We are gearing up to head out to San Francisco for the Adobe MAX Conference. Prof. Kellen Maicher, Alex Porter and I will be presenting at two different sessions. The first is on Sunday, November 16 2008 during a pre-conference kick-off. The second will be on Wednesday, Nov 19th with the session title: Using Adobe AIR as a Tool in Universities.

For more details about MAX, visit: http://max.adobe.com/
For more details about cgCentral, visit: www.cgcentralapp.com

Presentation at Adobe MAX 2008 titled: Using Adobe AIR as a Tool in Universities (link to Adobe TV video)
Co-presented by: Prof. Kellen Maicher, Alex Porter and me

At the Purdue University ;IT Summit ;2008, our research poster received third place in the Graduate Student category. The poster was ;entitled cgCentral: ;An AIR Application for Managing Course Information and Simulation Data (however, it was listed in the program as Using Adobe AIR as a Tool in Universities)

In November 2008, Professor Kellen Maicher and I will be presenting at the 2008 Adobe MAX Conference in San Fransisco, California. The presentation entitled cgCentral: ;An AIR Application for Managing Course Information and Simulation Data will share the story of how cgCentral evolved, including discussion about development and usability testing of the AIR application.

On Monday, October 20th 2008, ;Professor Kellen Maicher and I are presenting a research poster entitled cgCentral: ;An AIR Application for Managing Course Information and Simulation Data at the 2008 IT Summit at Purdue University. Information presented includes details and testing results ;about the lab testing phase of the cgCentral AIR App from the Spring 2008. Also, details about the field testing of cgCentral currently underway this fall.

Read the article on the Adobe Developer Connection Web site

When my friends and I considered how to create a capstone project for our senior design course, we decided to use the content of the course itself and proposed a project that would unify the many distribution means for that content in a single rich Internet application.

Computer Graphics Technology (CGT) 411/450 is a senior capstone course in which students simulate the complexities of real-world corporations and business environments related to applied computer graphics. Part of this simulation includes the student and faculty functions of generating, tracking, and maintaining large amounts of mock data, including stock information, press releases, and corporate and individual finances. Typically, these functions have been achieved through multiple mechanisms including websites, RSS feeds, forums, and conferencing applications.

We found it inefficient to disseminate information for the course without a centralized source of knowledge for tracking of tasks and felt that not having such a source detracted from the true goal of the course, the scholarly research endeavor. Our team, composed of Alex Porter, Adam Christ, Brian McCreight, and myself, proposed the creation of a rich Internet application using Adobe AIR technology, with the goal to consolidate the functions of the multiple simulation mechanisms into a single, unified application.

Currently the CGT 411/450 course uses multiple channels to provide information to students regarding the three primary pillars of the course: the scholarly research endeavor, the product development, and the corporation entities. Our team investigated multiple rich Internet application technologies that could be used to create an application to solve the perceived problem. After developing an interest in Adobe AIR, we researched an ortment of competing technology platforms to determine if Adobe AIR was the most effective choice. The technologies platforms we analyzed included Microsoft Silverlight, Google Gears, Java FX, and Mozilla Prism.

The rich Internet application we developed was a culmination of web technologies. These included ActionScript 3.0 using Adobe Flash CS3, PHP, MySQL, and Adobe AIR. We named the application CGCentral to emphasize its goal to serve as a central point of knowledge for students enrolled in the course. We employed the vector graphics capabilities of Adobe Flash CS3 for the end-user interface and programmed using ActionScript 3.0. The AIR platform allowed us to target and package the application for an end-user's desktop. We divided CGCentral into four sections to provide the end user with specific areas from which to receive information: Account Overview, Lecture Schedule, Stocks, and News.

CGCentral is a work in progress. We will continue essment and usability testing to ensure that an effective application is completed that achieves the goals of the project.

About the Author
Frank Garofalo is an interactive multimedia developer with professional experience including operating a web design firm, Cyber View (http://www.cyberviewsites.com/), since 1999; acting as a project manager in marketing departments; and working for the Walt Disney Company and Bank of America. As a graduate of Purdue University's Computer Graphics Technology program, he has focused on web design, multimedia applications, and digital marketing. His research interests are in the areas of usability, accessibility, and user-centered design. He is currently pursuing his master's degree in Applied Computer Graphics at Purdue University.

On March 4th 2008, our research team was awarded the 2008 Teaching and Learning Technologies 2008 Digital Content Development Grant, presented by Information Technology at Purdue (ITaP). The grant will support the further research of the COGENT AIR Application in which a prototype is currently being built by a CGT 411 team as a senior design project.

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