Remote Collaboration, also known as RTA, is a tool designed to enhance interaction between humans. It can be downloaded from the home page http://escher.cs.ucdavis.edu/

The purpose of this manual is to provide a very brief description of how to use RC in an experimental form, test its features, and whom to contact if you wish to go further.

Download the client. Unzip (or Unstuff) the code, and (recommended) drag the icon for running RC onto your desktop. Click on the RC icon, and you will first see a warning that all interactions can be saved, then, when you accept those terms, you will see a logon page:

(Note: if your program hangs while reading "dowloading class list," you have a firewall problem. Contact walters@cs.ucdavis.edu to proceed.) To proceed from here (as an experimental user), highlight the line that reads RTAV3DEMO, click in the box next to Name, and enter either s1, s2, s3, … s10 (lower case letter) for the name, press tab and enter exactly the same combination for the Password. You should then see the following window.

Once connected, you are presented with a screen that shows you who is connected and what groups have been formed:

In this example, user s5 has connected and sees that rfwalters is on line (and leader of a group) and that a group called demo group is also available. You are then able to join the group by highlighting the group you wish to join (only one available in this example) and then click on join. The leader of the group can allow you join, after which you will see the following illustration:

Live Interactive Sessions

This window illustrates all of the functions available in RC, The window depicts the dialog (chat) screen; others available are the login and Users and Groups window shown earlier, and two other options: one to deal with asynchronous messages, the second allowing you to access course-related materials linked to RC by the instructor.

The chat (or dialog) box accepts non English characters. Your computer must be configured to access other character sets included in Unicode.

The whiteboard option is invoked by pressing the whiteboard button. Three forms of image selection are provided: screen snapshot of images on the screen (not including RC, which disappears while a screen area is selected; white board area, and a file stored in BMP format (JPEG will be added soon). Select one of these options, click on ok, and you can then either drag across an area shown on the screen, drag a similar area that will define the white board to be sent, or select a file to be treated as a whiteboard image.

Sound is controlled by the sound button. To send sound, click on this button, move cursor over the red microphone, hold down the mouse button while talking (the microphone turns blue during recording) and lift up mouse button when done. The sound is then compressed and transmitted to other participants in the live session. To hear sound a second time, open the sound window and double click on the message you wish to replay.

Users can select a web page to be displayed on all screens by clicking on the URL button, then, in the space provided, type in the full URL reference and click on ok. RC will, if necessary, invoke the user’s preferred browser (Netscape or Internet Explorer) and load the desired URL into that page.

Files of any type can be selected for transmission to other participants, who may use local browsers to view the file as appropriate. Click on files and select the file to be sent.

A Collaborative writing tool referred to as Textpad is also available. This window allows participants to view and edit a shared document. One person is in control at a time, and each character (including non-English characters) is displayed as it appears on the textpad window. When a user relinquishes control, control is automatically transferred to the next person in the wait queue. The textpad can be stored, edited (as text) off-line, and retrieved for a subsequent RC session.

Asynchronous messages can be sent to all class members (instructors as well as students), or selectively to any combination. Messages can include multilingual dialog with sound, whiteboard and file attachments. Replies can edit the dialog and whiteboard and add or delete whiteboard, sound and other file attachments. To send or receive messages, click on that button. Instructions are straightforward.

An instructor can identify web pages that can be invoked by highlighting the title and clicking on view in the Content Window. Two sample links are illustrated in the RTAV3DEMO page.

If, after testing RC, you wish to learn more about using it in a trial mode, please contact Dick Walters (walters@cs.ucdavis.edu). We would be happy to discuss options for its use in your environment.