Over the last few decades, we have seen massive improvements in computing power, but nevertheless we still rely on digital documents and file systems that were originally created by mimicking the characteristics of physical storage media with all its limitations. This is quite surprising given that even before the existence of the computer, Information Science visionaries such as Vannevar Bush described more powerful information management solutions. We therefore aim to improve the way information is managed in modern desktop environments by embedding a hypermedia engine offering rich hypermedia and cross-media concepts at the level of an operating system. We discuss the resource-selector-link (RSL) hypermedia metamodel as a candidate for realising such a general hypermedia engine and highlight its flexibility based on a number of domain-specific applications that have been developed over the last two decades. The underlying content repository will no longer rely on monolithic files, but rather contain a user's data in the form of content fragments, such as snippets of text or images, which are structurally linked to form the corresponding documents, and can be reused in other documents or even shared across computers. By increasing the scope to a system-wide hypermedia engine, we have to deal with fundamental challenges related to granularity, interoperability or context resolving. We strongly believe that computing technology has evolved enough to revisit and address these challenges, laying the foundation for a wide range of innovative use cases for efficiently managing cross-media content in modern desktop environments.
Presentation tools such as PowerPoint were initially created to simulate physical slides and have inherited a lot of their limitations. In this dissertation we identify the shortcomings and unmet user needs in presentation software by means of literature study, observations, a survey and the programmatic analysis of over 12000 PowerPoint documents. The results indicate that user needs are slowly evolving while existing software has hardly changed over the last 30 years. We motivate the need to rethink the concept of a presentation and we provide conceptual and technical foundations that can enable interoperable and well-integrated solutions for the identified shortcomings. The resulting MindXpres platform consists of a new conceptual framework, content model, information system and presentation engine. We present MindXpres as a presentation platform that enables researchers and developers to build innovative presentation solutions that cannot be implemented in the existing tools. We further demonstrate the flexibility of the MindXpres platform by discussing a wide range of proof-of-concept plug-in solutions for the identified shortcomings and unmet user needs.
Mainstream presentation tools such as Microsoft PowerPoint were originally built to mimic physical media like photographic slides and still exhibit the same characteristics. However, the state of the art in presentation tools shows that more recent solutions start to go beyond the classic presentation paradigms. For instance, presentations are becoming increasingly non-linear, content is quickly evolving beyond simple text and images and the way we author our presentations is becoming more collaborative. Nevertheless, existing presentation content models are often based on assumptions that do not apply to the current state of presentations any more, making them incompatible for some use cases and limiting the potential of end-user presentation solutions. In order to support state-of-the-art presentation functionality, we rethink the concept of a presentation and introduce a conceptual framework for presentation content. We then present a new content model for presentation solutions based on the Resource-Selector-Link (RSL) hypermedia metamodel. We further discuss an implementation of our model and show some example use cases. We conclude by outlining how design choices in the model address currently unmet needs with regards to extensibility, content reuse, collaboration, semantics, user access management, non-linearity, and context awareness, resulting in better support for the corresponding end-user functionality in presentation tools.
In our daily lives we are witnessing a proliferation of digital devices including tablets, smartphones, digital cameras or wearable appliances. A major effort has been made to enable these devices to exchange information in intelligent spaces and collaborative settings. However, the arising technical challenges often manifest themselves to end users as limitations, inconsistencies or added complexity. A wide range of existing and emerging devices cannot be used with existing solutions for cross-device information exchange due to restrictions in terms of the supported communication protocols, hardware or media types. We present INFEX, a general and extensible framework for cross-device information exploration and exchange. While existing solutions often support a restricted set of devices and networking protocols, our unifying and extensible INFEX framework enables information exchange and exploration across arbitrary devices and also supports devices that cannot run custom software or do not offer their own I/O modalities. The plug-in based INFEX architecture allows developers to provide custom but consistent user interfaces for information exchange and exploration across a heterogeneous set of devices.
Existing research in the field of information visualisation has shown that interactive data exploration and storytelling can significantly improve the extraction and transfer of knowledge from raw data. Established visualisation techniques help viewers to strengthen their mental model and improve the understanding of the underlying data. However, these techniques are not yet manifested in slide decks created by existing presentation tools which offer little to no support beyond static charts for transferring knowledge. Based on a detailed analysis of interactive and narrative data visualisation solutions and the shortcomings of existing presentation tools, we derived a set of requirements for interactive information visualisation in presentation tools. The presented prototype of a presentation tool for interactive data visualisation addresses these requirements and has been implemented as a plug-in for the MindXpres presentation platform. Our approach for rich presentation-based data exploration and storytelling enables the presenter to predefine a series of interactive views as support for their oral narrative, but also allows them to freely explore the data during presentation time.
The teaching of programming concepts and algorithms very much depends on the mental models developed by scholars when learning how to program. There is a rich body of research on how to best teach programming. Nevertheless, many instructors follow a presentation-based approach where existing slideware such as PowerPoint or Keynote is used to show a sequential series of slides with static pieces of source code. Such a presentation-based approach based on existing slideware tools might not be optimal for the authoring as well as the delivery of programming courses. We outline how presentation-based eduction in programming can be improved by paying attention to existing research on how to best teach programming. We derive a number of requirements for more efficient source code visualisation in presentation tools and present an architecture as well as an extensible prototype for enhanced presentation-based teaching of programming. The presented interactive source code visualisation plug-in for the MindXpres presentation tool can be seen as a step towards enhancing existing slideware in order to achieve a more efficient and interactive teaching of programming concepts and algorithms. The ultimate goal of the presented approach is to present source code in a way that reinforces a user’s mental model and thereby increases the knowledge transfer of presentations delivered in programming courses.
Nowadays, the teaching of programming concepts and algorithms is often conducted via slideware such as PowerPoint or Keynote, with the instructor going through a sequential series of slides showing static pieces of program code. As outlined in this paper, such a slideware-based approach has its limitations in terms of the authoring as well as the delivery of content for a programming course. Nevertheless, there is a rich body of research on how to best teach programming concepts and algorithms where it has been shown that this process very much depends on the mental models developed by scholars when learning how to program. Based on this existing body of research, we derived a number of requirements for an improved source code visualisation and presentation in slideware tools. We present an interactive source code visualisation plug-in for the MindXpres presentation platform, which addresses these requirements and introduces a number of innovative concepts for an interactive visualisation of source code. Based on two concrete examples showing how our solution can be used for the teaching of recursion by means of a recursion tree or to explain sorting algorithms by using animation, we illustrate the extensibility and flexibility of the presented interactive source code visualisation approach. Ultimately, the presented solution should help in reinforcing a student’s mental model about a presented algorithm and improve the knowledge transfer of presentations delivered in programming courses.
The teaching of programming concepts and algorithms very much depends on the mental models developed by scholars when learning how to program. There is a rich body of research on how to best teach programming. Nevertheless, many instructors follow a presentation-based approach where existing slideware such as PowerPoint or Keynote is used to show a sequential series of slides with static pieces of source code. Such a presentation-based approach based on existing slideware tools might not be optimal for the authoring as well as the delivery of programming courses. We outline how presentation-based eduction in programming can be improved by paying attention to existing research on how to best teach programming. We derive a number of requirements for more efficient source code visualisation in presentation tools and present an architecture as well as an extensible prototype for enhanced presentation-based teaching of programming. The presented interactive source code visualisation plug-in for the MindXpres presentation tool can be seen as a step towards enhancing existing slideware in order to achieve a more efficient and interactive teaching of programming concepts and algorithms. The ultimate goal of the presented approach is to present source code in a way that reinforces a user’s mental model and thereby increases the knowledge transfer of presentations delivered in programming courses.
There exist various audience response systems (ARS) and other standalone solutions to enrich presentations with supplementary active learning content. We propose a unified communication platform for enriching and enhancing presentations with active learning components where thirdparty solutions can easily be integrated via data adapters, activity plug-ins as well as a multi-directional communication channel based on a publish-subscribe pattern. We present how the MindXpres presentation platform has been extended with a communication module and discuss a number of activity plugins that have been realised. The presented unified communication platform in combination with the MindXpres presentation tool represents an ideal platform for the investigation and rapid prototyping of new forms of presentations that support enhanced forms of interaction between a presenter and their audience.
Existing presentation tools and document formats show a number of shortcomings in terms of the management, visualisation and navigation of rich cross-media content. While slideware was originally designed for the production of physical transparencies, there is an increasing need for richer and more interactive media types. We investigate innovative forms of organising, visualising and navigating presentations. This includes the introduction of a new document format supporting the integration or transclusion of content from different presentations and cross-media sources as well as the non-linear navigation of presentations. We present MindXpres, a web technology-based extensible platform for content-driven cross-media presentations. The modular architecture and plug-in mechanism of MindXpres enable the reuse or integration of new visualisation and interaction components. Our MindXpres prototype forms a platform for the exploration and rapid prototyping of innovative concepts for presentation tools. Its support for multi-device user interfaces further enables an active participation of the audience which should ultimately result in more dynamic, engaging presentations and improved knowledge transfer.
Nowadays, presentation tools such as PowerPoint and Keynote play an important role when transferring knowledge in educational or business settings. Nevertheless, a number of shortcomings of existing presentation tools in terms of the management, visualisation and navigation of content have been pointed out in literature. Some of these limitations are based on the fact that slideware tools were originally used for the production of physical slides (e.g. transparencies) and existing solutions still simulate the affordances of physical slides. We investigate innovative forms to manage, visualise and navigate the content of a presentation, which, for example, includes the transclusion or integration of content from other presentations and cross-media sources, as well as the non-linear navigation in a presentation. In order to explore and experiment with innovative human-information interaction techniques, we have developed the extensible MindXpres cross-media presentation platform. The modular architecture of MindXpres and its plug-in mechanism enable the reusability of content as well as the integration of new visualisation and interaction components which ultimately may improve the transfer of knowledge.