Usage Instruction of Knowledge Sea II

Map Interface

Organization of the Map

Search in KnowledgeSea

Icons the Map

Cell Content Window

Organization of the Cell Content Window

Icons on Cell Content Window

Tutorial Pages

Icons on Tutorial Pages

Functions on Tutorial Pages

The main page of the Knowledge Sea system is a 8 by 8 map that is organized as follows:

Knowledge Sea map provides links to lecture notes and related material from web resources in horizontal map format. Each cell has two or more keywords that describe the content of the resources inside the cell. Neighboring cells include materials that are closely related in the topic. Moreover each cell is annotated with several icons and different background that the meaning of each of them is described in the following section. Some of the cells are closely related to the material covered in a special lecture. There is a link to the lecture notes on these cells which helps you access the lectures and the online material related to those lectures. The lecture are specified with L and the number of the lecture e.g. L11

At the top part of the map you can see an input box for keyword based search inside KnowledgeSea.  You can enter the phrase you are looking for and press enter.  The search result will be opened in a new page.

• Paper Stack Icon : The paper stack represents the density of documents inside the cell. 3 levels of paper stack icon could be seen on the cells ( , , , ). The larger number of paper represents the larger number of documents inside each cell.
• Sticky Note on Paper Stack : The sticky note icon on the paper stack represents that at least one document inside the resources of this cell has some written notes by students.
• User Icon : The user icon on each cell, represents the number of visits made by the student (user traffic) to any document of that cell. Five different levels of user traffic is represented by user icons with five different shades of blue (, , , , ). The darker blue is representation of larger number of visits (heavier level of user traffic).
• Background Color: Background color of each cell represents the number of visits made by other students (group traffic) to any document of that cell. The darker the color of the background the larger the number of visits (heavier level of group traffic).

Cell content window presents more details about the content of each cell of the map that is accessed by clicking on paper stack icon on each cell of the map.Cell content window is broken to three parts that are described below.

Cell content window includes three section: Keywords: At the top right section more keywords related to the content of the cell is provided to give the students better idea about the type of resources in this cell. Small Map: At the top left section a small replica of the main map is displayed to present the position of the current cell on the map.  Students could go back to the map by clicking on each cell of the map. Table of Links: At the bottom section of the window, a table of links to different resources is shown. Students could access any of resources by clicking on the link. The first part of the links is the main page of that specific resource and the second part of it is linked to specific topic.  Every links is annotated with some icons that are described in the next section.

• User Icon : The user icon on the left hand of each link, represents the number of visits made by the student (user traffic) to this link. Five different level of user traffic is represented by user icons with five different shades of blue (, , , , ). The darker blue is representation of larger number of visits (heavier level of user traffic).
• Blue Background Color: Background color of small square with the user icon on the left hand of each link represents the number of visits made by other students (group traffic) to the specific link. The darker the color of the background the larger the number of visits (heavier level of group traffic).
• Sticky Note : The sticky note icon represents that the student has written some general type notes for the specific link. Two different sticky note icon ( , )is used to represent different density of written notes by student. The darker color icons represent the larger density of notes.
• Thumbs Up Icon : The question mark icon represents that the current student has written some notes and specifically at least one praise type note for the specific link. The page could have general and question type annotation as well. Two different level of the color ( , )is used to represent different density of written notes by student. The darker color icons represent the larger density of notes.
• Yellow Background Color: Background color of small square with the sticky note icon on the left hand of each link represents the density of written notes by other students for the specific link. The darker the color of the background the larger the density of written notes.
• Thermometer Icon : The thermometer icon represents the overall temper of the annotations of the page. If the thermometer presents high degree (in red), it means that the page overall has some praise type annotation. The thermometer prestes two level of degrees: half full when a page has at least one praise annotation and full when the page has more than one praise annotation.

The tutorial pages would be opened in a new window by clicking on the any link in the cell content window. The tutorial pages is broken to two section. The left hand side of the page presents the content of the tutorial page. All the links inside these pages are annotated similarly to links in the content window which is described below. The right hand side of the page offers the annotation functionality to the students as well as going back to the map functionality. The details of these functionalities are also described below.

• User Icon : The user icon on the right hand of each link, represents the number of visits made by the student (user traffic) to this link. Five different level of user traffic is represented by user icons with five different shades of blue (, , , , ). The darker blue is representation of larger number of visits (heavier level of user traffic).
• Blue Background Color: Background color of small square with the user icon on the right hand of each link represents the number of visits made by other students (group traffic) to the specific link. The darker the color of the background the larger the number of visits (heavier level of group traffic).
• Sticky Note : The sticky note icon represents that the student has written some general type notes for the specific link. Two different sticky note icon ( , )is used to represent different density of written notes by student. The darker color icons represent the larger density of notes.
• Thumbs Up Icon : The question mark icon represents that the current student has written some notes and specifically at least one praise type note for the specific link. The page could have general and question type annotation as well. Two different level of the color ( , )is used to represent different density of written notes by student. The darker color icons represent the larger density of notes.
• Yellow Background Color: Background color of small square with the sticky note icon on the right hand of each link represents the density of written notes by other students for the specific link. The darker the color of the background the larger the density of written notes.
• Thermometer Icon : The thermometer icon represents the overall temper of the annotations of the page. If the thermometer presents high degree (in red), it means that the page overall has some praise type annotation. The thermometer prestes two level of degrees: half full when a page has at least one praise annotation and full when the page has more than one praise annotation.

• Back to Cell: Clicking on the button would open the cell content window that has the link to the current tutorial page.

To Add an Annotation: Just click and drag to create the desired square. A small pop-up menu will be shown when you release the mouse button. Type your note in the text box and click the 'Create' button to make your annotation. You can leave the text empty. Visualization of an Annotation: Border color : there are two border colors, green and orange. The green border represent a praised annotation and orange a general annotation. Border width : the thickness of the border represent the number of notes associated with the annotation. The higher number of notes, the thicker border. Border style : the style of the border represent the privacy setting of the annotation: solid style border for a public annotation and dashed border for a private annotation. Background : annotations of current user have filled background, while annotations of others have no background. Background color : Simliar to the border color, If I praise my own annotation, the background color will be green, otherwise it will be orange. Summary of My Annotation Activities : it shows the summary of the current user annotations activites. The annotations can be filtered by source, time period, user and specified keyword. Also, clicking a cropped image will open a corresponding annotated page.