JISC

Project title

Meeting Memory Technology Informing Collaboration

Start date

1 Feb 2005

End date

31 Oct 2006

Lead institution

University of Manchester

Partner institutions

• Open University
• University of Southampton
• University of Edinburgh

Project manager & contact details

Michael Daw
e-mail: michael.daw@manchester.ac.uk
0161 275 7026

Project web URL

http://www.memetic-vre.net/

Overall description

Name of VRE solution/s

Memetic

Description of VRE solution/s

Memetic allows the recording, annotation and flexible navigation of Access Grid sessions. Automated annotation is made for agenda items and Compendium nodes (Compendium is a flexible dialogue mapping tool) and manual annotation is possible for who is speaking

Primary user group/s

Although the original conception of Memetic was of a tool to aid meetings by providing a navigable recording, it has also aroused interest through its potential to be used as a way to record seminars, to evaluate artistic performances and as a tool for conducting ethnographic analyses. Through the use of Memetic, an Access Grid node becomes more than a system for advanced collaboration but also a recording studio over which layers of annotation can be added to reflect different interpretations of the session.

Functionality

Recording and annotation of sessions in Access Grid node(s) by agenda item and pertinent events (e.g. decisions and other points of interest). Playback and flexible navigation of these sessions by annotation point or timeline.

Benefits

The ability to review, assess, analyse, search and archive sessions held in Access Grid node(s), i.e. meetings, seminars, focus groups and any other type of event or collaboration possible using Access Grid technology.

Current level of maturity

Memetic is still currently undergoing development releases.

Target level of maturity at end of project

Target version of Memetic at end of the project is to be robust production version.

Design & technical implemnetation

Technical implementation

Memetic audio and video streams work under Java Runtime Environment combined with Compendium client software. Recordings and annotations are stored on central server.

Architecture

Memetic is accessed via a web-based interface. Prior to any recording, metadata is presented to the application via web forms.

During a recording, the server stores audio and video data packets from the relevant Access Grid virtual venue on disk along with time-stamped user annotations from Compendium and elsewhere into an RDF triplestore.

During playback, the server presents the annotations within Compendium and on a timeline representing the session. The server retrieves the audio/video data packets and transmits them according to navigation commands from the user interface (by Compendium node or timeline) either to the Java-based client or an Access Grid virtual venue.

Standards compliance

• RDF - Resource Description Framework
• RTSP - Real Time Streaming Protocol
• RTP - Real Time Transport Protocol
• OWL - Web Ontology Language
• Java
• SQL
• HTML
• XML

Software availability

Software solution is not currently publicly available. Interested users can contact the project at memetic-support@listserv.manchester.ac.uk to request source code, or access to development version.

Documentation

Introductory documentation, including demonstration movies covering installation, and suggested usage, is available via the project website (www.memetic-vre.net). There are extensive help pages accessible within the application.