Nada Matta, University of Technology of Troyes, France
Davy Monticolo, University of Technology of Belfort-Montbéliard, Belfort, France

T4.  Building an Online Collaboration Platform Using XMPP and Open Source Software    2.5 hrs
Ozgur (Oscar) Ozturk
Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia, USA

T1:  Spatial Computing for Networked Collaboration    3 hrs
Jacob Beal
BBN Technologies, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA


TUTORIAL DESCRIPTION
Typical networked collaboration applications depend strongly on the all-to-all connectivity provided by the Internet.  In many cases, however, such dependence is impractical, either because networking infrastructure may be damaged or unreliable (e.g. emergency response and disaster rescue) or because sufficient infrastructure is not available (e.g. remote areas and developing nations).  In many such cases, programming complex applications is an extremely challenging problem for traditional programming approaches, since there are typically potentially large numbers of devices, spread through a physical space with only local communication, resource-constrained devices, and a frequently changing network structure.  

A number of programming models have been developed, however, that simplify these problems by taking advantage of the spatial character of the network structure and typical aggregate behavior goals.  This tutorial presents an overview of the problem area and state-of-the art approaches, plus an in-depth look at one such programming model, the Proto programming language, which uses a continuous space abstraction to enable global-to-local compilation of high-level geometric programs into distributed application code.  

Attendees will learn about spatial computing and the range of existing spatial programming models.  They will also learn details of the Proto language and be taught the basics of programming in Proto with a cumulative sequence of examples.  It is expected that, following the tutorial, any attendee who wishes will be able to download Proto and begin building their own applications.

T2.  The Use of HCI and HRI to Improve Emergency Response    5 hrs
Holly A. Yanco, University of Massachusetts - Lowell, Massachusetts, USA
Jill L. Drury, The MITRE Corporation, Bedford, Massachusetts, USA


TUTORIAL DESCRIPTION
Human-robot interaction (HRI) can be viewed as a collaborative effort, even when a single human is interacting with only one robot.  Humans and robots are unequal partners, yet they are nevertheless collaborators in performing vital missions such as elder care, bomb disposal, or search and rescue.  In fact, some of the theory and techniques from the computer-supported collaborative work (CSCW) domain has been trickling into the HRI discipline, such as common ground theory (Stubbs, 2007) and awareness of remote team members (e.g., Drury et al., 2003).  We designed this tutorial to introduce collaboration and CSCW researchers to HRI, using case studies from assistive robotics and emergency response and emphasizing promising HRI research areas that may be of interest to the collaboration community.  

In this 5-hour tutorial, we will provide an overview of the current status of research in interactions with robots, including humans interacting in different roles and via different modalities.  We will also include an overview of the many types of robots and the degrees of autonomy that they possess.  We will critique various user interface designs, describing the positive and negative aspects of the designs based on the results of user testing that have been reported in the literature.  Further, we will provide design guidelines to aid tutorial attendees who will be developing new robot interfaces.  This tutorial will also include an introduction to methods for evaluating HRI designs.  

The case studies in assistive robotics will include robotic wheelchairs and robotic arms.  The emergency response case studies will be taken from two domains, hazardous materials (HAZMAT) and urban search and rescue (USAR).  These case studies are particularly interesting because they encompass different quadrants of the collaborative time-space taxonomy (Ellis et al., 1991).  Assistive technologies most often involve people being collocated with robots, and therefore require robot designers to be especially mindful of the safety of the humans in close proximity to the robots.  In contrast, urban search and rescue robots are operated remotely, which means that robot designers need to provide technology-based support for humans' awareness of the robot's activities and surroundings.  The case studies include results from investigating more than a dozen systems over several years, including the use of multi-user, multi-touch tables for controlling robots.  The tutorial will examine the design of robot systems that are currently being used as well as those being developed in laboratories.  

We will conduct the tutorial using a combination of lectures, discussion, and movie clips illustrating human-robot interaction.  Attendees will leave the tutorial with a set of references they can use to further investigate HRI as well as ideas for how they can apply their collaboration knowledge to the HRI domain.

T3.  Capitalization of Collective Knowledge:  From Knowledge Engineering, Multi-agents to CSCW and Socio Semantic Web    4 hrs
Nada Matta, University of Technology of Troyes, France
Davy Monticolo, University of Technology of Belfort-Montbéliard, Belfort, France


TUTORIAL DESCRIPTION
Knowledge Management (KM) is one of the key progress factors in organizations. It aims at capturing explicit and tacit knowledge of an organization in order to facilitate the access, sharing, and reuse of that knowledge as well as creation of new knowledge and organizational learning.  KM must be guided by a strategic vision to fulfill its primary organizational objectives:  improving knowledge sharing and cooperative work inside the organization; disseminating best practices; improving relationships with the external world; preserving past knowledge of the organization for reuse; improving the quality of projects and innovations; anticipating the evolution of the external environment; and preparing for unexpected events and managing urgency and crisis situations.  

Several approaches are used to handle knowledge Management (community of practices, operational learning, knowledge engineering, semantic web, etc.).  These approaches help to capture profession's knowledge in specific domains.  Other types of knowledge produced in cooperative activities (projects, discussions, etc.) have to be managed.  Approaches from CSCW help to handle this knowledge and to represent its organizational and cooperative dimensions.  

In this tutorial, we introduce knowledge engineering techniques that help at structuring information and knowledge and we present techniques defined in CSCW to handle design rationale and negotiation.  An example of collective knowledge is then defined: Project memory.  This will be followed by detailed treatment of approaches that help to keep track of project knowledge.  We extend our tutorial by presenting the socio-semantic web approaches, which help to represent concepts built collectively in an organization.  These approaches can be illustrated in real applications in several domains: design, safety, marketplace, etc.  

This tutorial summarizes several years of studies and presents how knowledge engineering and CSCW can help in knowledge management.  It opens knowledge management studies on a hard problem to deal with: the dynamic aspects of collective knowledge.  

Further details and references on this tutorial are available in an accompanying paper in these Proceedings.   

T4.  Building an Online Collaboration Platform Using XMPP and Open Source Software    2.5 hrs
Ozgur (Oscar) Ozturk, Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia, USA



TUTORIAL DESCRIPTION
Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) is an open, XML-based protocol aimed at near-real-time, extensible instant messaging (IM) and presence information.  It has been expanded into the broader realm of message-oriented middleware.  Built to be extensible, the protocol has been extended with features such as Voice over Internet Protocol and file transfer signaling. XMPP protocol has been used by many social networking platforms including gtalk, and facebook; collaborative services like google wave, and gradient; geo-presence systems like Nokia Ovi Contacts; multiplayer games like chesspark, and by many online live customer support and technical support services.

The strengths of XMPP include:


 

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