Gallery Requirements

Goals and Purpose

Primary Goal

Allow an Instructor to create and manage a set of collections for student review of images. Images have an imposed order that allows them to be viewed in sequence.

Secondary Goal

Students bring images to course site to share with peers and add analysis (such as wiki tool or discussion tool) (this is probably already addressed in the resources tool). Image annotation and discussion via wiki or forum tools.

Image Management Requirements

Create/Manage Images and Image Groups:

1) Navigate to Course Site (or myWorkSpace) Resources Tool, as it currently is.
2) Create new folder for a Gallery, tag it as a Gallery Folder. This was based on folder name before, perhaps it can be done some other way now such as adding a "type". This would help the podcast tool also.
3) Create sub-folders for lecture or grouping of images ("Lecture 1 images", "20th Century South African Architecture") using the add folder capability of the Resource Tool.
4) Add images to these folders either through Resources upload or WebDav.
5) Order, set release, add permissions (such as group assignment), or add description inside the Resources tool.

Viewing and Sequencing Requirements

6) Go to Gallery tool, which will expose the folders for each grouping (folder) of images based upon order set in Resources Tool
7) Click on Image Group you would like to view
8) Default to thumbnail view of assets in group, click on thumbnail to open image (in separate window??) or
9) switch to slideshow view, which will allow user to move forward or backward through one image at a time.

Other Requirements

10) In terms of MIME type, I would be interested in including standard image types
11) Support for video if possible (so if they opened in new window, they could play based on the player.
We would probably want to expose more guidance in the Gallery tool for the user.

Possible Future Enhancements

Multiple Galleries
Gallery tool changes are reflected in the Resources folder. For example, changing order in Thumbnail view. Ordering in the Gallery Tool.
Support for AJAX/FLUID in the future. Drag and drop, etc.

Additional Notes

1) I am assuming many of the details in the requirements can be worked out between you and Daphne (for example what are the exact mime types?). She will do some scenarios at the beginning of January and can create some wireframes.

2) I am concerned about relying on the naming function of the relationship between the resources folder and the Gallery tool. I was thinking that perhaps the Gallery tool could have an option to "Add Collection" and then point toward a specific folder. We may want to look at the podcast tool as a potential model. I can't tell from the mock-ups exactly how it works. I'll let Daphne and you discuss what makes the most sense given constraints, but wanted to point this out as a work item.

3) We are proposing two views within the collections: a) Thumbnail (can then open each image individually) and b) Slideshow or presentation (Sequential). It appears to me that you have only spec'ed the sequential, is that on purpose?

4) We were discussing the need (especially with the slideshow view) to have images sized to the same dimension if possible (can't control vertical vs. horizontal) to avoid having the user adjusting their window size. Daphne would specfify some preset sizes that the user could choose from.

5) We really want the description field carried into the Gallery tool with the image in some way.

6) Can there be some way to ensure that IF Gallery Tool is chosen when setting up a site, it automatically checks on resources as well?

Other Issues
1) QA - We will supply some staff to test for user acceptance, I am assuming that you will manage testing within the Sakai environment. Would be good to have you available during bSpace integration for troubleshooting.

2) Longer term - it would be good to get this into Sakai release ASAP. I think there will be a lot of community interest and a solid QA from Megan's group would be nice.