This document summarizes the requirements of the customer. The project specifications will be created based on these requirements.
The Virtual Language Centre will be used for communication between students and teachers all over the world. While the main aim is language learning, it is also hoped that HUT VLC will promote intercultural sensitivity and enable people to exchange ideas with people from many different cultures.
It will also be used for project work by international teams. All those interested in language learning and intercultural sensitivity are welcome. These are the main requirements for the VLC and things that affect its creation.
To make the learning process easier, language learning tools will be implemented on the VLC. This can include things such as
The tools will be specified by the customer in cooperation with the project team.
The environment will be built so that it encourages interaction between the users. The VLC will have two parts, one based on Helsinki University of Technology, the other purely fictional.
Users that are granted the right to build can extend the VLC according to their own taste. There will be limits to the amount of building a user can do, and he will not be able to build anywhere else than in the virtual parts of the VLC.
To make the VLC livelier (more dynamic), the system will have parts that move and change on their own. For instance, when being in a forest, with no conversation going on for a while, a bird might settle on a branch and start singing. A weather system could also be implemented, if the users find it useful.
The VLC will provide a platform that easily can be modified and expanded according to future needs. This may well include supporting languages other than English, which requires the VLC to support the ISO 8859-1 character set. Other ISO character sets will not be supported.
During the first phase the VLC will be limited to the HUT main building and its surroundings. When the VLC grows in popularity, new parts of HUT can be added to it.
This requires that the user interface is very simple and intuitive. The implementation will be command line based. The user issues written commands, possibly with arguments, to interact with the VLC. The VLC then responds with textual output. This interface may be respecified or expanded later.
The help system will be comprehensive, so that help on any feature of the VLC can be located online. The need for external manuals will be small, covering mostly how to connect to the VLC on different systems. Connection documentation will not be produced by the project, as it is very site dependent.
For the advanced user, such as teachers, the user interface has to provide more complex features. One significant feature is the capability for file transfers. It will be possible to upload large text files and use them on the VLC. Similarly, it will be possible to download text files for local editing, as the editing facilities of the VLC are necessarily restricted.
The teams need meeting rooms where they can meet in private. This also implies that doors should be lockable, so that outsiders cannot interfere with the work. Automatic tools that aid team work will be added, e.g. recorders that record meetings.
As teams are important on the VLC, the members of a team can be grouped together in a mailing list. The lists of teams will be publicly available, but it will also be possible for a user to create private mailing lists.
Good examples of such tools are whiteboards. A lecturer can write things on the board, and anyone in the room can review the comments. Whiteboard contents can be saved for later use, and cleared for the next lecture.
A bulletin board system will be implemented, allowing users to post notes and respond to notes left by others. There will be different boards for different topics.
A newspaper will be posted on the VLC describing events and changes. The newspaper will appear when necessary, not on a regular basis.
In addition to using internet mail for communications, users will also be able to leave messages on the VLC itself.
The VLC will be a place where different computer aided language learning techniques can be researched and tested. Much of the research will be done incrementally, so that new features will be based on user comments to the old features. The software project will encourage the development of new features based on the old ones.
The VLC project is very dynamic. Setting strict boundaries on the project is not beneficial; instead the project needs to evolve over time. Some possible features of the VLC are listed below. These will not necessarily be implemented, but will be taken into account when the VLC is constructed.
World Wide Web-interconnectivity is a current topic. Users may be allowed to walk around the VLC on the Web. Possibly links in the VLC can also lead to sites on the Web. The problem with the Web is that it provides no means for interaction, so people browsing the VLC would not be able to participate in discussions. They would actually not even be visible on the VLC, which poses a privacy risk.
External components for computer aided learning may not be easy to integrate into the VLC. If they can be integrated, at least the means for such an integration will be provided.
Currently more advanced methods for user interaction are being developed. The VLC may be expanded to support new technologies if they are useful. Good examples of this are Java and VRML.