Flexible Data Sharing in a Groupware Toolkit

O'Grady, T. (1996)
Flexible Data Sharing in a Groupware Toolkit. Master's thesis, Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, November.

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Abstract

Synchronous groupware applications let users collaborate over distance through their computers. Since these applications are difficult to build, groupware toolkits have been constructed to help developers with their tasks. Some of the building blocks supplied by these toolkits are a set of abstractions for sharing data between sites. Yet different toolkits use different strategies to share the data: some replicate the data at all sites, while others store it at a central site. The correct choice of data sharing strategy is not obvious, as different strategies affect data consistency as well as the performance of applications built using the toolkit. We argue that data sharing should be flexible and that the developer should be able control the data sharing by selecting from default strategies or creating new ones to meet the requirements of their application. We use a technique called open implementations to provide this control. We have built a prototype groupware toolkit called GEN that demonstrates the feasibility of flexible data sharing. Using GEN, six different forms of data sharing have been constructed, more than any other toolkit currently available.

Bibtex entry

@MASTERSTHESIS { 1996-OGrady.MScThesis,
CLASS = { THESIS },
AUTHOR = { O'Grady, T. },
TITLE = { Flexible Data Sharing in a Groupware Toolkit },
SCHOOL = { Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary },
ADDRESS = { Calgary, Alberta, Canada },
YEAR = { 1996 },
MONTH = { November },
}