U Mich: CompreHensive collaborative Framework (CHEF)
In September 2003, the Midwest Instructional Technology Center
installed on server hosted for the Comprehensive Collaborative
Framework (CHEF) now being used and developed at the University of
Michigan. Faculty members, supported by instructional technologists,
at Earlham College and Lake Forest College are participating
this semester in a pilot test of CHEF from a MITC server. Five
faculty members, two instructional technologists, and a librarian,
as well as more than 90 students, are currently using the system
in five courses.
The CompreHensive collaborativE Framework (CHEF) initiative has as its goal
the development of a flexible environment for supporting distance learning and
collaborative work, and doing research on distance learning and collaborative
work. This project is staffed by University of Michigan School of Information
and Media Union staff. We are working closely with and are contributing to the
OKI reference architecture, and are collaborating with other groups interested
in open source collaboration standards. Communities targeted for CHEF use include
those involved in the scholarly activities of teaching, learning and research
at the University of Michigan, and their students and colleagues involved in
teaching, learning and research that are outside of the Michigan community.
CHEF is an online service that supports working communities; communities of
scientific researchers, communities of teachers and students, people who work
together in person as well as those who are geographically separated.People
in the community use CHEF to access computing facilities, to share resources,
to communicate with one another, to facilitate meetings, to work together. They
access CHEF through the web from any internet terminal with a supported browser,
from their desktop or laptops or hand held devices or phones, or from public
terminals. The community can host a CHEF server of their own, or work with a
CHEF service run on their behalf. CHEF users can extend the capabilities of
CHEF to add capabilities specially needed by their community.
CHEF will involve the identification, design and development of a framework
that can effectively accommodate various tools that are used in supporting collaborative
work and distance learning, and tools necessary for the study of collaborative
work and distance learning. The framework needs to provide organization for
the disparate functionality used to support research, collaborative and learning
activities and be able to combine locally developed, commercial off the shelf
and free off the shelf components.
The communities of use that CHEF is targeting include those involved in the
scholarly activities of teaching, learning and research at the University of
Michigan, and their students and colleagues involved in teaching, learning and
research that are outside of the Michigan community.CHEF is aimed at making
available a set of functional elements that can be easily configured by users
to accomplish a wide variety of activities. This framework will support existing
and emerging capabilities, and will seek to make the integration of new functionality
as easy as possible.
In our past and current work we have seen much commonality in the needs and
tools used by people in these communities, and we are seeing the emergence of
frameworks for user configurable toolset delivery. CHEF will mobilize that experience
in the effort to develop a comprehensive framework to support these activities,
and to make this framework available for wide use.
CHEF services run on one or more CHEF servers; clients use various means to
communicate with the servers to access CHEF. CHEF is a multi-user system, and
has features that surface the presence and activity of the current set of users
to each other. CHEF uses the practice of separation of concerns to introduce
different metaphors used to organize the development and use of the system.
These include tools, services, interface technology, and portals. CHEF also
uses the "Model View Controller" practice; services handle all modeling,
tools handle the controller aspects, generating views which are rendered by
a template interface technology.
To access a sample CHEF course worksite in which you can participate from
either the faculty or student perspective, click
here.