Groupware and social networks: will life ever be the same again?

Over the past twenty years industry and academia have been working to develop computer systems to increase work group's productivity, commonly referred to as groupware. Groupware encompasses a broad spectrum of research and development including group support systems, computer-supported collaborative work, group decision support systems, and computer mediated collaboration. Applications arising out of these efforts included concurrent multi-user authoring systems, computer conferencing, integrated computer/video meeting systems, electronic voting, brainstorming, and workflow systems. The papers in this special issue are some of the best from over 100 papers submitted to the GROUP'97 conference sponsored by the ACM Special Interest Group on Supporting Group Work. They represent work conducted by researchers on four continents from both industry and academia. As a group the authors present a blend of theory, practice, and technological innovation from the groupware research arena. This paper is intended to serve as an introduction to the area of groupware research and development. In it we explore the evolution of groupware and expose some of its effects on organizations and society.     

Could there ever be a unitary digital certificate?

As more and more applications are beginning to use a public key infrastructure (PKI) to manage security credentials, end-users are faced with having to manage an ever-increasing number of certificates, because certificates commonly tend to be issued on a per application basis. This is because most applications will dictate that a specific PKI is used in order to ease administration for the application providers at the expense of the end-user. There are many further issues concerning this whole area of how applications inter-work with a PKI. For instance, applications dictate specific interfaces that are particular to a PKI vendor’s implementation. This situation arises as there is a lack of clarity and too many variables in the current standards for application programming interfaces that are used with a PKI.     

Sensemaking following surprise in the cockpit—a re-framing problem

Re-framing is the process by which a person “fills the gap” between what is expected and what has been observed, that is, to try and make sense of what is going on following a surprise. It is an active and adaptive process guided by expectations, which are based on knowledge and experience. In this article, surprise situations in cockpit operations are examined by investigating the re-framing process. The results show difficulties that pilots have in re-framing following surprise, including the identification of subtle cues and managing uncertainties regarding automated systems, coping with multiple goals, tasks and narrow time frames and identifying an appropriate action. A crew-aircraft sensemaking model is presented, outlining core concepts of re-framing processes and sensemaking activities. Based on the findings, three critical areas are identified that deserve further attention to improve pilot abilities to cope with unexpected events; (1) identification of what enables and obstructs re-framing, (2) training to build frames and develop re-framing strategies and (3) control strategies as part of the re-framing process.     

On possible observation of one’s past in the neighborhood of a black hole

On the basis of the geodesic equations, an expression for the number of revolutions of a light beam around a Kerr black hole is found and analyzed. It is shown that an observer who has arrived near a black hole can see his own past under certain initial conditions.     

Technology skill and age: what will be the same 20?years from now?

Is current research on computing by older adults simply looking at a short-term problem? Or will the technology problems that plague the current generation also be problematic for today’s tech-savvy younger generations when they become “old”? This paper considers age-related and experience-related issues that affect ability to use new technology. Without more consideration of the skills of older users, it is likely that applications and devices 20 years from now will have changed such that this “older” generation finds themselves confronting an array of technologies that they little understand and find generally inaccessible. Recent evidence suggests that older adults bring specific strengths to Web browsing. A fuller investigation of these strengths and how to design to optimize for strengths of older users has the potential to address the need for usable technology for this increasingly important demographic.     

Cobol: a historic past, a vital future?

One of the strangest stories in the software world centers around the programming language Cobol. Academics have reviled it for decades; its demise has been predicted since the 1960s; industry gurus have suggested that programmers who know only Cobol are committing career suicide. You would think, based on all this bad press, that Cobol was not long for this software world. Yet the giant lumbers on. In poll after poll, it is either the most-used or the second-most-used programming language in industry. In fact, in one industry poll, each year those contacted predict that Cobol's use will diminish by the next poll, and each year the findings are that Cobol is the only language whose use has actually increased. The devil refuses to die. What's with Cobol? I give my Loyal Opposition answer to that question and then give some input on the subject from a Cobol expert who is tracking Cobol's future directions     

Can mobile TV be a new revolution in the television industry?

The development within the mobile communications industry has provided a new mechanism for individuals to watch television programs via mobile device, known as mobile television (m-TV). Considering that m-TV is an emerging technology among traditional television services where critical success factors depend on user-centered, it is important to understand users' behavioral intention (BI). Unlike previous studies which have mainly focused on flow experience, perceived value, motivation and social cognitive theories, this study examines user-centered factors of technology readiness (TR) and technical support and training (TST). Therefore, 244 valid data were tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to measure both reflective and formative constructs based on the proposed framework. Findings reported that performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EE) and TST have a positive and significant impact on BI. TR however has a negative relationship with BI. In addition, TR was also found to influence PE and EE. Similarly, TST has a direct effect factor on EE and EE was a significant determinant of PE. The findings of this study not only provide guidance for future researchers, but also valuable insights for designers, marketers and system providers of m-TV to tailor their services in the near future.     

Misleading stars: what cannot be measured in the internet?

Traceroute measurements are one of the main instruments to shed light onto the structure and properties of today’s complex networks such as the Internet. This article studies the feasibility and infeasibility of inferring the network topology given traceroute data from a worst-case perspective, i.e., without any probabilistic assumptions on, e.g., the nodes’ degree distribution. We attend to a scenario where some of the routers are anonymous, and propose two fundamental axioms that model two basic assumptions on the traceroute data: (1) each trace corresponds to a real path in the network, and (2) the routing paths are at most a factor $1/\alpha $ off the shortest paths, for some parameter $\alpha \in (0,1]$ . In contrast to existing literature that focuses on the cardinality of the set of (often only minimal) inferrable topologies, we argue that a large number of possible topologies alone is often unproblematic, as long as the networks have a similar structure. We hence seek to characterize the set of topologies inferred with our axioms. We introduce the notion of star graphs whose colorings capture the differences among inferred topologies; it also allows us to construct inferred topologies explicitly. We find that in general, inferrable topologies can differ significantly in many important aspects, such as the nodes’ distances or the number of triangles. These negative results are complemented by a discussion of a scenario where the trace set is best possible, i.e., “complete”. It turns out that while some properties such as the node degrees are still hard to measure, a complete trace set can help to determine global properties such as the connectivity.     

How Does Cognitive Conflict in Design Teams Support the Development of Creative Ideas?

Is cognitive conflict detrimental to the development of innovative ideas in design teams, or is it a precondition for innovative performance? Assuming that there is a relationship between cognitive conflict and innovation, what kind of strategies do teams use in situations of cognitive conflict and what are the consequences for creativity? This paper reports on a study analysing how design teams cope with cognitive conflict during idea generation in an experiment. The design process was captured in protocols that were generated from video recordings. We report the results of the analysis of verbal protocols according to the five styles of (cognitive) conflict behaviour: competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding and accommodating. Out of six teams, the results of the two highest and two lowest scoring teams are compared as regards innovation and functionality, which we see as the two components of creative outcomes. We show that design teams, even in a laboratory environment, encounter a considerable amount of cognitive conflict. A statistical comparison between the groups with the highest and the lowest innovative/functional design concept scores reveals significant differences in their conflict behaviour styles. The high innovation and high functionality groups used a more competing and a more compromising style, whereas groups rated low on the same parameters used a more collaborating style. The high rating groups on both creativity components used a more associating and rejecting behaviour style; the high innovation groups also generated more new ideas than the low innovation groups. The low rating groups on both innovation and functionality tended to repeat ideas more frequently. The main finding is that, in contrast with reports in previous research, the groups with higher innovation and functionality scores collaborated less than their peers in the low rating groups on these parameters. We interpret these results as signifying that creative performance in teams is not achieved mainly by agreement but needs cognitive confrontation.     

Patient care systems: do they meet the needs of nursing?

A consulting firm has interviewed nursing executives at 24 hospitals throughout the country assessing nursing automation needs and comparing two of the top 10 patient care systems vendors on a wide range of variables. Nursing involvement in system selection is vital.     

Are we modelling the right thing? The impact of incorrect problem specification in credit scoring

Classification and regression models are widely used by mainstream credit granting institutions to assess the risk of customer default. In practice, the objectives used to derive model parameters and the business objectives used to assess models differ. Models parameters are determined by minimising some function or error or by maximising likelihood, but performance is assessed using global measures such as the GINI coefficient, or the misclassification rate at a specific point in the score distribution. This paper seeks to determine the impact on performance that results from having different objectives for model construction and model assessment. To do this a genetic algorithm (GA) is utilized to generate linear scoring models that directly optimise business measures of interest. The performance of the GA models is then compared to those constructed using logistic and linear regression. Empirical results show that all models perform similarly well, suggesting that modelling and business objectives are well aligned.     

Can the grammar of schooling be changed?

In this article we propose that the grammar of schooling [Tyack, D., & Tobin, W. (1994). The “grammar” of schooling: Why has it been so hard to change? American Educational Research Journal, 31(3), 453–479.] is responsible not only for the well-known and world-wide difficulties in integrating ICT into formal educational settings, but also for the replication of traditional models when this integration occurs. In clear contrast with this domain, in out-of-school projects ICT is integrated in innovative and truly “disruptive” [Blin, F., & Munro, M. (2008). Why hasn´t technology disrupted academics´ teaching practices. Understanding resistance to change through the lens of activity theory. Computers and Education, 50(2), 475–490.] ways. To exemplify this integration, we have selected and described two successful, although different in nature, out-of-school projects. The first one, Pincel y Ratón, seeks to develop creativity in children and to educate them to use ICT in a reflexive and useful manner. The second project, Menosca, pursues children’s understanding of their historical and social environment through the use of GPSs, digital photography and web-page design. Both experiences underscore the multiple and varied possibilities that ICT affords for meaningful learning when the constraints inherent to the school setting do not seem to apply. By contrasting the formal and the out-of-school experiences, it is possible to unveil and bring to consciousness the principles and rules of the “grammar of schooling”. We propose that becoming aware of the features of this grammar, i.e., philosophy, course design, time and place, tasks, resources, outcomes and products and assessment, is the first step toward change.     

Generation strategies for gaming transmission constraints: will the deregulated electric power market be an oligopoly?

Constrained transmission lines are known to be able to economically isolate submarkets from the competition of players located elsewhere on the network. This paper examines the type of oligopolistic competition that is likely to take place in these submarkets. It shows, using simple models, how static or intertemporal Nash equilibria can rise in a framework of price or supply function competitions, found to be more realistic than Cournot models in the particular case of short-term competition in the electric power market. This paper shows also how transmission constraints can play a direct role in the outcome of the oligopolistic competition and encourage strategic behavior by the generators. Transmission lines that would not be constrained if the players did not know of their thermal limits may be strategically driven to operate at these limits in order to maximize the profits of the players who have market power, leaving the others to cope with the consequences of such behavior.     

To twist,roll, stroke or poke? A study of input devices for menu navigation in the cockpit

Modern interfaces within the aircraft cockpit integrate many flight management system (FMS) functions into a single system. The success of a user's interaction with an interface depends upon the optimisation between the input device, tasks and environment within which the system is used. In this study, four input devices were evaluated using a range of Human Factors methods, in order to assess aspects of usability including task interaction times, error rates, workload, subjective usability and physical discomfort. The performance of the four input devices was compared using a holistic approach and the findings showed that no single input device produced consistently high performance scores across all of the variables evaluated. The touch screen produced the highest number of ‘best’ scores; however, discomfort ratings for this device were high, suggesting that it is not an ideal solution as both physical and cognitive aspects of performance must be accounted for in design.

Practitioner summary: This study evaluated four input devices for control of a screen-based flight management system. A holistic approach was used to evaluate both cognitive and physical performance. Performance varied across the dependent variables and between the devices; however, the touch screen produced the largest number of ‘best’ scores.     

Dynamic testing: Can a robot as tutor be of help in assessing children's potential for learning?

This study examined whether computerized dynamic testing by utilizing a robot would lead to different patterns in children's (aged 6–9 years) potential for learning and strategy use when solving series‐completion tasks. The robot, in a “Wizard of Oz” setting, provided instructions and prompts during dynamic testing. It was found that a dynamic training resulted in greater accuracy and more correctly placed pieces at the post‐test than repeated testing only. Moreover, children who were dynamically trained appeared to use more heuristic strategies at the post‐test than their peers who were not trained. In general, observations showed that children were excited to work with the robot. All in all, the study revealed that computerized dynamic testing by means of a robot has much potential in tapping into children's potential for learning and strategy use. The implications of using a robot in educational assessment were stressed further in the discussion.