MAGIC: Whiteboard Tool

MAGIC is an EPSRC and ESRC Joint Programme: People At the Centre of Communication and Information Technologies (PACCIT).

About the Whiteboard Tool - developed by ATR Media Information Science Laboratories and QMUL.

Screenshot displaying the whiteboard window during the music task. The whiteboard tool is designed to help perform and analyse experiments on human-human graphical interaction in pairs (e.g., collaborative design, sketching, joint annotation, games and other activities in which drawing occurs as an integrated part of an interaction). The software does not aim to provide advanced drawing tools, rather it aims to exploit the potential that electronic whiteboards offer for the direct capture and control of drawing activity. This facilitates more accurate, systematic, and easier data collection and analysis than are possible with techniques such as direct observation, video analysis or analysis of photographs and screen shots. The tool supports three basic functions: it provides a fine-grained and reliable method of capturing drawing activities, it supports experimental manipulation of aspects of the graphical interation, and aids data processing by providing analysis and 'playback' tools for recorded graphical interactions. The tool has been used in experiments conducted in Japan, at the ATR Media Information Science Laboratories, and the UK1,2. An in-depth description of the whiteboard tool and its features has also been published3.

Mailing List

If you would like to be kept informed about future developments of this software, please send an email to magic_whiteboard@dcs.qmul.ac.uk.

What do I need to run this?

Pigeon is written in pure Java and compiles and runs under Java 1.4. There are a few Perl scripts which make running the data analysis tools easier, but Perl is not essential. Java can be obtained from Sun and Perl is part of the Gnu Project.

What's in the Release?

This release contains the entire source code to the whiteboard, tasks and Markup tool, documentation and some simple example configuration files.

Where can I download the software?

The MAGIC Project whiteboard software has been released under the terms of the GPL and is now available here:

Sample music files can also be downloaded (10 different tunes in WAV, AU and MP3 format):

Documentation

Documentation for the whiteboard software is available in two forms:

References

[1] Representational form and communicative use
Healey, P.G.T. and Swoboda, N. and Umata, I. and Katagiri, Y.
Moore, J.D. and Stenning, K. (eds) Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, pp. 411-416, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, 1st-4th August 2001.

[2] Graphical representation in graphical dialogue
Healey, P.G.T. and Swoboda, N. and Umata, I. and Katagiri, Y.
International Journal of Human Computer Studies (Special Issue on Interactive Graphical Communication), Volume 57, Number 4, pp. 375-395, October 2002.

[3] A tool for performing and analysing experiments on graphical communication
Healey, P.G.T. and Swoboda, N. and King, J.
Faulkner, X. and Finlay, J. and D'etienne, F. (eds) People and Computers XVI: Proceedings of HCI2002: The 16th British HCI Group Annual Conference, pp. 55-68, Southbank University, London, 2nd-6th September 2002.