The Collaboratory Notebook is part of the Collaborative Visualization (CoVis) project here at Northwestern.

Download the software from http://www.covis.nwu.edu/tech-support/software/notebook/; only the mac version is currently stable. (If I’m on the ball, the software will already be downloaded to the class mac.) You’ll need a password to expand the archive; that password will be given out in class. The archive does include a user’s manual, which you should use as much as you find necessary.

There are two required readings:

http://www2.covis.nwu.edu/papers/CoVis_PDF/ONeillCSCL95.pdf

http://www2.covis.nwu.edu/papers/CoVis_PDF/EdelsonCSCL95.pdf

(If you’re interested, you’ll find other readings at http://www2.covis.nwu.edu/papers/Papers.html.)

To use the software, you’ll need a username and password. Your username consists of your first initial followed by your last name (no spaces or anything in between). Everyone has the same password, which will be given out in class.

When you log on, you’ll see a "catalog" (list of bookshelves) that includes three notebooks of different types. In those notebooks, we’ve put sections of the latest version of the design framework developed by Alex Kass and Chris Riesbeck. In order to learn how to use the Notebook, follow up to the pages that are in those notebooks and discuss the framework. However engrossed you might become in the discussion itself, remember that the whole point is to examine the Notebook from an architectural perspective.