Online communication and collaboration - A general approach

Abstract

During realization of an eLearning platform, we discovered that there is a general interest in online communication and collaboration tools in different fields. There were frequent requests for adaptations of our system to further use cases beyond eLearning. In this paper, we present a general approach for online communication and collaboration which is supported by an especially developed platform. This platform offers tools for audio and video communication together with several collaboration tools as well as advanced customizability in order to realize special requirements. To achieve general applicability of our approach, we identify general requirements of several use cases including eLearning. This helps us to develop a generic communication and collaboration model which is the basis of our concept. In this paper, we present the model as well as the architecture. © 2010 IEEE.