Centre for Educational TechnologyTallinn University, Estonia

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A Conceptual Model for Collaborative Scientific Writing

David Lamas, Vladimir Tomberg, Mart Laanperedrl@tlu.ee, vtomberg@tlu.ee, martl@tlu.ee

INITIAL CONCEPTS

Having different everyday tools and workflows,

how researchers can effectively collaborate

online in the process of scientific writing?

Collaborative writing is common and often

unavoidable in academic work as written doc-

uments, such as articles, reports and presen-

tations are mostly produced collaboratively.

We consider that collaborative writing is the

process of two or more people working

together to create a complex document, irre-

spectively of locus or synchronicity.

As showed on the concept map we interpret

the process of collaborative writing as a pro-

ject.

Instead of organizing users into groups we

propose the concept of sharing resources

in associated timelines. If two or more

researchers are ready to start collaboration,

they should share their timelines with each

other.

By marking own resources as public and

private the users can precisely define what

resources they want to share.

The process of sharing timelines between

two users is illustrated on figure. Gray lines

mark resources to be shared; private

resources are painted in black color.

A final step in our design process was to

design Timeliner's system architecture as a

mash-up of external data and functionalities

provided by third-party services (see figure).

This means that Timeliner has almost no con-

cern about storing data but rather focus on

the processing of metadata related to exter-

nal data. By using different types of metadata

as glue, Timeliner can bring together, into a

new writing ecosystem, resources that were

separated before.

SHARING TIMELINES

CONNECTING RESOURCES

FIRST UI PROTOTYPE

We have designed first software prototype

for Timeliner using concept of resources asso-

ciated with specific writing project and

arranged around project timeline. At the top

current status of target document is dis-

played. The researcher can create tasks,

assign them to coworkers, and bind to them

resources.

The tasks, milestones and resources can be

tagged and annotated. All activities are

tracked in diary, which also has interface for

participants’ chat.

Shared resource Private resource

User A

Tasks

Tasks

Documents

Visible shared resources

User B

Documents

Timeliner is an Internet based tool

designed to support collaborative sci-

entific writing. The need for Timeliner

rises from daily challenges regarding

collaborative scientific writing pro-

cesses.

Challenges faced by ourselves but also

elaborated upon by both our local

research community as well as by mem-

bers of our international research pro-

jects' teams.

The problem we address by offering

Timeliner is about supporting collabo-

rative scientific writing with minimal dis-

ruption of concurrent practices and

workflows.

6/1/2003 11/30/2005

Researcher

Timeliner Multi API Engine

11/4/2005

Publication

6/30/2005

Camera ready

9/1/2003 - 10/10/2003

Writing Abstract

10/15/2003 - 10/9/2005

Rewiev and Approval Process

10/12/2003

Abstract

11/13/2004

Deadline

Data Layer

Metadata Layer

Visualisation Layer

Users Layer

API API API API API API API API

API

Local resources

Milestones