Currently, Contextualise does not support collaboration; that is, edit access to a topic map is restricted to the owner of the topic map (in this context, the “owner” is the person who created the topic map).

The collaboration feature that is currently being developed will allow you to share any of your topic maps with other Contextualise users. When you choose to share a topic map with another user you will be able to specify how that person can access your topic map:

  • can view
  • can edit
  • can comment

Can View Access

Can view access will allow the person you have shared your topic map with to access your topic map but they will not be able to make any changes to the topic map. Nonetheless, they will be able to navigate the full map without any restrictions (even if it is a private topic map).

Can Edit Access

Can edit access will not only allow the other person to access your topic map, they will also be able to make changes to the topic map including adding new topics, deleting topics, attaching files to a topic, creating associations between topics and so forth. Basically, can edit access will give the other person the same editing capabilities as the owner of the topic map.

Can Comment Access

Finally, can comment access will not only allow the other person to navigate your topic map without any restrictions, they will also be able to add comments to existing topics. They will not, however, be able to edit the topic map in any other way.

Miscellaneous

The collaboration feature outlined above is conceptually very similar, if not identical, to Google Docs’ collaboration model (without the real-time collaboration functionality) so it should be familiar to the vast majority of users.

Finally, collaboration is limited to what you can do inside the topic map. That is, changing the name of a topic map, it’s description (or image), deleting a topic map or publishing a topic map (making the topic map publicly available) is still restricted to the owner of the topic map regardless of how it has been shared with other users for the purpose of collaboration.

If you have any questions with regards to the above, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me by email: info at contextualise dot dev.