A framework for awareness maintenance

This paper presents a systematic literature review to gain insight into the growing area of awareness maintenance. A systematic review of papers from 1970 to 2010 examines the background and trends of research in this area. The results establish a framework for awareness maintenance and demonstrate trends, gaps, and potentially fruitful areas for future research. In particular, based on 131 papers, the present work proposes a four-phase framework for awareness maintenance that shows promise for real-world applications.     

A methodology to develop awareness in computer supported collaborative work using policies

Cooperation is significantly influenced by participants' awareness of relevant information. The objective of this paper is to propose a methodology to design and develop applications that assist individuals to identify their awareness. Through extending Cooperative management Methodology for Enterprise Networks (CoMEN), this article introduces Policy-based Awareness Management (PAM) – a software engineering methodology that proposes the use of existing policy rules as a source to identify awareness. The methodology has been built on the logic of general awareness, and implements Directory Enabled Networks (DEN) policy structure. The contribution of the paper is illustrated through the wireless communication system at a hospital in Norway. We conclude that theory of general awareness and in particular PAM as an extension of CoMEN, is effective to identify relevant information for agents.     

Policy-based Awareness Management (PAM): Case study of a wireless communication system at a hospital

The present paper evaluates the use of software agents to identify relevance of information, called awareness. This evaluation is based on existing policies and scenarios in the context of wireless communication of a hospital in Norway. The study is to address the lack of literature for experimental studies on a method to employ software agents for awareness identification. Research in computer supported cooperative work indicates the significant contributions of software agents to assist individuals. There are bodies of work that show awareness provides the means for software agents in which effective cooperation can take place. In addition, the role of the methods to identify awareness is emphasized in the literature of both computer supported cooperative work and software agents. This paper explains a step-wise process, called Policy-based Awareness Management, which allows agents to use policies as a source to identify awareness and thus change their behaviors accordingly. The contribution of this method is based on the concepts proposed by the logic of general awareness. The present study applies Directory Enabled Networks-next generation as the policy structure for the method. The paper evaluates the process via its application to identify the relevance of information in wireless communication scenarios in a hospital. The present study conducts observations, interviews and discussions on the wireless communication system of the hospital to identify the different scenarios happening in the system. The paper presents a set of simulations on these scenarios and concludes that the method is effective and cost-efficient.     

Facilitating peer knowledge modeling: Effects of a knowledge awareness tool on collaborative learning outcomes and processes

We report an empirical study where we investigated the effects, on the collaborative outcomes and processes, of a cognition-related awareness tool providing learners with cues about their peer’s level of prior knowledge. Sixty-four university students participated in a remote computer-mediated dyadic learning scenario. Co-learners were provided (or not) with a visual representation of their peer’s level of prior knowledge through what we refer to as a knowledge awareness tool (KAT). The results show that, providing co-learners with objective cues about the level of their peer’s prior knowledge positively impacts learning outcomes. In addition, this effect seems to be mediated by the fact that co-learners provided with these objective cues become more accurate in estimating their partner’s knowledge - accuracy that predicts higher outcomes. Analyses on the process level of the verbal interactions indicate that the KAT seems to sensitize co-learners to the fragile nature of their partner’s as well as their own prior knowledge. The beneficial effect of the KAT seems to mainly rely on this induction of epistemic uncertainty that implicitly triggers compensation socio-cognitive strategies; strategies that appear to be beneficial to the learning process.     

Negotiation and conflict in large scale collaboration: a preliminary field study

Coordinating activities in many settings can require people to manage conflict, potential and actual. Conflict arises from resource limitations, high-stakes consequences, uncertainty, goal conflict among stakeholders and hierarchical organizational structures. To understand coordination in such systems, we conducted a field study of management of surgical operating rooms. While coordinating interdependencies, such as progress monitoring, scheduling and rescheduling, and prodding, coordinators managed a set of complicated conflicts. They did so opportunistically, to resolve and to prevent conflict. Additionally, coordinators were concerned with perceived fairness. These findings indicate that, in the design of ICT to support coordination, we should examine not only the mechanical articulation of activities and efficient prioritization of resources, but also means to support companion social processes.     

基于MultiAgent和CSCW的多媒体教学模型

基于ＭｕｌｔｉＡｇｅｎｔ和ＣＳＣＷ的观点,提出一个多媒体教学模型,探讨了该模型的结构以及模型中Ａｇｅｎｔ的表示、通信等关键技术。     

Mutual awareness in collaborative design: An Augmented Reality integrated telepresence system

Remote collaboration has become increasingly important and common in designers’ working routine. It is critical for geographically distributed designers to accurately perceive and comprehend other remote team members’ intentions and activities with a high level of awareness and presence as if they were working in the same room. More specifically, distributed cognition places emphasis on the social aspects of cognition and asserts that knowledge is distributed by placing memories, facts, or knowledge on objects, individuals, and tools in the environment they work. This paper proposes a new computer-mediated remote collaborative design system, TeleAR, to enhance the distributed cognition among remote designers by integrating Augmented Reality and telepresence technologies. This system can afford a high level externalization of shared resources, which includes gestures, design tools, design elements, and design materials. This paper further investigates how this system may affect designers’ communication and collaboration with focus on distributed cognition and mutual awareness. It also explores the critical communication-related issue addressed in the proposed system, including common ground and social capitals, perspective invariance, trust and spatial faithfulness.     

基于CSCW的网络化制造协作支持系统研究与开发

研究开发基于Java的网络化制造协作支持系统,对系统的应用环境和运作流程等进行了分析,完成了系统模型的设计,在对相关关键技术进行深入研究的基础上部分实现了该系统。     

DCVE中基于本体的数据管理框架模型

研究互联网信息管理问题,在分布式协同虚拟环境,为有效地管理海量数据,使数据能快速地被使用,提高数据的利用率是一个重要问题。本体最初是一个哲学概念,可以实现知识共享和复用。根据本体的特点,构建相应的数据本体,把数据信息标准化,提出一个基于本体的数据管理框架模型(ODMF)。数据模型有不同的结构,在ODMF中所构建的本体数目也不相同,对ODMF共有三种不同的结构。在实验中,以口腔疾病的相关信息为依据,构建一个ODMF的实例。实验结果表明ODMF能解决数据共享问题,并且能提高数据的利用效率。     

基于I-DEAS的协同CAD模式研究

提出了两种基于比较流行的CAD工具软件I-DEAS的计算机支持的协同设计模式.介绍了两种模式的结构模型和关键技术,采用DCOM技术创建了CAD模型参数更新组件,使用远程屏幕复制技术实现了各设计终端的“你见即我见”.最后对比分析了两种模式,并以某发动机曲轴协同设计为例进行了说明.     

计算机支持同步协同工作中应用共享机制的研究

应用共享技术是计算机支持协同工作 ( CSCW)系统中支持同步协作的关键技术之一 .本文详细讨论了计算机支持协同工作中应用共享的实现机制 ,分析了混合式应用共享机制的实现方法 .最后 ,给出了在 MS Windows平台上的一个应用共享的具体实例     

ＣＳＣＷ系统中实时协同设计模型的研究

实时协同设计系统是CSCW级研究的热点,提出了实时协同设计一般化的五元组模型和其中具有关键性意义的同步模型,并以CoopCAD（协同式计算机辅助设计）系统为例,详细讨论了这一同步模型的具体实现。     

Women's voice: The case of nursing information systems

This paper looks at the cultural transformation of nursing. It argues that introducing computers in a female occupation is not simply a case of imposing male technology on female care-oriented practices and values. In order to understand current changes of nursing practice, three points of view have to be simultaneously kept in focus: 1) the differences between women's interests and ambitions; 2) the readings of a technology that have already been established through previous examples of design and use (in hospitals up to date primarily for the purpose of establishing discipline and management control); and 3) the social practices that dominate a field of work (in the case of health work the already technology-driven cure aspect).     

面向设计过程的协同审图模型及其实现

鉴于现有的电子会议系统不能很好地满足设计部门对工程图进行协同审议的需求，介绍了一个面向设计过程的协同审图模型及其实现方法。该模型利用COM／DCOM实现了针对图档讨论的同步交互，将图档讨论的特点和普通电子会议的功能结合起来，为设计部门提供了一个高效率的工作模式。     

Activity-based computing: support for mobility and collaboration in ubiquitous computing

This paper presents the design philosophy of activity-based computing (ABC), which addresses mobility and cooperation in human work activities. Furthermore, it presents the ABC framework, which is a ubiquitous computing infrastructure supporting ABC. The idea of ABC and the aim of the ABC framework is to: (1) support human activity by managing its collection of work tasks on a computer, (2) support mobility by distributing activities across heterogeneous computing environments, (3) support asynchronous collaboration by allowing several people to participate in an activity, and (4) support synchronous, real-time collaboration by enabling desktop conferencing by sharing the activity across several clients. During a period of two years, the ABC framework has been co-designed and evaluated in close cooperation with a range of clinicians in a hospital.

Conceptualizing the Awareness of Collaboration: A Qualitative Study of a Global Virtual Team

Innovative organizations are increasing their use of distributed teamwork, but there are several difficulties in reaching shared understanding between the team members in these settings. A lack of awareness of other team members’ working processes is one of the drawbacks that a virtual team may face while attempting to collaborate on a shared task. In this study virtual teamwork was supported with a specific working model. The aim was to investigate virtual team members’ awareness of collaboration. One global team (N=19) within a single organization worked as a distributed team in a shared web-based workspace for three months. The data were gathered by means of questionnaires, log-files of the shared virtual workspace and collected company documents in order to find out how team members perceive their collaboration. Based on qualitative data analysis, three different aspects of collaboration awareness were identified: an awareness of the possibility for collaboration, an awareness of the aims of collaboration, and an awareness of the process of collaboration. The results presented in this paper give guidelines for discussing what the awareness of collaboration means in the context of distributed collaboration.     

Strategies for designing distributed systems: case studies in the design of an air traffic management system

The air traffic management system in the USA is an example of a distributed problem-solving system. It has elements of both cooperative and competitive problem-solving. It includes complex organizations such as Flight Operations Centers, the FAA Air Traffic Control Systems Command Center (ATCSCC), and traffic management units at en route centers that focus on daily strategic planning, as well as individuals concerned more with immediate tactical decisions (such as air traffic controllers and pilots). The design of this system has evolved over time to rely heavily on the distribution of tasks and control authority in order to keep cognitive complexity manageable for any one individual operator, and to provide redundancy (both human and technological) to serve as a safety net to catch the slips or mistakes that any one person or entity might make. Within this distributed architecture, a number of different conceptual approaches have been applied to deal with cognitive complexity and to provide redundancy. These approaches can be characterized in terms of the strategy for distributing: (1) control or responsibility, (2) knowledge or expertise, (3) access to data, (4) processing capacity, and (5) goals and priorities. This paper will provide an abstract characterization of these alternative strategies for distributing work in terms of these 5 dimensions, and will illustrate and evaluate their effectiveness in terms of concrete realizations found within the National Airspace System.     

Pushing the Distribution Model to its Limits: Distributed “listening” in a Helpline

Our case study explores the extent to which a “Distributed Cognition”-like ethnographic approach can be used to analyze situations which are not at first sight compatible with the precepts of computational cognition. In the first part of the paper, we analyze the collective listening of phone calls in a helpline. We show why collective listening can be considered a “distributed collective practice”, with a mode of coordination based on repeated verbal re-enactments of difficult phone calls, rather than upon the discrete computational steps normally assumed in the standard model. In the second part of the paper, we analyse the organizational and interactional learning which takes place when collective listening is re-mediated by using e-mail exchanges rather than telephone conversations to communicate distress. Our conclusion discusses critically the viability of the distribution model in a context of collective listening.     

Home is where the head is: a distributed cognition account of personal health information management in the home among those with chronic illness

Managing chronic illness requires personal health information management (PHIM) to be performed by lay individuals. Paramount to understanding the PHIM process is understanding the sociotechnical system in which it frequently occurs: the home environment. We combined distributed cognition theory and the patient work system model to investigate how characteristics of the home interact with the cognitive work of PHIM. We used a 3D virtual reality CAVE that enabled participants who had been diagnosed with diabetes (N = 20) to describe how they would perform PHIM in the home context. We found that PHIM is distinctly cognitive work, and rarely performed ‘in the head’. Rather, features of the physical environment, tasks, people, and tools and technologies present, continuously shape and are shaped by the PHIM process. We suggest that approaches in which the individual (sans context) is considered the relevant unit of analysis overlook the pivotal role of the environment in shaping PHIM.

Practitioner Summary:

We examined how Personal Health Information Management (PHIM) is performed in the homes of diabetic patients. We found that approaches to studying cognition that focus on the individual, to the exclusion of their context, overlook the pivotal role of environmental, social, and technological features in shaping PHIM.     

Active Environments: Sensing and Responding to Groups of People

Most environments are passive– deaf, dumb and blind, unaware of their inhabitants and unable to assist them in a meaningful way. However, with the advent of ubiquitous computing – ever smaller, cheaper and faster computational devices embedded in a growing variety of “smart” objects – it is becoming increasingly possible to create active environments: physical spaces that can sense and respond appropriately to the people and activities taking place within them. Most of the early ubiquitous computing applications focus on how individuals interact with their environments as they work on foreground tasks. In contrast, this paper focuses on how groups of people affect and are affected by background aspects of their environments.