A Context-sensitive Online Help system provides targeted information to users based on their context (i.e., where they are, what they are doing, or what the current state is) with respect to the application. Context-sensitive help is usually displayed as a widget, overlay page, or as a hyperlink to a completely different page or window. The user need not move out of context to get application help for his current task. Each help topic is intended apply to the given context exclusively.

A Wiki-based Help System allows users to collaborate on help content. Most wiki-based help systems are used as portals, centralized sites where users can get help and/or contribute to help content. One problem with a wiki-based help system is that the user has to move out of context and search for help from a large pool of help articles.

A Context-Sensitive Wiki Help System combines the aspects of context-sensitive help with the collaborative nature of a wiki. Users get the targeted help based on their context, but they also have ability to edit and contribute to the help content.

The beginning of this thesis will be a study of popular context-sensitive help systems and wiki systems. Using the information acquired from the study, we will build a feature set that will be used in the development of the context-sensitive wiki help system for web applications. We will be using Yioop!, an open-source search engine application developed by Dr. Chris Pollett, as a platform to integrate with our context-sensitive wiki based help system.

Schedule:

Week 1: Jan28-Feb4	Talk about the project in detail with the advisor. Prepare & deliver CS 297 Proposal.
Week 2: Feb5-Feb11	Research on the Context-Sensitive help system - Madcap Flare. Integrate a demo page on Yioop with Madcap Flare CSH. Identify the features, configuration and usage of the help authoring tool Madcap Flare. Also study research paper[1] on Context sensitive help to understand the features of Context-Sensitive help system.
Week 3: Feb12-Feb18	Research on another existing Context-Sensitive help system - Adobe Robohelp. Integrate a demo page on Yioop with Adobe Robohelp. Identify the features, configuration and usage of the help authoring tool Adobe Robohelp. Also study a research paper[2] on Context sensitive help to understand the features of Context-Sensitive help system.
Week 4: Feb19-Feb25	Deliverable 1 : Complete research paper on two existing context-sensitive help systems. Do a presentation on how to configure and use the two systems.
Week 5,6: Feb26-Mar18	Research on Features and usage of MediaWiki, DokuWiki and TikiWiki. Identify the UI features, other characteristics and how the editors work on each of them.
Week 7: Mar12-Mar18	Deliverable 2: Deliver research paper on the findings of the three Wiki systems.
Week 8,9: Mar19-Apr1	Deliverable 3: Write some code to implement a part of JS framework for the front end. Research on what is needed to build the javascript framework that powers the UI. Identify the elements that need to be built on the client side of the application. Research on the what services is needed on the back-end. This includes content management, controllers, Wiki engine, security, etc. on the back-end.
Week 10,11: Apr2-Apr15	Work on building the feature set of the Context-Sensitive Wiki help application. The research done on both Wiki systems and the context-sensitive help systems will be used to construct the feature set. Identify and present the feature set of the Context-Sensitive wiki help application.
Week 12: Apr16-Apr22	Deliverable 4: Finalize on the feature set, implementation and resources required for the front-end JS framework that powers the Context-Sensitive Wiki help.
Week 13,14: Apr23-May6	Work on CS 297 report.
Week 15: May7-May13	Deliverable 5: Prepare and Deliver CS297 Report.

Deliverables:

The full project will be done when CS298 is completed. The following will be done by the end of CS297:

1. Complete research on two existing context-sensitive help systems. Do a presentation on how to configure and use the two systems.

2. Complete research on the characteristics and configuration of at least three Wiki systems, Deliver the research report on findings from the research.

3. Work on building the feature set of the Context-Sensitive Wiki help system. The research done on both Wiki systems and the context-sensitive help systems will be used to construct the feature set. Identify and present the feature set of the Context-Sensitive wiki help system.

4. Finalize on the feature set, implementation and resources required for the front-end JS framework that powers the Context-Sensitive Wiki help. Present in a research paper.

5. Complete writing CS 297 report.

References:

[1] [Johnston2002] Context-Sensitive help for Multimodal Dailogue. Helen Wright Hastie, Michael Johnston, Patrick Ehlen. ICMI '02 Proceedings of the 4th IEEE International Conference on Multimodal Interfaces. 2002.

[2] [Ellison2009] User-centred Design of Context-sensitive Help. AODC. 2009. www.ellisonconsulting.com/downloads/UCD_of_CSH_AODC_2009.pdf .

[3] [Chilana2011] Using Crowdsourcing in the Design of Context-Sensitive Help for Web Applications. Chilana, P., Ko, A.J., and Wobbrock, J.O. CHI '11 Workshop on Crowdsourcing and Human Computation- Systems, Studies, and Platforms, Vancouver, BC, May 2011.

[4][Stevens2006] Stevens, G. and Wiedenhofer, T. CHIC - a pluggable solution for community help in context. Proc ACM NordiCHI (2006), 212-221.

[5] [Chilana2012] LemonAid: Selection-Based Crowdsourced Contextual Help for Web Applications. Chilana, P., Ko, A.J., and Wobbrock, J.O. Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2012). New York: ACM Press, pp. 1549-1558.

[6] [Barrett2008]. MediaWiki - Wikipedia and Beyond. Daniel J. Barrett. O'Reilly Media. ISBN 978-0-596-51979-7. 2008.

[7] Tiki for Smarties. Rick Sapir. Publisher: lulu.com (January 23, 2013).

[8] Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja. John Resig and Bear Bibeault. Manning Publications. 2012.

[9] High Performance JavaScript. Nicholas C. Zakas . O'Reilly Media, Inc. 2010.

[10] [Capobianco2003] Questioning the effectiveness of contextual online help: Some alternative propositions. Antonio Capobianco. Published by IOS Press, (c) IFIP, 2003.

[11] [Porter2013] WIKI - Grow your own for fun and profit. Alan J. Porter. XMl Press. Apr 11, 2013.