Scholars usually have to deal with many different type of documents spread in vary stages, especially in the case of big projects. Piles and piles of documents scattered in many folders waiting for tagging, revision, approval or whatever it is that needs to be completed. There are workflow management tools available to help us, but they often are too specialized and somewhat complex to use. So, how can we make them easier and more flexible? This work was presented in a long paper session at DH 2012 in Hamburg, Germany. See more here: http://luciano.fluxo.art.br/?p=286

1. Workflow Interface
for Editorial Process "
Luciano
Frizzera,
Stan
Ruecker,
Milena
Radzikowska,
Geoffrey
Rockwell,
Susan
Brown
and
the
INKE
Research
Group
lfrizzera@ualberta.ca
University
of
Alberta

2. • How can we make workflow management tools
more attractive, flexible, and useful for scholars?"
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 2

3. • Short
descrip-on
of
INKE.
• What
are
workflows
and
how
have
they
been
used.
• How
structured
surfaces
can
be
used
in
workflows.
• Prototyping
workflows.
• Sketching
future
direc-ons.
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 3

4. INKE"
Implementing New Knowledge Environments"
• 7-­‐year
project
(currently
in
the
end
of
year
3).
• Led
by
Ray
Siemens
at
the
University
of
Victoria.
• 2
main
goals:
• Contribute
to
the
development
of
new
digital
knowledge
environments.
• Combine
the
tradi-onal
strengths
of
print
with
the
advantages
of
digital
environments
in
order
to
produce
integrated
digital
reading
tools.
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 4

5. Workflow"
• Work
process:
1
2
3
4
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 5

6. Workflow"
• Workflow
management
tool
is
essen-ally
a
structured
checklist.
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 6

7. Workflow"
• Recent
research
in
computer
science:
• Workflow
analysis
(e.g.
Schroeder,
2009).
• Algorithms
for
automa-c
layout
(e.g.
Albrecht
et
al.,
2010).
• Systems
for
managing
workflow
in
the
context
of
digital
text
produc-on:
• Open
Journal
Systems.
• Open
Monograph
Systems.
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 7

8. Workflow"
• “There
are
different
approaches
of
workflow
modeling:
some
methodologies
offer
beer
expressibility
using
graph-­‐based
models;
others
focus
more
on
the
complexity
of
model
checking.”
-­‐
Lu
and
Sadiq,
2007.
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 8

9. Structured Surface"
• “A
cogni-ve
interface
ar-fact
that
provides
a
layer
of
meaning
that
supports
the
data
imposed
upon
it.”
-­‐
Radzikowska
et
al.,
2011.
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 9

10. Structured Surface Workflow"
• Modularity
and
customizability
associated
with
workflow
systems
combined
with
a
Rich-­‐Prospect
Visualiza-on.
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 10

11. Prototype: Earlier Stage "
• Target:
Generic
workflow
from
the
world
of
journal
editorship.
• Technology:
Web
Standards
(HTML
+
CSS
+
JavaScript).
• D3.JS
-­‐
Visualiza-on
tool.
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 11

12. Prototype: Earlier Stage "
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 12

13. Prototype: Earlier Stage "
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 13

14. Prototype: Earlier Stage "
• Too
much
informaWon
in
the
structured
surface.
Next
itera-on:
Explore
placing
more
informa-on
in
the
tokens.
• Technical
LimitaWon:
“SVG
performs
no
automa-c
line
breaking
or
word
wrapping”.
-­‐
World
Wide
Web
Consor-um
(W3C).
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 14

15. Prototype: Current Stage"
• Technology:
Adobe
Flash.
• Target:
The
Orlando
Project
editorial
jobs.
• 54
samples
of
XML-­‐encoded
original
material
based
on
Orlando
biocri-cal
entries
on
women
writers.
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 15

16. Prototype: Current Stage"
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 16

17. Prototype: Current Stage"
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 17

18. Prototype: Current Stage"
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 18

19. Prototype: Current Stage"
• High
density
of
tokens
inside
a
stage,
where
the
overlap
can
make
it
challenging
to
find
or
access
informa-on.
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 19

20. Prototype: Current Stage"
• Linear
x
parallel
pathways.
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 20

21. Future Directions"
• Features
to
enhance
the
user
experience
and
the
awareness
of
the
system:
• Zooming
User
Interface.
• Collapsing
Stages.
• NoWficaWon
Center.
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 21

22. Future Directions"
• Text
Analysis
tool
Connecting Voyant Text Analysis Tools with
workflows could identify issues during the editorial
process and help users to get a sense of their data.
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 22

23. Future Directions: Text
Analysis
"
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 23

24. Future Directions"
• Dependencies
Without rules to govern the workflow the whole
system ceases to be a guideline and could confuse
the users.
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 24

25. Future Directions: Dependencies"
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 25

26. Future Directions"
• CustomizaWon
Let the users create workflows based on their own
interests.
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 26

27. Future Directions"
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 27

28. Future Directions"
• Shared
Workflow
- Improve the collaborative work in Digital Humanities.
- Partners and collaborators could follow the jobs’
progress and get a sense of how the projects are
moving.
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 28

29. Future Directions: Shared
Workflow "
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 29

30. Future Directions"
• Tangible
Devices
Extend the experiment to different devices, in particular
multi-touch platforms such as smartphones, tablets,
tables and walls.
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 30

31. Future Directions: Tangible
Devices
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 31

32. Future Directions: Tangible
Devices
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 32

33. Conclusion"
• Conceptualizing workflows using structured
surfaces in order to offer a better user
experience for scholars.
+ Attractive.
+ Flexible.
+ Useful.
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 33

34. Works Cited"
• Albrecht,
Benjamin,
Philip
Effinger,
Markus
Held,
and
Michael
Kaufmann.
2010.
An
automa-c
layout
algorithm
for
BPEL
processes.
In
Proceedings
of
the
5th
interna-onal
symposium
on
Sojware
visualiza-on
(SOFTVIS
'10).
ACM,
New
York,
NY,
USA,
173-­‐182.
hp://
doi.acm.org.login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/10.1145/1879211.1879237
• Canadian
Wri-ng
Research
Collaboratory.
hp://www.cwrc.ca
• Lu,
Roupeng
and
Sadiq,
Shazia.
2007.
A
survey
of
compara-ve
business
process
modeling
approaches.
Business
Informa-on
Systems
(pp.
82–94).
• Open
Journal
Systems
Documenta-on.
hp://pkp.sfu.ca/files/OJSinanHour.pdf
• Open
Monograph
Project.
hp://pkp.sfu.ca/omp
• Orlando
Project.
hp://www.ualberta.ca/orlando
-­‐
hp://orlando.cambridge.org
• Radzikowska,
Milena,
Ruecker,
Stan,
Brown,
Susan,
Organisciak,
Peter
and
the
INKE
Research
Group.
2011.
“Structured
Surfaces
for
JiTR.”
Paper
presented
at
the
Digital
Humani-es
2011
conference.
Stanford,
June
19-­‐21,
2011.
• Ruecker,
Stan,
Radzikowska,
Milena
and
Sinclair,
Stéfan.
2011.
Visual
Interface
Design
for
Digital
Cultural
Heritage:
A
Guide
to
Rich-­‐Prospect
Browsing.
Farnham,
Surrey:
Ashgate
Publishing,
2011.
• Schroeder,
Will.
2009.
“New
tools
for
task
workflow
analysis.”
In
Proceedings
of
the
27th
interna-onal
conference
extended
abstracts
on
Human
factors
in
compu-ng
systems
(CHI
EA
'09).
ACM,
New
York,
NY,
USA,
3877-­‐3882.
hp://doi.acm.org.login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/10.1145/1520340.1520587
• W3C.
SVG-­‐Text
1.1.
hp://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/text.html
• Weaver,
Chris.
2007.
“Paerns
of
Coordina-on
in
Improvise
Visualiza-ons”.
Visualiza-on
and
Data
Analysis
(p.
12).
Presented
at
the
Proceedings
of
the
IS&T/SPIE,
São
José,
CA.
USA.
hp://
www.cs.ou.edu/~weaver/improvise/architecture/architecture-­‐paerns.html
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 34

35. Acknowledgments"
Geoffrey
Rockwell
Daniel
Sondheim
Jennifer
Windsor
Mihaela
Ilovan
Milena
Radzikowska
Stan
Ruecker
Susan
Brown
And
the
INKE
team
Thank
you!
lfrizzera@ualberta.ca
Workflow Interface for Editorial Process 35