C r o s s p o i n tCollaboration Services for the 21st Century

Patrick Gabriel (James Madison University)Joel Coffman (CS Graduate Student, University of Virginia)

NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates, University of Virginia

What is Crosspoint’s Vision? Crosspoint is a web-based collaboration service which is intended

to enhance interaction among problem holders.

End users issue a Request for Information (RFI) and identify the nature of the solution needed.

An analyst picks an RFI for review, and then works to understand the problem, sharpen the question, and clarify the end user’s goals.

Crosspoint’s Vision The analyst uses Crosspoint to locate Subject

Matter Experts (SMEs) whose skill set and availability match the requirements of the problem being addressed.

Crisis Action Teams (CATs) for short-term problems Communities of Interest (COIs) for long-term problems

End User (Problem Holder)

Subject Matter Experts (SME)

AnalystRFI Subject Matter

Experts (SME)

Subject Matter Experts (SME)

Crosspoint Query

Communication

Clarification

Crosspoint’s Vision The CAT/COI collaboration team members:

collectively develop an action strategy, locate and collect relevant information and data assets, perform analyses, and produce information products and visualizations relevant to the

desired end-state.

The analyst delivers the collaboration team’s response to the problem holder.

CAT/COI team

SME

SMESME

SME

AnalystEnd User (Problem Holder)

ResponseResponse

Crosspoint’s Vision Over time, each analyst and SME acquires an

electronic reputation regarding the utility of their work product.

Analysts provide feedback for the SMEs End users provide feedback for the analysts

End User (Problem Holder) Analyst Subject Matter Expert

(SME)

Feedback Feedback

Why is Crosspoint Needed? Today’s collaboration tools assume that the user already knows the

identities of those with whom he or she wishes to collaborate.

In contrast, with Crosspoint, problems can be described from the problem holder’s perspective, and the characteristics of the desired outcome can be identified.

Crosspoint is collaborator-focused, in that the analyst uses a query service to locate SMEs with relevant skills.

SME profiles

Crosspoint is implemented using web services Avoids adding another application to run and manage Users can integrate Crosspoint into their existing and future projects without

undergoing a complete redesign.

Bridging the Gap

RFI

RFICrosspoint

End User Analyst

SMEs known to analyst

SMEs unknown to analyst

SMEs unknown to analyst

SMEs known to analyst

AnalystEnd User

What are Crosspoint’s Capabilities? To achieve its vision, Crosspoint must support the following capabilities:

user-friendly creation and management of RFIs

interaction between the analyst and the RFI’s author

collaboration among the CAT/COI team members

definable search queries for the SME profile database

customizable priorities and preferences for search queries

delivery of requested information end-state to the end user

Technology Crosspoint utilizes three main technologies to

accomplish its goal: Apache HTTP Server 2.2.4 PHP 5.2.3 PostgreSQL 8.2.

PostgreSQL 8.2.4 was implemented for the following reasons:

It is faster with a large feature set Provides excellent data integrity Is stable and reliable

Crosspoint Demo Login User Interface Profiles

End User Analyst Subject Matter Expert

RFIs Search Results

Future Work Formation of CATs/COIs

Search algorithm development (currently a boolean search)

Must be specific for a relational database (google operates on text, not tables)

Weighted search

Electronic reputation (feedback)

User defined tags (like del.icio.us)

Acknowledgements

Dr. Alfred Weaver (Dept. of Computer Science, University of Virginia)

Joel Coffman (CS Graduate Student, University of Virginia)

Andrew Jurik (CS Graduate Student, University of Virginia)

Bob Dorsey (National Reconnaissance Office)