idea-space

HOWTO idea-space started by avidal

Overview

Posted by avidal in category: Initial Ideas
A brief overview of the idea-space platform

What is idea-space


idea-space is an open collaboration platform allowing users to work together towards the development of multi purposed content and documentation. Content can be oganized within categories and items so different users from the editing team can contribute on different parts whilst having an overview of the work been done in the rest of the document. A variety of integrated communication tools is provided in order to allow team members to communicate at any time and discuss the progress of content development. 
 

Why idea-space?


In a typical collaborative editing scenario users rely on many services and tools in order to accomplish their task. Some of the most popular are:
  • extensive e-mail usage
  • online services such as google docs, dropbox, wetransfer
  • office suites such as microsoft office
  • time scheduling tools such as online calendars and doodle
  • online web meeting software such as adobe breeze, skype, vidyo etc.
The main goal of the idea-space platform is to provide interactive workspaces encapsulating all work and communication between team members in one place. Users can then benefit in many ways such as:
  • Time is saved since they don't have to go through different services in order to keep up
  • Team management becomes immediate and easier
  • Everything is kept in one place which makes it easier to roll back and see how things developed
  • Single URL all that is needed to access everything at any time.
  • Libraries of content get developed which can be re-used, re-purposed easily
 

Usage scenarios


Some notable usage scenarios of the idea-space platform are:
  • development of learning material within organizations
  • project proposal writing
  • product documentation
  • ....
 

    Starting up

    Posted by avidal in category: Initial Ideas
    Basic features of idea-space

    Starting up


    idea-space uses interactive workspaces for the development of content between team members.
    Users can set their workspace to be "open" or "private". 
    Open workspaces give read access to the public and write/edit access to team members. 
    Private workspaces are readable and writable only by the team members.
    This setting can be changed at any time.
     
    The basic procedure of publishing in idea-space is:
    1. Login
    2. Selecting a work template
    3. Creating your workspace
    4. Adding / Inviting some users
    5. Adjusting thematic categories and items to your liking
    6. Contributing and communicating
     
    Within the workspaces users can utilize features such as:
    • Real time collaborative rich text editing combined with webRTC communication, chatting, revision tracking and other features.
    • Organizing content using categories and items
    • Web meeting space(audio and video)
    • Activity tracking
    • e-mail notifications
    • team management
     
    All these features and more are explained in detail in the following sections.
     

      Register

      Posted by avidal in category: Initial Ideas
      Describing the procedure of registering in idea-space and why it is needed.
      un-registered users can access all public content within idea-space. Registration to the platform is required only if one wants to contribute to an existing or start a new workspace. 
      The registration process is straightforward. Start by clicking the "Log in" button located on the top right of the main menu.
       http://idea-space.eu:19001/up/1553a634ac80e7684fe95447f3bce96d.jpg 
       
      Then click the "Register" button located at the bottom of the login form
       http://idea-space.eu:19001/up/1ec075ef33c7a78c85d5a68d16ce067e.jpg 
       
      Complete the registration form and click the "Register" button after reading the "Terms of use".
       http://idea-space.eu:19001/up/e13411733d3b681ea5b4c51515bd49c1.jpg 
       
      Upon successful registration you will receive this message
       http://idea-space.eu:19001/up/c3e9cf210e5dce46107673bb42ae335e.jpg 
       
      and an e-mail like the one below containing a link will be sent to you in order to verify your account
       http://idea-space.eu:19001/up/cce22fc893506b8ae2983e2d6f5ac4f8.jpg
       
      Clicking this link/button will take you back to the idea-space website where you will be notified that your verification was successful
       http://idea-space.eu:19001/up/d089e4f90207ea19f95ad1f334e2809a.jpg 
       
       This sums up the registration process
       

        Log in

        Posted by avidal in category: Initial Ideas
        Describe the login and "forgot password" procedure.
        Click on the "Log in" button located on the top right of the main menu.
        http://idea-space.eu:19001/up/1553a634ac80e7684fe95447f3bce96d.jpg 
         
        This will get you to the login form. You can enter either the username or the e-mail address that was used during the registration together with your password.
         http://idea-space.eu:19001/up/c5eb4558010c84b7ae052a1f5dbaef56.jpg 
         
        In case you forgot your password use the "I forgot my password link" enter your e-mail and click on the "Reset" button.
        An e-mail will be sent to you containing your new password. 
         

          User profile

          Posted by avidal in category: Initial Ideas
          Explaining options within the user profile
          After login in into idea-space you can access your personal information located under your username on the top right of the page.
           http://idea-space.eu:19001/up/c2fe16bd633f938235471e83b6a8c15d.jpg 
           
           

          Profile data


          Here you can upload your avatar so you can easily be distinguished by your teammates. 
          An avatar image can have at minimum dimensions of 256x256 pixels and be of the type JPG or PNG.
          General information can also be set or changed here. Information such as first name, last name, e-mail and password can be edited.
           

          Notifications


          Here you can see idea/workspace join requests. Besides adding or inviting users manually to your workspace (will be explained later on) users can also ask you for permission to enter your idea or workspace. In this case you will receive an e-mail and also a notification will appear in this page where you can accept or reject the user request. 
           

          Ideas


          Here you can see in which ideas you are currently participating and also what role you have on each of them. 
           

          Logout


           

            Browsing ideas / workspaces

            Posted by avidal in category: Initial Ideas
            Browsing
            A search page is provided that lists all created ideas / workspaces. You can access the page by clicking the "Open educational ideas" button located on the top left of the main menu.
            http://idea-space.eu:19001/up/92f2b4645e8ff8acb9bcb7ba2f5ca194.jpg 
             
            By default all ideas / workspaces are listed but keyword searches can be perfomed to narrow down the results.
             http://idea-space.eu:19001/up/81f49ca0e3fe9ac82de2f1e1475e20fa.jpg 
             
            Results contain logo, title, description and template of the idea / workspace. 
            By clicking on the logo or title of the idea you can see the welcome page of each idea / workspace. 
             http://idea-space.eu:19001/up/8cd465e1a58b14b48eafced08f791d65.jpg 
             
            In every idea / workspace welcome page the following information is shown:
            Who created the idea / workspace
            How long ago this idea / workspace was created
            idea / workspace title
            idea / workspace description
            idea / workspace logo
            number of collaborators
            visibility status of the idea 
            notifies you whether the specific idea / workspace is public or private. Public ideas have open read access to their workspace whilst private ideas provide access only to their members.
            infromation box showing your realtionship with idea
            In this notification area users can see whether they are:
            members of the idea / workspace
            owners or administrators of the idea / workspace
            their join request is pending
            idea actions
            are actions that can be performed on the current idea / workspace related on the current user. These actions are:
            Join: The "Join" button is shown if the current user is not a member of the current workspace. By clicking the "Join" button a join request is made to the owner and admins of the idea and it is up to them if they will accept or reject the user.
            Workspace: The "Workspace" button links to the actual idea workspace and its visibility status is dependent on whether the idea is public or private.
            collaborator avatars
            are clickable. By clicking any of them you can see basic information about a specific collaborator. Information such as the ideas / workspaces he/she participates. Furthermore quick messages can be send by using the respective form.
             http://idea-space.eu:19001/up/1f21321c40809a0aab7542deea9d64a6.jpg 
             
             

              Creating an idea / workspace

              Posted by avidal in category: Initial Ideas
              Creating an idea / workspace
              In order to create your own idea / workspace click on the "Share your idea" located on the top menu.
               http://idea-space.eu:19001/up/ef224e80fbba6cbbe937daa9944e2c43.jpg
               
              Afterwards fill in the form
               http://idea-space.eu:19001/up/12ba8900662050e592f8be52ddce5a2c.jpg 
               
               Provide a title for your idea / workspace, a description and select if the workspace will be "Public" or "Private"
               Last thing is to select the template that suits your publishing needs.
                http://idea-space.eu:19001/up/501d91f14312b78683984db5a5107e5f.jpg
                
              Every workspace contains a set of Categories and each category has Items.
              By selecting a template you get some predefined Categories and items created for you.  These items can be modified or deleted from within the workspace later on. 

              Currently you cannot add or delete Categories within a workspace.

              The simplest of the templates is the "Start from Scratch" one where just one category is created and you can add remove items as you like.

              Currently items are ordered based on the time they were created
              In the latest version of the platform items are ordered based on the time they were created
              furthermore items can now be ordered on demand from the administration section of each workspace

               

                Collaborative Editing

                Posted by avidal in category: Initial Ideas
                Adding content to your idea workspace
                Once the work space is created when we visit it  a list of categorized items are presented in the left side of the page. We can then choose each item there and navigate to it. Each item is a collaboration space and we can start editing.  The button with the pen in the item menu enables editing and the  button with expansion arrows next to it expands this item to the whole screen so as to focus on it better. 
                 
                 
                 
                All workspace collaborators  can simultaneously edit and follow other collaborator changes. The editor provides all formating features as expected and also have many more capabilities like e.g. uploading documents, exporting the developed content, use communication features as are chat and A/V RTC based service which are provided per collaboration item.
                 
                Additionaly the workspace provides communication capabilities for all idea members by use of the appropriate buttons in the top menu. A chat functionallity is included under top menu "Chat" button. The button next to it called "Meet" once pressed opens a live tele-conference space fully equipped and dedicated to this idea where all idea collaborators can communicate using both audio and video in real time and discuss any development issues and strategies.
                 
                 

                  Adding and managing workspace members

                  Posted by vpitsilis in category: Initial Ideas
                  A short description how to add, invite and manage workspace members, i.e. collaborators.
                  In the "Admin" space of our collaboration workspace, which is only accessible to collaboration space owner and administrators, one canchoose and add collaborators as well as manage their privilleges e.g. make a collaborator workspace administrator, or remove one from the collaboration team etc.
                   
                  There are two possibilities when we want to integrate collaborators
                  1.  Choose from the portal registered members . Under the "Add new collaborators from idea space" text we search for portal members and once we find the one we want we press button "Add" and an notification is sent to the selected registered user.
                  2. In case the person we like to include in collaboration workspace is not a rgistered member of the portal but we do know their email address, we enter the email in the field under the "Invite new collaborators via email" and press the invite button. An invitation is sent, containing information about the collaboration proposal, which if accepted guides the new user to be registered and be also a member to our collaboration workspace.
                   
                  In the same administration are we can use the obvious buttons "make Admin", "Delete" etc to change collaborators privilleges.
                   
                  On the other hand a registered portal user  might like an idea and be interested to e to join in the collaborative team. In this case  just press "Join" button in the idea workspace general information page and all workspace administrators receive a "Join Request" notification and an email.