Meeting Browser User Manual

The CALO MA Meeting Browser is a simple web-based interface for browsing information from a meeting. Some of this information, such as notes and agenda items, is created by the meeting participants, and other information is automatically created by CALO. In addition to providing easy access to a summary of agenda items and notes taken during a meeting, the Meeting Browser also allows meeting participants to provide feedback about the information CALO generates, such as action items CALO pulls from the meeting transcript.

The browser works in concert with the Browser Feedback Service server that runs as part of the CSLI CALO Service Manager. By default, the Feedback Service works as a small web server running on port 8080. If you are having difficulty using the Meeting Browser, you may want to make sure the Feedback Service is running, and that you are able to connect to it on port 8080. (To test this, you can copy one of the URLs from the "List of browsable URLs" window under BrowserFeedbackService, and paste the URL into your web browser. You may need to change the hostname from "localhost" to the name of the host where the Service Manager resides. If the server is working, you should see a stream of XML in your web browser. If not, there may be a problem connecting from your client to the server.)

Launching and Logging In

You can launch the Meeting Browser by navigating to http://[csliServiceManager_server]:8080/mabrowser/index.html. This file should be opened in Firefox, or a Mozilla-compliant web browser. (While an effort has been made to make the browser compatible with Microsoft's Internet Explorer, development of this browser has concentrated on the Mozilla platform used by IRIS, and IE compatibility isn't guaranteed.)

Once opened in a web browser, you'll see a login screen that asks for a username and password. Enter these, and click "Login."

When you log in for the first time, you may see a message like this:

Check "Remember this decision" and click "Allow" to make sure you can access the meeting browser's full capabilities.

If meetings that are associated with your login name have been stored, a list of those meetings will appear in the Meeting Browser window under the heading "Your meetings."

Browsing a Meeting

Once you select a meeting to browse, you'll see a representation of the meeting divided into three parts. The three parts are (a) the Meeting Heading, (b) the Action Item Summary, and (c) the Shared Notes.

Meeting Heading

In the meeting heading you'll find some general information about the meeting, including the name of the meeting, the date it took place, and a list of participants from the meeting. This information cannot be edited.

Action Item Summary

Here you'll find a summary of action items created at the meeting.

Each action item is represented in a highlighted box. A description of the task should appear at the top of the Action Item box, in bold print. Below this is an entry for the owner (the person responsible for carrying out the action item), the timeframe (when the action item is to be done), and any comments related to the action item. These fields can be edited by double-clicking on the text and changing it. When you're done editing, just press -Enter-.

Some of these action items may have been created by participants during the meeting, while others will have been created by CALO itself. The action items created by meeting participants have a solid dark border around them, while those created by CALO have a shaded border and three buttons at the bottom, which are used for providing feedback (see below).

Shared Notes

This section shows a summary of the Agenda Items covered during a meeting, and any notes taken by participants when those items were discussed. The Agenda Items are listed in expandable pink tiers. To see the notes below a tier, click the "+" to the left of the description and the notes will come into view. Notes that denote action items are highlighted in yellow.

To the left of each note is an small microphone icon. Clicking on this microphone allows you to hear the audio from the meeting that occurred at the time the note was made.

If CALO has created any action items for this meeting, there will be an additional agenda item at the top of the Shared Notes section called "CALO Says...." If you expand this tier, you should see the same CALO-created action items as listed in the Action Item Summary, but listed in the notes format. These can also be edited.

Providing Feedback

For CALO to get good at automatically finding action items, it requires feedback about how well it's doing. At first, the action items it creates might look strange, but the more feedback it gets, the better it will get at finding action items that look more like something a person at the meeting might create.

The first thing to do is to provide CALO with feedback about whether an action item it created is really an action item. If the description or the other fields seem to correspond to a task that was actually brought up during the meeting, you should press the, "Yes, action item!" button. The border of the action item will change from shaded to solid.

If the text in the action item does not seem to specify any sort of future task discussed during the meeting, you should press the, "No, not an action item" button. The action item will disappear, and CALO will learn from its mistake.

If CALO creates an action item that does look like an actual task, but you don't want to see it in your personal action item summary, you can press "Not relevant to me," and the action item will disappear, though CALO will still learn that this was a valid action item.

In the action items created by CALO, you will see that some of the fields are highlighted in various shades of gray. These highlighted fields mark places where CALO has guessed about dialogue from the meeting that pertains to that field, but it isn't sure. The darker the gray highlighting, the less sure CALO is about what it put there.

If you place your mouse cursor over this highlighted portion, you will see alternatives to what CALO has guessed. If one of these alternatives looks more appropriate, you should click on the alternative that works best. You can also enter your own text, if none of CALO's selections seems appropriate.

Remember: Providing CALO with feedback is essential to helping it learn how to find the right information!

Directory Structure

The main browser directory contains three essential files: index.html, smnotes.js, and browser.css. Index.html is a shell HTML file which serves as the interface to the Meeting Browser functionality. Most of this functionality is imported as Javascript from "smnote.js." And the "browser.css" file provides stylesheet layout information.

There are two additional subdirectories -- "\js" and "\icons" -- which provide some additional Javascript libraries and icons used by the browser. The "\js" subdirectory contains interfaces to two open-source Javascript libraries: Prototype and Scriptaculous. The smnotes.js file relies heavy on the Prototype library, so these library files should not be deleted. One additional custom library, pmenu.js, defines the objects used to create the popup context menus in the browser.

Creating Topics

Coming soon...