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NIDE Meeting Minutes
Synchronous Communication Group
August 11, 1999

Present: Deborah Fels, Bertha Acevedo, Carolynn Whiteley, Anastasia Cheetham, Luo Dongchuan, Chris Ridpath

The meeting was held at the Center For Learning Technologies and started at 9 a.m.

  1. Carolynn discussed the status of her user survey. Thirteen people have received the survey and, so far, six people have completed and returned it. The initial analysis of the survey data shows that we are working on problems that concern most chat software users. However, we want to receive more completed surveys before making any conclusions.
  2. We have received interest from a seniors group that may have a use for our synchronous communication software. The group discussed the idea of using seniors as part of our user group. Learn Ontario, a project partner, is involved with seniors as part of their work. Deb will contact Learn Ontario to talk about our common interests.
  3. Carolynn will follow up any leads to try and find more people for our questionnaire.
  4. Chris will try to find more survey candidates.
  5. We will review the progress of the survey in two weeks.
  6. Luo presented his analysis of several database packages; MS Access, DB2 and Oracle.
  7. After discussion within the group it was decided to use MS Access for the initial stages of the project. The main consideration was the rapid prototyping that was possible with this product.
  8. The database structure will take the form of a 3 tiered system. This should reduce the data transfer and processing requirements of the client system.
  9. Deb, Luo and Bertha will proceed with the database implementation.
  10. Along with the database, a web server is required. We can use a UNIX based web server or an NT based server. Chris will investigate whether the ATRC can provide a server for this project.
  11. Bertha demonstrated her user interface designs. The group discussed the design ideas and offered several suggestions. Bertha will implement several of the suggestions and provide a mock-up for the next meeting.
  12. Anastasia demonstrated her interface designs for the instructor portion of the software. The group offered several suggestions and Anastasia will present a new mock-up at the next meeting.
  13. Next meeting - Scheduled for August 25, at 9 a.m. at the Center For Learning Technologies.

The Adaptive Technology Resource Centre

J.P. Robarts Library, First Floor, University of Toronto Information Commons
130 St. George St. Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3H1
Telephone: (416) 978-4360 Fax: (416) 971-2629

For additional information please e-mail Laurie Harrison