Interactive Media

248 Pages·1995·5.965 MB·English

by  Roy Rada (auth.)

Interactive Media
Roy Rada
Interactive Media
Contributions by Antonios Michailidis
Includes 97 Figures
Springer-Verlag
New York Berlin Heidelberg London Paris
Tokyo Hong Kong Barcelona Budapest
Roy Rada
Department of Computer Science
University of Liverpool
Liverpool L69 3BX
England
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rada, R. (Roy), 1951-
Interactive media I Roy Rada.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-I3: 978-0-387-94485-2 e-ISBN-I3: 978-1-4612-4226-0
DOl: 10.1007/978-1-4612-4226-0
1. Interactive media. I. Title.
QA76.76.I57R33 1995
004' .01 ' 9--dc20 95-3759
Printed on acid-free paper.
© 1995 by Springer-Verlag New York, Inc.
All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part with
out the written permission of the publisher (Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., 175 Fifth
Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with
reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage
and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar
methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden.
The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, etc., in this publication,
even if the former are not especially identified, is not to be taken as a sign that such
names, as understood by the Trade Marks and Merchandise Marks Act, may accordingly
be used freely by anyone.
Production managed by Jim Harbison; manufacturing supervised by Jeff Taub.
Camera-ready copy provided by the author.
987654321
Preface
This book was written for students and practitioners of engineering and social
sciences, including computer, information, communication, library, business,
management, and cognitive science. The topic is the relationship between people and
interactive media. The book describes individuals, groups, and organizations. An
understanding of people is critical to an understanding of the technology which can
help people.
This book was written with the help of a special computer system for authoring called
the Many Using and Creating Hypertext (MUCH) system. Students and researchers
from the University of Liverpool contributed to the book through the MUCH system.
Classes at the University of Liverpool, both undergraduate classes and master's degree
classes, have used various drafts of this book as required reading. The book has been
available to the students online via the MUCH system, and the students have provided
helpful feedback for the contents of the book.
The author is particularly grateful for the contributions of Antonios Michailidis and
Alex Birchall. Antonios's influence is most prominent in the chapters on groups, and
Alex's, in the latter chapters on organizations. Claude Ghaoui coordinated the book
authoring and production team, and Anthony Deakin provided finishing touches.
Renata Malinowski put many, many hours into implementing suggested revisions and
correcting the format, graphics, and references. Springer-Verlag via Martin Gilchrist
and Rudiger Gebauer have been helpful in molding the structure and content of the
book. The success of the MUCH team and Springer-Verlag with this book must be
judged by the reader. Please enjoy!
Contents
Preface v
1 Introduction 1
1.l Hypermedia, Groupware, and Networks 1
1.2 Individual, Group, and Organization 2
1.3 Communication, Information, and Media 4
1.4 People and Technology 7
1.5 Structure of this Book 9
Part I: The Individual and Hypermedia 11
2 Human-Computer Interaction 12
2.1 Human, Computer, and Environment 12
2.2 Accessing Information 14
2.3 Creating Information 15
2.4 Usability 19
2.5 Conclusion 19
3 Hypertext 21
3.1 Architecture 22
3.2 Interfaces 25
3.3 Authoring Systems 30
3.4 The MUCH System 32
3.5 Education 35
3.6 Software Engineering 41
3.7 Conclusion 46
4 Multimedia 48
4.1 Views 48
4.2 Time 50
4.3 Compression 53
4.4 Video 54
4.5 Sound 61
4.6 Compact Disks 63
4.7 Multimedia Personal Computers 67
4.8 Conclusion 69
viii Contents
5 Hypermedia 71
5.1 Links and Timing 71
5.2 Hypermedia Model 73
5.3 An Authoring System 73
5.4 Linking in Video 74
5.5 Formats, Converters, and Container 77
5.6 Conclusion 82
Part II: The Group and Groupware 84
6 Group and Groupware Principles 85
6.1 Definitions of Group and Groupware 85
6.2 Coordination and Communication in Groups 86
6.3 Roles and Processes in Groups 92
6.4 Groupware Principles 95
6.5 The New Media and Groups 105
6.6 Conclusion 109
7 Groupware Applications 111
7.1 Collaboration in Education 111
7.2 Authoring and Publishing 115
7.3 Software Inspection 118
7.4 MUCH System 121
7.5 Real-time Interaction Technology 125
7.6 Conclusion 129
Part III: The Organization and Networks
133
8 The Organization 134
8.1 Organizational Environments 135
8.2 Organizational Structure 136
8.3 Communication 139
8.4 Models 143
8.5 Innovation in Organizations 148
8.6 Conclusion 152
9 Networks and their Applications 155
9.1 Networks 155
9.2 Multimedia on the Network 163
9.3 Electronic Mail 165
9.4 Electronic Libraries 168
9.5 The Internet and its Access Tools 171
9.6 Conclusion 180
Contents ix
10 Organizational Case Studies 183
10.1 Developing Organizational Applications 183
10.2 University Teaching 188
10.3 University Research 192
10.4 Telemedicine 196
10.5 Conclusion 203
11 Conclusion 204
11.1 New Technologies 204
11.2 Measure of Success 206
11.3 Organizational Learning 207
12 Exercises 210
12.1 Essay Topics 210
12.2 Organizational Exercise 212
13 Selected Abbreviations 215
References 218
Index 232
1
Introduction
People need information about their environment in order to know how to react to it
and to identify in their reaction what they can share with others. People want
technology to support this knowing and sharing via storing, processing, and producing
information (see Figure 1.1). The new information technologies offer exciting
opportunities for individuals, groups, and organizations to store, process, and produce
information.
THE INFORMATION LIFE-CYCLE
STORAGE
PRINl1NG
COPVlNG
RECORDING
FILING
MEMORIZING
VIEWING
LISTENING
Figure 1.1: Information Life-cycle. The information life-cycle con
sists of the production, storage, and processing of information. Peo
ple produce information by picturing, speaking, or writing. The in
formation may be stored by printing, copying, recording, filing, or
memorizing it. People process information by viewing it, listening
to it, reading it, or otherwise utilizing it.
1.1 Hypermedia, Groupware, and Networks
Media come in multiple forms. Until recently, computers were only able to efficiently
handle alphanumeric characters. Developments in information technology have now
made other media, particularly images and sound, amenable to computer-based
storage, manipulation, and transmission. The synchronization of media gives
multimedia. Hypermedia is multimedia with links among the components and a
mechanism for moving along the links. Hypermedia has a very important part to play
in communication in that it serves to make sense of otherwise discrete components
2 Interactive Media
and conveys an overall conceptual structure.
The technology, which may be called groupware, has developed in the last few years
to enhance group working. It is designed to harness computers and networks to give
groups of workers the kind of productivity gains individual users already enjoy from
single-user systems, like word-processors and spreadsheets. While groupware in
some sense includes traditional database or operating systems, the groupware
technology that is now emerging seeks to support information-rich, person-to-person
communication. This communication may be synchronized in time or not, and it may
occur across great or small physical distances.
Organizations consist of groups which work together. Coordination is necessary for
organizational effectiveness and efficiency. Without communication people could not
coordinate their efforts. Computer networks are vital to communication across time
and space for many organizations.
1.2 Individual, Group, and Organization
This book considers the theory and practice of hypermedia, groupware, and networks
at three levels: the individual, the group, and the organization. The justification for
this approach is that each level manifests different problems that have to be considered
in the design and implementation of relevant tools. These problems center on how
information is used or, more precisely, how it is accessed, created, communicated, and
reused once again.
When an individual becomes aware that he or she does not know something that it
would be useful to know, that individual has defined a need for information. Given this
need, the first step is establishing whether such information exists. If it does exist, the
next step is retrieving it. Once it has been retrieved, the individual must be able to
understand it. However, this apparently straightforward process can in fact be
extremely tortuous and longwinded. Many barriers exist between individuals and
relevant information, that can mean that the time, effort, and financial cost involved in
retrieving it, effectively discourage all but the most determined. Such barriers include
information invisibility, misinformation, and jargon to name but a few.
The problems of the individual with regard to information do not cease to exist when
the individual is a member of a group, though some may be considerably alleviated.
Thus the individual may find that other members of the group possess valuable
information it would have been costly to retrieve through official channels; or other
members of the group may be able to interpret information the individual finds
difficult to understand. However, groups have problems in using information that do
not exist for individuals as such. These problems center around the issue of
information sharing. Solutions to these problems are various, and involve group
Introduction 3
protocols and structures. These protocols and structures determine the way
information is disseminated within and beyond the group.
At the organizational level, the issue is again that of information sharing, but now it is
that much more complex as it involves the sharing of information between groups, as
well as between groups and individuals, and between individuals who are not
members of the same groups. Individuals may be members of more than one group,
the information requirements of which may conflict. Also, in the organization the
distinction between formal and informal groups becomes important: successful
organizational functioning can depend equally on both types.
The technology appropriate for individuals may be different from the technology for
groups or organizations [71] (see Figure 1.2). Hypermedia tools, such as video editors
and electronic document browsers, have been designed to satisfy individuals' needs
and goals. Groupware systems, such as co-authoring systems and electronic meeting
systems, support groups. Networks serve the goals and tasks of entire organizations.
Figure 1.2: Individuals, Groups, and Organizations - Research and
Technology. Management Information Science (MIS) is a discipline
well established since the mid 1960's for the study of organizational
uses of information technology. Human-Computer Interaction
(HCI) is a discipline well recognized since the mid 1970's for relat
ing individuals to applications, particularly hypermedia applications.
The discipline of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)
focuses on groups and has been popular since the mid 1980's
(adapted from [72]).