Collaboration Requirements

Sat Aug 2 01:16:07 EDT 2008

On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 2:21 PM, Greg Smith <gregsmitholpc at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I wrote up some collaboration requirements to help get us to a
> definition of collaboration support that teachers can use in schools.

Thanks. It is not clear to me whether you mean to include the case of
children at different schools collaborating, even in different
countries. This will be vital for language learning, and important for
many other educational and other functions.

> This is my first somewhat rigorous requirements definition for OLPC so
> comments on style as well as substance are welcome.
>
> I will take one round of comments then I'll find a place for it in the
> wiki (more comments always welcome after that).
>
> Collaboration requirements for OLPC XOs and XS
> Greg Smith
> July 30, 2008
>
> Background:
> The concept of "Collaboration" has been around for a long time. I have
> used cuseeme, MeetingPlace, NetMeeting, WebEx, IRC, AIM, Gobbby,
> Sametime, PC Anywhere, Cisco HD Video conferencing and others. Our
> challenge is different in three respects.
> - wireless
> - educational use
> - greater scale
>
> Motivation:
> The goal of this requirement definition is to provide all the information
> necessary to define tests and fix critical collaboration bugs in 8.2.0
> and to set a goal for 9.1.0.
>
> The best case is that this write up motivates test cases which results
> in a list of detailed examples of collaboration  that will be supported
> in 8.2.0. These examples should be deployable and usable by teachers in
> class. Examples of use cases generated by teachers are at:
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Use_Cases#Collaboration_Examples
>
> Collaboration is an area where we are on the cutting edge of available
> technology. It was well promoted and teachers on the "sur" list have
> repeatedly asked for a definition of how to use it successfully.
>
> A list of activities supposedly enabled for collaboration is at:
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Collaboration_Central
>
> Documentation on previous wireless tests is at:
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Test_Config_Notes#Wireless_.26_Network
>
> Requirements Definition:
>
> I set a high bar but I try to balance between available technology and
> the desires of the teachers. I hope can at least test to this standard
> soon, even if we don't close all bugs found by that testing until later.
>
> Requirements beginning with "must" are critical to success, "should" are
> very important but can be deferred and nice to have are "very useful"
> but likely to be deferred.
>
> If a "must" requirement cannot be met, we should still attempt to
> support as much of it as possible (e.g. if we can't do 50 XOs in N9, 40
> or 30 should be tested and supported).
>
> I - Network Requirements
>
> i - Supported Architectures
> N1 - Must support one of the four network scenarios defined at:
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Networking_scenarios
>
> The scenarios in priority order are named as follows.
> S1 - Simple Wifi
> S2 - School Wifi
> S3 - Simple Mesh
> S4 - School mesh (no need to test, just recorded here for completeness)
>
> ii - RF Environments
> N2 - Must support environments where there are no other RF signals
> beyond the APs as needed by the network scenario.
>
> N3 - Must support RF environments where up to 2 other APs are visible in
> the XO neighborhood.
>
> N4 - Should support environments where there are up to 4 other APs
> visible in the XO neighborhood.
>
> II - Scale
> i - Scale of XOs collaborating
> N5 - Must support up to 10 XOs collaborating together. See activity
> examples for exact steps.
>
> N6 - Should support up to 20 XOs collaborating together.
>
> N7 - Nice to support up to 30 XOs collaborating together.
>
> ii - Scale of XOs visible within range of each other
>
> N8 - In N5 above must allow up to 1500 XOs within range in the school.
> Can require that all other XOs aside from those collaborating have their
> antennas turned off.
>
> N9 - Must allow 50 (should allow 100, nice to have 300) other XOs within
> range in the school where all XOs have their radios turned on. Can
> require that only those collaborating are using the network (AKA
> everyone else is verbally asked to stop using the Internet and stop
> collaborating) but they can leave their XO radios on in scenario S1
>
> N10 - Must allow 50 (should allow 100, nice to have 300) XOs within
> range in the school where all XOs have their radios turned on. Can
> require that only those collaborating are using the network (AKA no
> collaboration and no Internet access) in scenario S2.
>
> N11 - Must allow 50 (should allow 100, nice to have 300) XOs within
> range in the school where all XOs have their radios turned on. Can
> require that only those collaborating are on a given Mesh channel (1,6
> or 11) while all the other XOs are on different Mesh channels in scenario S3
>
> III Types of collaboration
>
> In all cases, a single XO starts activity, then shares it, then other
> XOs join the shared activity.
>
> N12 - Must support up to 3 XOs using an activity and all others XOs (as
> allowed by the scale) watching what happens on that screen.
>
> N14 - Should support 10 XOs (as allowed by scale) using an activity
> simultaneously.
>
> N15 - Nice to have all XOs as allowed by scale using an activity
> simultaneously.
>
> N16 - Must support pairs of two XOs collaborating with each other up to
> the number of XOs supported by scale.
>
> N17 - Should support all the partitions of XOs collaborating with each
> other (e.g. with 6 XOs, allow 2,2,2 and 3,3 and 4,1,1 etc).
>
> N16 - Where an activity allows saving, must support saving at any time
> where the XO which saves gets a current copy of the shared file. If its
> a "save as" or "save" but not exit action then the XO which saves
> returns to the shared view. Where its an automatic "save" by leaving the
> activity, the journal must store a current copy of the shared file. All
> of these saving actions must not interfere in any way with the saved  or
> shared file on the other XOs or with the collaboration or network
> connectivity of any XOs.
>
> IV - Activity Level Details
> N17 - Must support Chat
>
> N18 - Must support Write including adding pictures, formatting with
> tables and other write tasks.
>
> N19- Must support record including sharing pictures and recorded video
> with audio.
>
> N20 - Must support Read
>
> N21 - Must support eToys
>
> N22 - Should support other activities listed at:
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Collaboration_Central
> *******************
>
> That's it! Do that and version 10.2 will be coded by kids who grew up
> sharing activities on an XO :-)
>
> Thanks,
>
> Greg S
>
>
>
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