Name: Mark Humphrey <msh>
Class: CS190
Date: 1/29/2003
Asgn: Requirements Document

=== Project Title === 

E-Study


=== Problem Statement ===

While the world gets more electronic-based with every day, students
still typically lug around massive textbooks when they could easily browse
some sort of e-book. This is becoming more and more reasonable with the
emergence of wireless connectivity and the dropping prices of laptops and 
tablet pcs. One feature which students currently lack, however, is the 
ability to effectively mark up (take notes in, highlight) their eletronic 
books/lectures. This is a neccessity to most students and creates a reliance on
the traditional "textbook".


=== Project Overview ===

The general idea behind this project is to create a electronic study environment
in which students can mark up books/lectures/presentations in several different
ways and then provide an organized interface at which students can get at these
notes as well as additional study tools to aid in the study process. This
involves a convenient gui which provides the students with easy navigation through
their notes and access to all the additional features this project may have.
These features include a task master, designed to keep students focused, and
possible quizing and notecard tools.  User controls would be the mouse and
keyboard, but the ideal situation of having a tablet pc with a "pen" would be
kept in mind. 


=== Similar Exisiting Products ===

Several companies have e-book readers, most which simply allow the reading of
e-books. Adobe's "ebook Reader" actually allows for highlighting of text.
However, most of these products allow limited interaction with the text and are
primarily designed for "ebooks" as opposed to the variety of different types of
input that this program can expect. An example is Microsoft's "PowerPoint" which
allows one to write with the mouse on a presentation, but does not save the
marks. 


=== Target Users ===

Everyone who wishes that they could do more than just read text on a computer
would find this project useful. It is ideally suited for students, probably
applying to high school and college students the most as the integrated study
environment requires a certain level of sophistication. The variety of
options which are provided should suit both the ultra-studious individual and 
casual studier. Students at Brown University would provide a good pool of users,
in particular those who major in the humanities, although this project applies
to science concentrators to a large degree as well.


=== Basic Features ===

- Ability to import and view some file format, probably pdf

- Simple organization and compilation of all files
  > drag and drop organizational hierarchy 
  > easy point and click navigation
  
- Intuitive graphical user interface
  > no more than one level of menus
  > designed with the ideal situtation of using a "pen" kept in mind
  
- Several types of marking
  > Highlighting (selected with mouse)
  > Freehand (drawn with mouse or pen)
  > Sticky Note (textbox with typed text)

- Linking/Bookmarking
  > Ability to jump through all the different type of markings
  > Revelvant sets of notes can be linked together
  > Arbitrary bookmarks can also be set

- Task Master  
  > Generates a study schedule given goals and available time 
  > Tracks idle time and gives visual and audio reminders to stay on task
  > Schedules break time to optimize studying
  
  
=== Optional Features ===

- Voice notes
  > Can be linked to a particular section of text

- Index card factory
  > Compiles index cards from existing notes
  > Produces a printable format
  
- Quizzes
  > Can tabulate primtive questions based on notes
  > Keeps track of students results on quizzes
  > Analyzes strengths/weakness and suggests which sections to study


=== Testing Criteria ===

Once the basic skeleton of a gui is constructed, each element of the project is
fairly independent and can be tested seperately. The only difficulty could be
that most pieces are dependent in some way on the gui, so it is difficult to
test in isolation from the gui.  


=== Hardware/Software Requirements ===

This program should be able to be written in c++ on the linux machines which are
readily available. Ideally it would be run on windows, but that can be done at a
future date.