Webbed MOOs

Webbed MOOs developed from two technologies. Firstly, MOOers were trying to find ways to make the MOOing experience more three-dimensional by adding other media alongside the usual text. Secondly, people working with the WWW needed more adaptive and flexible ways of representing the information they wanted to publish. With the bringing together of the two technologies, the goal of adaptive, structured hypermedia was partly achieved.

The goal of this workshop is to discuss the emerging technology of webbed moos and where it should go from here. It will examine the present state of the technology and ask how it can be improved to make the most of extensions to clients and the introduction of new data types such as VRML. It will look at ways to improve the existing structure of webbed MOOs and how to construct some standard guidelines for the webbing of MOOs. In addition, the setting up of structures for formal discussion of webbed MOOs will be discussed.

Organization

Workshop and program chairs:

Jenifer Tennison,(Nottingham University), Email: jft@psychology.nottingham.ac.uk (Contact Person)

Samuel Latt Epstein (SenseMedia).

(Other) members of the program committee:

Gavin Bell,(Nottingham University),

Daniel K. Schneider, (University of Geneva),

Marcus Speh (Andersen Consulting),

Duration:

half day

Participation:

Prospective participants for the workshop are asked to submit a short position paper outlining their interest in webbed MOO technology and their present knowledge of it. This will help to guide the discussion onto areas of interest for all participants. Those wishing to attend should have at least some knowledge of MOOing and what it involves, with preferably some experience on the running of webbed MOOs. An outline of some of the topics to be covered are given below. Participants are required to submit a paper in html format (preferable a link to some server of their choice) 2 weeks before the workshop, so that the workshop itself can concentrate on discussion, and not presentation.

Workshop Topics

• Technical Issues (e.g. Moo server and core modifications)
  • Other in-MOO protocols (HTTP, FTP, Gopher, etc.)
  • Hybrid WOO/HTTPD/Commerce Servers
  • Security
  • Binary data types within MOO
  • HTML and VRML support
  • Internal representations (e.g. imedia and j-text)
  • Mime support
  • Internet mail
  • MOO-MOO protocols
  • MOO client protocols
• Applications (e.g. implementation of particular CSCW and CSCL features)
  • Adaptive Hypertext
  • "Living documents"
  • Collaborative organizational information systems
  • Virtual multi-media classrooms and campuses
  • Interactive collaborative educational applications
  • Data visualization
• Alternatives
  • Alternative WOO implementations, e.g. httpd + MOO, Perl Script + MOO, MOO on its own, etc.
  • WOOs compared to "Non-WOO" alternatives, e.g. Java + ??, httpd & cgi, the CommonLisp W3 server.

Organization Committee

• Gavin Bell is a Teaching Assistant and Postgraduate Student with Department of Psychology at the University of Nottingham, UK. His interests lie with personalized information systems, that is making information accessible to people in the way they need it. This includes hypertext, adaptive systems, knowledge representation, navigation in electronic spaces and customization of information spaces. This work was carried out as part of Gavin Bell's PhD under the supervision of Dr. Claire O'Malley. Email: grb@psychology.nottingham.ac.uk, MOOs: gomi@{MediaMOO, Mootiny, Sprawl, TecfaMOO}

• Samuel Latt Epstein is presently Dir., Hypermedia Development for SenseMedia, Network. Two decades of interactive hypermedia research and development include participation in: Microware's OS-9, Microsoft Windows 1.0, Picosof iDRIVE, CDi, CD-R recordable CD, and numerous realtime control and graphical systems and exhibitions. Online in 1975 (CBBS) and on the Internet in 1983, Epstein focuses on making Internet and hypermedia solutions widely accessible to individuals and business through affordable and easy to use, collaborative user interfaces using PC's, macintosh and unix computers.

  SenseMedia presently provides commercial hypermedia services throughout the world from our Pacific Rim distributed hub and personal Internet dialup to the islands of Hawai'i. Email: sle@sensemedia.net, MOOs: rocker@{chibamoo,sprawl,jhm,mediamoo,mootiny,tecfamoo}.

• Dr. Daniel K. Schneider, is a research associate at the Educational Technology Unit (TECFA), School of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Geneva, Switzerland. His current research interests include computer mediated communication and information tools on the Internet. In the past he has worked on intelligent learning environments (AI & education) and cognitive modeling. He is a trained political scientist and wrote a Ph.D on modeling political decision makers. Email: schneide@divsun.unige.ch, MOOs: Kaspar@{TecfaMOO, DU MOO, Colledgetown, BioMOO}

• Dr. Marcus Speh is with the Advanced Development Group of Andersen Consulting. Prior to this appointment, he was a post-doctoral fellow for theoretical and computational particle physics at the German High Energy Physics laboratory DESY (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron) in Hamburg and Zeuthen. Since October 1994, he is the chairman of the board of directors for the Globewide Network Academy, a consortium of schools and colleges on the Internet. He is also an Hon Fellow at Birkbeck College, London. Email: marcus@andersen.co.uk, MOOs: Marcus@{Du MOO, TecfaMOO, Access}

• Jenifer Tennison is a Teaching Assistant and Postgraduate Student in the Artificial Intelligence Research Group in the Department of Psychology, Nottingham University, UK. Her research interests include organizational information systems, design rationale, computer supported collaborative work and other forms of adaptive collaborative information systems. This work was carried out as part of Jenifer Tennison's PhD under the supervision of Professor Nigel Shadbolt Email: jft@psychology.nottingham.ac.uk, MOOs: Ria@{MOOtiny, Sprawl, Arcadia, TecfaMOO}.

Background Information Page