FP-AndyCarle
From CS294-10 Visualization Fa07
Contents |
[edit] Proposal
[edit] Group Members
- Andy Carle
[edit] Background
The Pattern-Annotated Course Tool (PACT) is a visual, direct manipulation curriculum editor (and my primary research project). The central idea of the application is to convey information about proper teaching techniques through the interface along with a conventional suite of editing tools (as one might see in Visio). We present this knowledge in the form of Pedagogical Patterns, a type of design pattern in the tradition of Alexander's patterns for architecture and the "Gang of Four"'s patterns for software engineering. Our target audience is university professors, a group that typically has had minimal formal training in education and lacks the time to acquire it. The following screen shot shows a view of the PACT interface.
[edit] Description
PACT as it currently exists has an exceedingly simple layout manager. Every element is positioned temporally, with several folds used to keep the display clean. This type of view has been sufficient for simple pedagogical patterns that are contained within a single day of course material. PACT, however, is at a point where it needs to move beyond this level of simplicity towards more complicated patterns, complex selections, and displays that are capable of accurately reflecting these semantics.
Take the pattern "early warning" as an example of a complex pattern that PACT can not properly display. This pattern is satisfied by the combination of two curricular units: a warning (typically a quiz) and the material that the user is being prepared for. These two objects may be very distant from each other temporally and, as a result, very far apart in the current PACT interface. However, they are highly related semantically and certain views in PACT should be able to represent this. A complicated selection involving this pattern could be of the form "select all early warning patterns." This is a layout problem that is even further beyond the capabilities of the current PACT interface.
The utility of these views is not limited to aesthetics or clarity of presentation. A major next step for PACT is a collaborative annotation process, similar to those presented by Jeff Heer in class. As Jeff discussed, identifying and presenting redundant states as identical for the purpose of commenting is crucial to such an application. In our case, identifying identical selections in the interface is relatively simple. These selections, however, are only a small part of a much more complicated set of elements. These peripheral elements are likely to be continually changing, causing major differences between versions of the display. To achieve consistency in views across these versions, the semantic selection layouts must minimize the affect of large-scale changes (and the shifting layout constraints that come with them) on the layout of the selection itself.
The goal of this project is to build a layout manager that can solve the semantic selection and collaborative commenting needs outlined above while preserving other layout constraints (temporal, other patterns, etc) imposed on the display.
