The EMSL TeleViewer: a collaborative shared computer display

Today's desktop conferencing and groupware software often assumes a serial work model in which information (pictures, documents, presentations) are prepared by one person and then disseminated to others for comments, revision or review. However, many types of collaborative work are much more parallel, with two or more people viewing, modifying and adding information simultaneously. Effectively supporting parallel collaborative work electronically is still a challenge because of the current serial work paradigm found in most software. One promising and, broadly applicable capability is a collaborative shared computer display (CSCD). A CSCD allows several people to simultaneously view, and possibly annotate or manipulate, a live computer display sent from a remote machine to their local computers. We have been building a prototype CSCD, the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) TeleViewer, which supports cross-platform display sharing between MacOS, Windows and UNIX operating systems. The current EMSL TeleViewer prototype supports display sharing of application windows, screen regions and desktops. We are adding enhancements to the EMSL TeleViewer that will provide collaborative annotations over the display, shared mouse cursors/pointer, high-performance data compression and session recording capabilities. When completed, the EMSL TeleViewer will provide researchers, their collaborators and the scientific community with a powerful tool that can by itself open up many new avenues for collaboration and will fit well with other tools to provide a comprehensive collaborative environment.