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Basic foilset Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing

Given by Geoffrey C. Fox at EuroPar Java Grande Workshop on September 2-3 1998. Foils prepared September 13 1998
Outside Index Summary of Material

Tango can be downloaded and used Today
It is quite reliable and one of most sophisticated "WebWindows" applications -- build systems entirely on top of Web clients and servers
Distance Education and the Virtual University where we also cover database and other server-side applications
Overview of Tango Architecture, Capabilities and how to use it
Collaborative Visualization and Computational Steering or more generally Collaborative Research
In each case one needs a mix of Asynchronous and Synchronous collaboration and a mix of real-time and archival information.

Table of Contents for full HTML of Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing

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Denote Foils where HTML is sufficient
1 Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative (Grande) Computing
2 Abstract of An Introduction to Tango and its role in Distance Education and Training
3 Collaborative Capabilities
4 CSC499/615 at Jackson State
5 Architecture of Tango Distance Education
6 95 Talking to NT running 4 Applications
7 NT Talking to 95 running 4 Applications
8 TANGO Server
9 Architecture of Tango
10 Tango WebWisdom Model Collaborative University model for Education
11 Screenshots of Tango Teaching Tools
12 NPAC Education Curricula and Distance Delivery Activities
13 The current Capabilities of Tango -I
14 Capabilities of Tango -II
15 The current Capabilities of Tango -III
16 Tango Educational Applets
17 The current Capabilities of Tango -IV
18 How do you use Tango I?
19 How do I use Tango II?
20 Tango and Collaborative Versions of Other Large Scale Systems
21 Asynchronous vs. Synchronous
22 Features of Database Backend
23 WebWisdomNT
24 TANGO for Distributed Simulation and Computational Steering
25 Tango and Grande Gateways
26 Shared Visualization in Tango
27 Leveraging Collaborative Tools
28 Collaborative Web Applications with their Participants I
29 Collaborative Web Applications II
30 Some Tango Futures

Outside Index Summary of Material

HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 1 Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative (Grande) Computing

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
September 2 1998 Java Grande Workshop Southampton
http://www.npac.syr.edu/users/gcf/eurotangosept98
http://www.npac.syr.edu/tango
Geoffrey Fox
Syracuse University
NPAC
111 College Place Syracuse NY 13244 4100
3154432163
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 2 Abstract of An Introduction to Tango and its role in Distance Education and Training

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
Tango can be downloaded and used Today
It is quite reliable and one of most sophisticated "WebWindows" applications -- build systems entirely on top of Web clients and servers
Distance Education and the Virtual University where we also cover database and other server-side applications
Overview of Tango Architecture, Capabilities and how to use it
Collaborative Visualization and Computational Steering or more generally Collaborative Research
In each case one needs a mix of Asynchronous and Synchronous collaboration and a mix of real-time and archival information.
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 3 Collaborative Capabilities

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
Collaborative Systems share information between students and teachers either synchronously
  • conferencing; white board; shared simulations/visualizations; shared curricula pages; chat rooms; special resources such as voting/"raise hands" applets
or asynchronously as in Lotus Notes
  • threaded discussion (i.e. mail); calendars; documents (this is just database)
All can be integrated using web export of database/Lotus Notes as a common interface (XML is particularly attractive here)
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 4 CSC499/615 at Jackson State

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
Taught using Tango over Internet and defense high performance network DREN every Tuesday and Thursday from Syracuse
  • Course material based on Syracuse Senior Undergraduate class ECS406(Web Technologies) and graduate class CPS615(Base Computational science)
Jackson State major HBC University with many computer science graduates
Do not compete with base courses but offer addon courses with "leading edge" material (Web Technology, modern scientific computing) which give JSU (under)graduates skills that are important in their career
  • Job fair employers liked Java Programming!
Needs guaranteed 30 (audio) to 100 (video) kilobits per second bandwidth assuming course material mirrored at JSU
  • Can be offered using CD-ROM's to homes with audio only (plus modest fram rate video) link and 28.8 kbaud modem
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 5 Architecture of Tango Distance Education

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
NPAC Web Server
JSU Web Server
Java Tango Server
.......
Share URL's
Audio Video
Conferencing Chat Rooms
White Boards etc.
Address at JSU of Curriculum Page
Teacher's View of Curriculum Page
Student's View of Curriculum Page
Participants at JSU
Teacher/Lecturer at NPAC
.......
Java Socket
HTTP
Java Control Clients
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 6 95 Talking to NT running 4 Applications

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
95
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 7 NT Talking to 95 running 4 Applications

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 8 TANGO Server

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
Java application
  • requires JDK 1.1 or higher
100% maintenance free
Industry-strength stability
Platform-independent
  • tested on IRIX 5/6, Solaris, Linux, Windows NT
  • will also run on Windows'95 (not recommended)
Available for download from http://www.npac.syr.edu/tango
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 9 Architecture of Tango

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
Java Tango
Server
Netscape Browser
Tango
Daemon
Shared Applet 1
Shared Applet 2
Shared
Java/C++/..
Application
Socket Connections
Client Side Bus
Netscape's
LiveConnect
Typical Client
Other
Collaborating
Clients
Shared
JavaScript/ Web Page
Tango CA
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 10 Tango WebWisdom Model Collaborative University model for Education

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
Universities "specialize" and deliver courses in areas of expertise
  • Provide all students and faculty with access to broader range of leading-edge courses
JSU will lead HBCU wide deployment
NPAC is studying use internationally
Pilot for distance training for DoD
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 11 Screenshots of Tango Teaching Tools

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
WebWisdom
Chat
Shared Browser
Audio Control
Tango Control App
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 12 NPAC Education Curricula and Distance Delivery Activities

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
Can offer "Certificates in Internetics or Computational Science" (Total of 6 semester classes)
Can offer internally Web and Java classes for K-12 level
All these courses are in form suitable for synchronous/asynchronous delivery
Taught two semesters from Syracuse over Internet a Senior Undergraduate Class in Java for web applications at Jackson State Mississippi using Tango collaboration system
This fall combining with local CDROM to teach computational science at Jackson using full asynchronous and synchronous support
Collaboration with Peking University to set up ICWU or "International Collaborative Web University" with initial focus on teaching Internetics
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 13 The current Capabilities of Tango -I

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
Tango supports a synchronous shared event model of collaboration
Tango supports (more than) enough (over 40) applications
Core Collaboration Capabilities
  • Audio-Video Conferencing multicast between room participants
  • Text chat rooms with various tradeoffs between "coolness", ease of use etc.
  • Shared Browser (Synchronized view of Web Pages)
  • Shared Web Search (becomes shared database query)
  • Slide Show
  • White Board
  • Shared Audio and Video Players (Java Applets and link to video on demand database)
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 14 Capabilities of Tango -II

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
Databases Linkage (Under Development)
  • JDBC Link to WebWisdom Database
  • Lotus Notes Link to Asynchronous Collaboration
Office and Authoring Tools
  • PowerPoint via shared display or shared Java viewer
  • Microsoft Excel using NetMeeting
  • Microsoft Word
  • shared visual C++ etc.
  • Combined Whiteboard / Java object based PowerPoint like authoring system
  • Shared emacs editor -- shared programming
Critical for Education
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 15 The current Capabilities of Tango -III

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
General Virtual University Applications
  • Current WebWisdom hierarchical systems navigating through 20,000 foils and 500 foilsets
  • "Raise Hands" Applet to help teacher-student synchronous interaction
Special Virtual University Applications
  • Shared Java applets to teach physics (spring, planets, vector cross product)
  • Shared visible human illustrates biology teaching
  • Shared Java Applets used to teach Java!
  • Shared SmartDesk system aimed at activities useful in special education with built in assessment
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 16 Tango Educational Applets

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
CONTROL
Shared Planetary Motion Applet
Shared Cross Product Educational Applet
Shared Neural Net
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 17 The current Capabilities of Tango -IV

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
Have some fun with Multi-player games
  • VRML Chess
  • JavaScript Tetris
  • Java Othello and Rubic's Cube
  • Should develop snakes and ladders and bunch of similar "grid" games
"Other" Applications
  • TANGOsim command and control system with shared tools (e.g. mapping, weather) to use in scripted crisis management
  • There is a very good shared mapper which is a Java whiteboard supporting map backends and general shared drawing
  • Shared Visualization and other programming tools under development
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 18 How do you use Tango I?

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
Tango provides for any developer:
  • Session control among users
  • Access to broad range of general collaborative tools
  • API to JavaScript (Web Pages), Java Applet or Application, C and through C to any client side program (LISP, VRML)
If you have a set of Web pages defined by their URL's -- then use today the Shared Browser and later on can store in WebWisdomNT database for a more powerful model
If you have some enhanced Web Pages using Cookies and Forms (and wish say, to share form input), then we need to use shared JavaScript API -- we can provide this as general capability
If you wish to share server side results as in Lotus Notes (or CGI Scripts), then exploit web export of these servers -- XML very powerful here -- with a variant of shared browser
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 19 How do I use Tango II?

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
If you have a client side program, then you need to know an API to it which allows one to get and set all the properties (or events which are change of properties)
Most elegant interface is a TangoBean which implements shared Javabeans
  • A Javabean is a Java applet/application which has well defined visual and programmatic interface to its properties -- "design rules"
In any case, you choose events to be shared; meaning of master/slave relationship (if any) and consequence of sharing on disparate machines
  • e.g. in shared physics simulation, one could share positions of particles or just start/stop commands
  • Then slower machines simulate less .....
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 20 Tango and Collaborative Versions of Other Large Scale Systems

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
Note that in Audio-Video Conferencing, Video on Demand, and Microsoft NetMeeting applications, Tango "just" provides session control to another application which provides itself all the necessary data distribution
  • This is also true in Shared Browser where Tango just provides a URL and lets Web Servers distribute information
  • So could in principle support many other such subsystems including other A/V conferencing tools such as MBONE
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 21 Asynchronous vs. Synchronous

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
As primary Web function is asynchronous information publishing, Web-based collaboratories inherently link two models
  • Both modes focus on the basic concept of a "shared object"
  • Both modes can share presentation tools
  • Synchronous mode may create or persistently enhance/modify shared objects
Web database linkage technology (based on JDBC/ Enterprise JavaBeans) promotes complex asynchronous collaboration by exposing rich data models of industrial-strength relational and OO DBMS's
Need Both! Tango can be linked to Oracle, Lotus Notes and similar database systems -- XML is a powerful interface for such linkage
  • Tango offers "guided tour" sampling a large asynchronous web site, CDROM, database
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 22 Features of Database Backend

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
Use a database to store material so as to
  • Manage large collections
  • More easily adapt to changing/different browsers by "just" changing templates
  • Back-up, security etc. well established capabilities
Database has curricula material of all (4) levels of sophistication and supports both synchronous and asynchronous learning
  • database stores multimedia information -- video, audio and images
  • Also administrative information; organization of courses into programs; grades; student/teacher data
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 23 WebWisdomNT

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
Educational Objects i.e.
Data Defining Curricula Material at all levels from "University" to "foil"
Server side
Java(JDBC)
XML Parser
Servlet
Metadata
Web/Video Server
Conventional HTML Pages
Dynamically Generated
(IMS/ADL) Metadata
Streaming Audio/Video
Web Browser
Templates Defining in XML How educational data stored in Pages
Share with Tango
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 24 TANGO for Distributed Simulation and Computational Steering

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
Clearly Java Collaboration Systems are natural implementations of general environments that mix computers and people
Computational Steering -- a simulation is like a participant in a Tango session which has
  • simulation engine
  • visualization subsystem
  • one of more computational scientists
Distributed Modeling and Simulation (from DMSO) with "humans and computers in the loop" already has this type of architecture
NCSA has developed a prototype collaborative visualization system using Tango (2D and 3D images can be shared by participants with viewpoint and choice of rendering replicated)
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 25 Tango and Grande Gateways

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
Geographically
Distributed
Grandecomputer
Resources
GrandeGateway
System
hosting Seamless Access
TangoInteractive,
Visualization and other Services
Geographically Distributed users
and consultants
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 26 Shared Visualization in Tango

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
NCSA has used C++ Tango Interface to produce collaborative visualization linking multiple clients running VTK (Visualization Toolkit)
  • AS VTK cross platform, this collaboration can link PC's, UNIX, CAVE's etc
NPAC's SV2 is building a Java server-based visualization system that can be accessed either from the SciVis Java visualizer or AVS or ....
  • As in database backend, the Tango Server and Visualization Server are distinct so that we do not put the large data streams through the Tango server
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 27 Leveraging Collaborative Tools

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
At K-14 education level, dominant emphasis is "building learning communities" and tools to support collaborative learning
  • Fully interactive; semi-interactive (as in MOO model) or possibly asynchronous
  • Working through NCSA Alliance with NSF CILT center
  • 2.5D Chat is perhaps a nice tool here
Web collaboration is central to many other applications
Thus there are many leverage points
  • Synchronous teaching a good place for early deployment of collaborative tools as relatively structured and so less sensitive to immaturity of systems
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 28 Collaborative Web Applications with their Participants I

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
We have discussed Distance/Collaborative Learning Community Education and training-- teachers and students (and administrators)
Not so directly relevant to this group, we have:
Forums and Chattering on the Web -- the world!
(Tele)medicine -- Doctors (primary and specialist referrals), Nurses, Patients and administrators
Business Enterprise (strategic) Support as in Lotus Notes -- Employees of Business including especially managers
On next page, we find there are applications of direct relevance to DoD HPC users
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 29 Collaborative Web Applications II

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
Crisis Management and Command and Control or more generally distributed (tactical) real-time decision support -- decision makers and gatherers of information
Multidisciplinary Applications including Collaborative design -- teams of up to 10,000 engineers
Collaborative Visualization/Data Analysis and Computational Steering -- one or more computational scientist and visualization device
Consulting and shared software/systems development
In each case Collaboration involves support for dynamic interactive shared distributed objects and one needs both synchronous (as in Tango/Habanero) and asynchronous (basic Web/Lotus Notes/Email) support
The shared objects are both client and server side
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared September 13 1998

Foil 30 Some Tango Futures

From Introduction to Tango and its Role in Distance Education and Collaborative Computing EuroPar Java Grande Workshop -- September 2-3 1998. *
Full HTML Index
We intend enhancements to some applications -- such as full annotation (on the Java Whiteboard) with database access and archiving in WebWisdomNT
We will evaluate Internet Explorer version (prototype available), Macintosh and AIX support
Archive audio-video conferencing, text chat etc.
Looking into a built in window manager, more automatic support for mirror (content) servers
Link Tango user module with administrative (class) database -- link Tango and conventional mail
Lots of interesting assessment opportunities
Could build Collaboratory tools -- scientific visualization will be supported but also could do debuggers, performance visualizers etc.
EOT PACI has identified NCSA Biology Workbench, BU Biology database, and for K-12 Belvedere annotation system
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