Bizzilla: a collaborative task management environment with expert finding

Abstract

Scientists spend a lot of time working on project proposals. Time is continuously wasted in synchronizing the various proposal-related resources and the tasks between the collaborators working on the same proposal. This thesis will provide a Collaborative environment where similar tasks can be created and managed more effectively. It will provide tools whereby researchers can collaboratively manage a task without having the hassle to manually synchronize resources. Bizzilla allows for real-time collaborative editing and seeking of expert advice based on an expert finding component. We focused our area on collaborative task management and expert finding and created an environment where researchers can create and manage collaborative tasks, and eventually reach their goals. The solution we propose here is based on a semantic desktop (NEPOMUK), where we keep the user's PIMO and TMO updated with the latest tasks. Parts of these models will be uploaded on a centralized server which will be shared for collaborative purposes. Tasks and task resources will be synchronized amongst the collaborators, whilst the environment will allow any real-time collaborative editors to be plugged in. We also created a real-time collaborative 15-TEXeditor to facilitate real-time collaborative report writing for collaborators. In this thesis we also tackled the idea of collaborative opportunism, where using FOAF profiles a researcher can find possible experts in her sphere of friends, colleagues or friends-of-friends. Our results, based on an initial evaluation, were very encouraging. In the collaborative environment, we have pointed out the strengths and weaknesses of our prototype when compared to traditional ones. From the feedback received, Bizzilla seemed to be suitable to create collaborative tasks. In Xpert Finder, the results presented were satisfactory and encouraging for future research on the area of collaborative opportunism. Feedback gathered from users who used Xpert Finder rated the system between average and reliable. One should note that since our Xpert Finder is based on collaborative opportunism, the ranking is done according to the participant's belief.