ConcertChat

Text-based communication in context, at which you can working with shared material.

Chat: tap the full potential

Millions use chat privately for leisure activities. Low technical requirements and easy handling are the main advantages of text-based communication. The ConcertChat technology opens up the medium chat for professional usage and provides extensive support for efficient communication for example in continuing education or in virtual meetings.

Communication in context

Communication is always embedded in a specific communication context. The participants build up knowledge using learning material, they discuss a draft or react to a message in a discussion. Existing chat systems do not pay attention to this context. The participants have to re-construct the communication context on their own. This is timeconsuming and leads to misunderstandings.


ConcertChat: Communication in context

An example

What does Smith refer to and what exactly is Johnson´s problem?

Innovative functionalities

ConcertChat provides innovative functionalities for efficient communication:

• Shared material: All chat users have a shared view on arbitrary documents, web pages or screenshots. A shared whiteboard supports joint sketching.
• Explicit references: Contributions can explicitly refer to other contributions or regions in the shared material.
• Persistent storage: All contributions are archived. This allows asynchronous discussion, searching in the discourse and easy post-processing of meetings.
• Roles and processes: By defining various roles, rights and phases, also complex communication scenarios can be supported. Examples are moderated meetings and well-structured discussions.

All functional building blocks can be combined flexibly according to the needs of an application scenario.

The technology: modular and easy to integrate

ConcertChat is implemented platform independent using the JAVA programming language. ConcertChat is available as a pure web-based solution without any need to install software on the user′s computer. In addition, ConcertChat can be integrated with existing technical infrastructures, e.g. groupware platforms such as IBM Lotus Sametime.

Further information: http://chat.ipsi.fraunhofer.de

The latest release (September 11, 2006) of ConcertChat is available under a BSD-like license. The sources can be downloaded here (Sources, 7.4MB) or here (Binaries, 10.0MB).

Contact:

Martin Mühlpfordt

Fraunhofer-IPSI
Dolivostraße 15
D-64293 Darmstadt

Phone: 06151 869 4938
Fax: 061 51 869 963
E-mail: