Enabling Near Real-Time Collaboration in a Distributed Multimedia Editing Environment

Abstract

Computer-supported collaborative learning scenarios provide an opportunity for the participants to develop their conceptual understanding of a topic in a shared e-learning environment. This requires the integration of collaborative and cooperative authoring functionality for a wide range of distinct types of data, including multimedia. However, restricting access to currently manipulated elements by the means of locks and requiring the user to manually initiate and manage the synchronization process are still common side-effects to this support. Allowing for predominantly unrestricted, interruption-free and non-destructive multimedia editing in a distributed collaborative learning environment thus still presents a challenge. We propose to address these issues by integrating a fine-grained data model, concurrency-based command processing, and a primarily autonomous consistency management approach. Distinct editing operations by individual participants define manipulations on data type-specific attributes, which form the basis for an up-to-date representation of the targeted multimedia assets. We utilize an advanced Compound Document System and accompanying data models to allow for a feature rich, yet responsive and unobtrusive collaboration environment.