Social Glue Framework
The Social Glue framework (SGF) is characterized by a multi-layered architecture composed of three macro-layers: the Clients layer, the Back-end layer, and the Modules layer. Each layer is in turn composed of sub-modules called Plugins in the Clients layer, Adapters in the Back-end layer, and Modules in the Modules layer. At the top of the architecture (Figure 1) sits the Clients layer, which exploits the other layers to allow for extending the framework with customized plugins. Users develop plugins to connect to real-world social networks, to create custom web communities and, more importantly, to manage the execution of their algorithms against available communities.
As an example use case, Social Glue natively implements two plugins built exploiting the Elgg social network engine: the Simulator Movie plugin, and the Social Monitor plugin.
The Simulator Movie plugin provides for the creation and the management of a web community of movie lovers, for the set up of algorithms to be executed against the community, and for the management of the output of algorithms. The Simulator Movia plugin implements the admin interface, allowing users to control the life-cycle of all the available algorithms.
Figure1 - SGF high level architecture.