The Middle Road Demonstrator

The Middle Road Demonstrator (MRD) is a system for communication support within cooperative work settings. The MRD is one of three demonstrator systems developed within the framework of ESPRIT Project 6155 - EuroCODE: CSCW Open Development Environment. The system was designed and evaluated in cooperation with a pilot group from the Department of Radiology at Rikshospitalet.

The MRD supports cooperative work by allowing users to share applications independent of time and space. The MRD supports both synchronous and asynchronous communication modalities. In both of these modalities, the MRD provides communication facilities based upon a “show, point and talk” functional profile.

The MRD’s synchronous communication modality is realized through it’s desktop conferencing facility, while it’s asynchronous modality is realized through a multimedia messaging facility called the Snapshot Composer.

This report is divided into several major parts: the Introduction, the Outcome and the Process. The Introduction describes the overall EuroCODE and MRD project contexts. The Outcome presents MRD results from a functional perspective. The Process part contains detailed process information, especially in regard to the MRD’s evaluation at Rikshospitalet.