Software
PREP Read Me........................ (5 KB) PREP Editor 1.0a17 ............... (800 KB) PREP Dictionary ................. (1100 KB)
Description
This is an archive of the PREP Editor, a collaborative writing
environment. Our goal was to develop a system that encourages and
facilitates collaboration in writing. PREP is a Macintosh application, compatible with System 6.0 and higher, including System 7. Although we have also been running it under later versions (e.g., 9.0.4), it has not been extensively tested under versions later than System 7.
PREP provides a column-based interface where related information is linked across columns. One use for PREP is as a word processor that provides more than print margins -- it provides an unlimited number of "virtual margins" that collaborators can write in.
PREP supports text, drawings and voice within the document as content or annotation. PREP uses the Claris XTND technology (minimally provided) to make it easy to import documents for annotation in PREP (and export them afterwards with the annotations stored as footnotes).
The PREP project was funded by the National Science Foundation under grant number IRI-8902891. We gratefully acknowledge additional support from Apple Computer (ATG/ER), and the CMU Information Networking Institute (which supported a study of the editor through a grant from Bellcore).
Houghton Mifflin's CommonSpace (http://www.sixthfloor.com/CS1.html) is based on the PREP Editor, through a non-exclusive rights contract with Carnegie Mellon.
References
Neuwirth, C. M., Kaufer, D. S., Chandhok, R., & Morris, J. H. (1990). Issues in the design of computer-support for co-authoring and commenting. Proceedings of the Third Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW ‘90) (pp. 183-195). Baltimore, MD: Association for Computing Machinery. Reprinted in R. M. Baecker (Ed.) (1993). Readings in groupware and computer-supported cooperative work (pp. 537-549). San Mateo, CA: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc.
Cavalier, T., Chandhok, R., Morris, J., Kaufer, D., & Neuwirth, C. M. (1991). A visual design for collaborative work: Columns for commenting and annotation. J. F. Nunamaker, Jr., (Ed.). Proceedings of the Twenty-fourth Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-24 ) (pp. 729-738 ). IEEE Press.
Neuwirth, C. M., Chandhok, R., Kaufer, D. S., Erion, P., Morris, J., & Miller, D. (1992). Flexible diff-ing in a collaborative writing system. In Proceedings of the Fourth Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW ‘92) (pp. 147-154). Baltimore, MD: Association for Computing Machinery. Reprinted in R. Rada (Ed.) (1996). Groupware and authoring (pp. 189-204). San Diego: Academic Press.
Neuwirth, C.M., Chandhok, R., Charney, D., Wojahn, P., Kim, L. (1994). Distributed collaborative writing: A comparison of spoken and written modalities for reviewing and revising documents. In Proceedings of the CHI’94 Conference on Computer-Human Interaction (pp. 51-57), April 24-28, Boston. ACM.
Neuwirth, C. M., Kaufer, D. S., Chandhok, R., & Morris, J.H. (1994). Computer support for distributed collaborative writing: Defining parameters of interaction. In Proceedings of the Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW ‘94) (pp. 145-152). Oct. 22-26, Chapel Hill, NC. Association for Computing Machinery.
Kaufer, D. S., Neuwirth, C. M., Chandhok, R., & Morris, J.H. (1995). Accommodating mixed sensory/modal preferences in collaborative writing systems. Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 3, 271-295.
Neuwirth, C.M., Chandhok, R., Kaufer, D.S., Morris, J.H., Erion, P., & Miller, D. (1995). Annotations are not "for free": The need for runtime layer support in hypertext engines. In Schuler, W., Hannemann, J., & Streitz, N. (Eds). Designing user interfaces for hypertexts (pp. 156-166). Springer-Verlag.
Neuwirth, C. M., & Wojahn, P. (1996). Learning to write: Computer-support for a cooperative process. In T. Koshmann (Ed.) Computer-support for cooperative learning (pp. 147-170). Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Wojahn, P., Neuwirth, C. M., Bullock, B. (1998). Effects of interfaces for annotation on communication in a collaborative task. In Proceedings of the CHI’98 Conference on Computer-Human Interaction (pp. 275-284), April 18-23, Los Angeles. Association for Computing Machinery.
Neuwirth, C.M., Chandhok, R., Kaufer, D.S., Morris, J. H., Erion, P., & Miller, D. (in press). Computer supported collaborative writing: A coordination science perspective. In G.M. Olson, T.W. Malone & J.B. Smith (Eds.), Coordination Theory and Collaboration Technology. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.