Planetary Release Notes


Figures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 show some of the key features of the Planetary system. The images are from the live system on \urlhttp://planetmath.org. Footnotes provide more details on our implementation strategy and future plans.

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Figure 1: “Article UI” (reader view), including problems attached to articles, with any metadata. (Source: \urlhttp://planetmath.org/AnalyticContinuation)

Figure 1 illustrates a key new feature of the system: a block containing problems now shows up whenever the article has attached problems. The figure also illustrates interactions that are available to any logged-in reader when browsing an encyclopedia article, including adding a new problem, adding a correction, asking a question, or adding the article to a collectionMathworldPlanetmath.11The pattern for adding new localized interactions is exhibited in the collection, problem, etc., modules; and the “Interact” block itself is managed in the planetmath_authorlinks module. Thus, for instance, if we would like to be able to quickly attach articles – \urlhttps://github.com/KWARC/planetary/issues/342 – or images \urlhttps://github.com/KWARC/planetary/issues/205 – it will be a minor change. Integrating a Javascript UI within pages would provide a set of finer-grained reader-level interactions.

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Figure 2: Autolinked terms in uploaded problems (Source: \urlhttp://planetmath.org/node/87318)

Figure 2 shows a problem, with its own set of interactions, including the ability to create a new solution. Problems come with a “Related Articles” block that shows all articles to which the problem has been attached. Once solutions have been added, they will be listed in another block.22Some users might prefer not to know that solutions are available until they specifically ask for a hint. We’ll work to accommodate this preference, see \urlhttps://github.com/KWARC/planetary/issues/343

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Figure 3: Solving a problem (Source: \urlhttp://planetmath.org/node/87319/edit)

Figure 3 shows the new LaTeX editor, with the user in the process of adding a solution to the problem we just looked at. The text of the problem statement is copied onto the screen above the LaTeX field, so the user doesn’t have to open multipleMathworldPlanetmath tabs to keep track of the basic information they need to solve the problem.33In fact, we could do much better, by generating a “course packet” on the fly for any problem, and having this available to the user when they are working on a problem: \urlhttps://github.com/KWARC/planetary/issues/323. Feedback on the quality of automatically retrieved content could be used to feed improve the quality of the corpus metadata, and potentially the autolinking algorithmMathworldPlanetmath itself. Once again, Footnote LABEL:fn:jobad on page LABEL:fn:jobad suggests the user interface.

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Figure 4: Paradata that shows up as a user works their way through a collection (Source: \urlhttp://planetmath.org/node/87317)

Articles, problems, and other content can be added to collections, which function as “playlists” for math content, as illustrated in Figure 4. As the user works their way through the problems in a given collection, personalized metadata (or, more precisely, paradata) shows up in the “My info” field. If another user adds a review for a solution, this information will appear. Although collections are just ordered lists, they can also contain other collections, allowing the user to create and share a tree-like outline, or more general network structureMathworldPlanetmath of paths through the content.

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Figure 5: Search being used to add items to a collection (Source: \urlhttp://planetmath.org/attach/87317)

Figure 5 shows a common UI that is used with collections, groups, and questions. Here, the user is adding an item to a collection using free-text search. New member objects can also be added by autocompleting on the title, if the title is known, or added directly.

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Figure 6: Adding a question (Source: \urlhttp://planetmath.org/node/add/question/36278)

Figure 6 shows a question being added “in context” – which would have been done using the “Ask a question” UI elementMathworldMathworld, like as pictured in Figure 1. Currently, articles, problems, collections, and solutions can have questions attached to them about them. The user can also ask a question without specifying the context by using the “Add content” menu item from the left sidebar directly.

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Figure 7: Current questions appear in context (Source: \urlhttp://alpha.planetmath.org/radiusofconvergence)

If a question was asked “in context”, a link to the question shows up in the relevant context, as depicted in Figure 7. Questions also show up in the left-hand sidebar along with other recent activity, and this is persisted across the site. This is a essentially a sort of light-weight free advertising for users who contribute questions.

Questions also show up in a special-purpose feed.44\urlhttp://planetmath.org/questions Note that with these features, we are not trying to clone the interactions on StackExchange, although we are certainly inspired by the activities there. Rather, we are working to use questions and other new features together with the encyclopedia, to help build a cohesive and coherent mathematical knowledge base.

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Figure 8: Making improvements to the encyclopedia when answering a question (Source: \urlhttp://alpha.planetmath.org/attach/87353)

As indicated in Figure 8 answers are supposed to appear in encyclopedia articles. That means the answerer can either point to an existing article (and add a brief “memorandum”) – or add a new article. This way, questions that deal with topics that aren’t adequately covered by current articles should lead to improvements to the encyclopedia.55Data coming from questions together with other aspects of the domain model and user models should eventually be quite useful for making recommendations. We currently at a more preliminary stage, providing the models we can use to understand the sorts of recommendations that could be useful.

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Figure 9: Groups workflow: the option to create a buddy list (Source: \urlhttp://alpha.planetmath.org/users/jac)

Figure 9 illustrates one of the new, simple mechanisms that Planetary provides for managing access to articles. The user can create a “buddy list” and everyone on the list will have access to all of his or her articles. An existing team can also be specified, in which case, all members of that team will have access to each of the user’s articles. In particular, if a user wants to make all of their articles world editable, they can simply specify the World Writeable team as their buddy list.

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Figure 10: Groups workflow: a team’s shared content (Source: \urlhttp://planetmath.org/node/85137)

Teams (Figure 10) are similar to buddy lists. Any content that is added to a team is made editable by all of that team’s members – but accordingly, group content can only be shared by someone who already has editing permissions. Collections can be used to assemble content that are is not editable to others – or indeed to the collection-maker.66Note that being able to edit an article does not automatically make you a “coauthor”, although your username will be stored in the article’s revision history. This allows trusted members of a buddy list or team to make small corrections, without necessarily assuming full author status.

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Figure 11: Browsing via Mathematics Subject Classification (Source: \urlhttp://planetmath.org/msc_browser/03-XX)

Figure 11 shows the MSC browser, which provides an efficient way to find relevant content in the encyclopedia.77\urlhttp://planetmath.org/msc_browser – at the moment this just allows the user to browse articles, but we plan to add supportMathworldPlanetmath for finding related problems and other content.

Title Planetary Release Notes
Canonical name PlanetaryReleaseNotes
Date of creation 2013-12-10 16:00:40
Last modified on 2013-12-10 16:00:40
Owner unlord (1)
Last modified by unlord (1)
Numerical id 21
Author unlord (1)
Entry type Topic