Expert Systems and Groupware

As quickly as things change in the field of artificial intelligence and expert systems, so too do the number of books available on this subject. This column reviews five books that cover various aspects of AI and expert systems, including the elements of these systems, the issues of building expert systems, and applications in strategic planning and middle management. This column also reviews a book that describes groupware — a new way of supporting business teams in their work     

Groupware Environments as Action Constitutive Resources: A Social Action Framework for Analyzing Groupware Technologies

Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) is a relatively new and dynamic field dealing with the development and use of groupware technologies in organizations. Several frameworks and models have been proposed for studying CSCW, each conveying a different perspective and theoretical basis. Although these frameworks have contributed much to our understanding of the field, they can be criticized for a lack of holistic understanding of the complex social activity that is constitutive of groupwork. This often leads to the failure of otherwise well designed CSCW applications. In this paper we take up this challenge and propose a social action framework for analyzing groupware technologies. The framework is based on Habermas's theory of social action and four action categories, and the idea that groupware applications serve as sets of rules and resources which mediate group interactions. We demonstrate the value of the framework by analyzing a wide range of existing groupware technologies for their appropriateness to specific groupwork situations in terms of their espoused or implicit assumptions of groupwork, and the action constitutive resources they provide. Our analysis points out that a host of current groupware applications can be fairly easily classified and examined by the way they are configured to support different types of social action. It also suggests that, when implementing groupware applications, developers should critically evaluate: (a) the need for supporting a rich variety of action types, (b) the possible role of computer support in the specific groupwork situations, and (c) the underlying assumptions of groupwork embedded in the groupware platform. Finally, we will discuss how the framework can inform future research and development in the field.     

Tailoring Groupware: The Cooperative Hypermedia Approach

Tailoring groupware has to deal with adapting properties of a shared information space as well as with adapting properties of the cooperation support to the group's needs. In this paper, an approach for tailoring both aspects of groupware in an integrated fashion is proposed. This approach uses cooperative hypermedia as a unifying representation of shared information structures, functionality, and the coordination medium of a shared application. It enables cooperative definition of shared information structures, shared process models and their access models not only before collaboration starts, but also on the fly, when emergent processes evolve. The proposed approach addresses tailoring at all stages of the development and use of a groupware application. A prototype system called CHIPS is presented and different possibilities of tailoring in CHIPS are discussed. Examples of CHIPS demonstrate that the cooperative hypermedia approach to tailoring groupware can support the adaptation to different evolving tasks and processes performed by changing teams.     

群件安全结构分析与设计

越来越多的正在创建包容企业各部门及协作单位的群件应用系统。群件平台既要求有坚固的安全措施以保护关键的商业数据,又要求安全手段具有足够的灵活性。从不同层次分析群件的安全性,并提出一个群件应用系统的安全设计模型。     

Sensemaking in Technology-Use Mediation: Adapting Groupware Technology in Organizations

Understanding how people in organizations appropriate and adapt groupware technologies to local contexts of use is a key issue for CSCW research, since it is critical to the success of these technologies. In this paper, we argue that the appropriation and adaptation of groupware and other types of advanced CSCW technologies is basically a problem of sensemaking. We analyze how a group of “technology-use mediators” (Orlikowski et al. Org. Sci. (1995) 6(4), 423) in a large, multinational company adapted a groupware technology (a “virtual workspace”) to the local organizational context (and vice versa) by modifying features of the technology, providing ongoing support for users, and promoting appropriate conventions of use. Our findings corroborate earlier research on technology-use mediation, which suggests that such mediators can exert considerable influence on how a particular technology will be established and used in an organization. However, we also find that the process of technology-use mediation is much more complex and indeterminate than prior research suggests. The reason being, we argue, that new, advanced CSCW technologies, such as “virtual workspaces” and other groupware applications, challenge the mediators’ and users’ sensemaking, because the technologies are equivocal and, therefore, open to many possible and plausible interpretations.     

Tree-Based Concurrency Control in Distributed Groupware

We present a novel algorithm, called dARB, forsolving the concurrency control problem indistributed collaborative applications. Themain issue of concurrency control is resolvingthe conflicts resulting from simultaneousactions of multiple users. The algorithmreduces the need for manual conflict resolutionby using a distributed arbitration scheme. Themain advantages of our approach are thesimplicity of use and good responsiveness, asthere are no lock mechanisms. Our algorithmrequires the applications to use a tree as theinternal data structure. This makes itapplication independent and suitable forgeneral collaborative applications. The treerequirement is reasonable since many newapplications use XML (extensible MarkupLanguage) for data representation and exchange,and parsing XML documents results in treestructures. Example applications of thealgorithm, a group text editor and acollaborative 3D virtual environment calledcWorld, are implemented and evaluated in theDISCIPLE collaboration framework. We alsointroduce awareness widgets that users avoidgenerating the conflicting events and help inmanual conflict resolution.     

Enterprise-Level Groupware Choices: Evaluating Lotus Notes and Intranet-Based Solutions

This paper considers collaborative software atthe enterprise level, specifically Lotus Notesand alternatives which use Intranet-based (WorldWide Web) technologies. We examine thestrategic reasons, both short-term and long-term, motivating firms' choices in the decisionphase and organizational issues in theimplementation phase in three exploratory casestudies. We review prior coordinationtechnology literature to show that our focus onthe decision faced by senior management of whichgroupware system to implement is a useful andnovel perspective to pursue. We argue thatthis choice, and its consequences, is of crucialimportance to the firm. To understand morefully the nature of the decision, we consider athematic pair of related issues: Internetstandards and interoperability. Why are so-called ‘Open Systems’ a major factor to some firms and notimportant to others? Why is theproprietary nature of Lotus Notes a stumblingblock to some firms and a strategic advantage toothers? We explore enterprise-level groupwareexpectations and requirements in our casestudies to address these interesting questions. The final section focuses on predicting changeto understand when an organization might reverseits initial enterprise-wide collaborative strategy.     

Loose Coupling and Healthcare Organizations: Deployment Strategies for Groupware

Healthcare organizations are often organized in a modular, loosely coupled fashion where separate and semi-autonomous work units specialize in different areas of care delivery. This partitioning allows each unit to adapt to emerging practice standards in its area of expertise and to adjust to its local work environment. However, organizational loose coupling can limit the flow of information within organizations and can make it difficult to coordinate services when patients’ care is dependent on professionals from more than one unit. Groupware systems have the potential to improve coordination and information access in healthcare organizations. However, modularity and loose coupling make it difficult to introduce new systems when they span more than one unit, since authority is not always centralized and since perceptions and frames of reference on new deployments differ across units. In this paper, we define a groupware deployment framework for loosely coupled healthcare organizations that has two parts: a set of deployment challenges and a set of deployment strategies. The deployment challenges include: difficulties centralizing deployments, perceptions of inequity, role conflicts, and problems achieving critical mass. The deployment strategies outline a preliminary set of approaches for addressing the difficulties of deploying CSCW systems in loosely coupled healthcare organizations. We illustrate the framework by presenting a case study of a groupware deployment in a home care setting.     

Using Groupware in Quality Management Programs

Groupware technology has great but untapped potential to streamline and improve the group and documentation activities that are paramount in quality management efforts. Matching four groupware applications to the steps of a typical quality management methodology provides practical guidance on how to use groupware in support of quality management procedures.     

The MAUI Toolkit: Groupware Widgets for Group Awareness

Group awareness is an important part of synchronous collaboration, and support for group awareness can greatly improve groupware usability. However, it is still difficult to build groupware that supports group awareness. To address this problem, we have developed the Multi-User Awareness UI toolkit (MAUI) toolkit, a Java toolkit with a broad suite of awareness-enhanced UI components. The toolkit contains both extensions of standard Swing widgets, and groupware-specific components such as telepointers. All components have added functionality for collecting, distributing, and visualizing group awareness information. The toolkit packages components as JavaBeans, allowing wide code reuse, easy integration with IDEs, and drag-and-drop creation of working group-aware interfaces. The toolkit provides the first ever set of UI widgets that are truly collaboration-aware, and provides them in a way that greatly simplifies the construction and testing of rich groupware interfaces.     

Synchronizations in Team Automata for Groupware Systems

Team automata have been proposed in Ellis (1997) as a formal framework for modeling both the conceptual and the architectural level of groupware systems. Here we define team automata in a mathematically precise way in terms of component automata which synchronizeon certain executions of actions.At the conceptual level, our model serves as a formal framework in whichbasic groupware notions can be rigorously defined and studied.At the architectural level, team automata can be used as building blocksin the design of groupware systems.     

协同编著系统中多媒体群件的研究

多媒体群件是使计算机支持的协同工作更接近于人类自然协同工作的重要手段，文章给出了协同编著系统中多媒体群件的概念，分析了协同编著文档的格式通用化及多媒体化的方法，设计了实时协同编著时语音讨论的系统结构，并对其工作原理及主要功能进行了讨论。     

基于微型机的工程实用线性化传感器实现方法研究

由于目前的传感器多数具有非线性特性,即被测物理量和输出信号之间存在着非线性关系,给工程设计带来诸多不利,如数据的读取、测量结果的处理等。因此文章利用微型机的运算功能,用软件的方法实现对传感器的线性化。     

基于微型机的工程实用线性化传感器实现方法研究

由于目前的传感器多数具有非线性特性,即被测物理量和输出信号之间存在着非线性关系,给工程设计带来诸多不利,如数据的读取、测量结果的处理等。因此文章利用微型机的运算功能,用软件的方法实现对传感器的线性化。     

群件系统工作流技术的实现研究

工作流技术是群件机制的重要组成部分,该文研究了群件系统中工作流技术的系统实现,并结合面向OA应用、集成群件各种资源的特点,参考WFMC制定的工作流产品实现参考模型、工作流参考模型,给出了一种群件中工作流管理的实现模型、过程定义元模型和数学模型等,它是进行详细系统设计的理论基础,这种模型可以保证系统功能的实现和与其他工作流管理系统的通讯。     

ERP中商业组件BAPI的应用研究

内容包括在上海电信ERP系统中BAPI的体系结构设计、BAPI详细设计实现和访问方法等,以此了实现ERP与第三方和遗留系统之间的集成。     

Collaborative Problem Solving and Groupware for Software Development

When a group is working together toward a common goal, communication and collaboration are key. This is especially true in software development where a project of any significance involves groups of people. Collaborative problem-solving techniques and groupware technology can be a boon to software development because they enhance communication and cooperation. This article examines how software development is affected by collaborative problem solving and decision making, groupware theory and tools, and group cognition and psychology. It also analyzes collaboration tools and their correlation to problem solving and group characteristics.     

基于Struts与Hibernate框架的企业报表组件

在企业级WEB应用中,会涉及到大量的报表,由于表对象的不同,模式层开发者须针对每个报表开发业务逻辑,使得代码复用率低,并且造成了极大的人力浪费。针对此问题提出并实现一个基于Struts和Hibernate框架的通用企业报表组件,自动生成企业报表。开发者只需给出查询的表对象、查询的条件、显示的类型(只读、可编辑),就能自动生成报表,不再需要针对报表编写任何的代码。     

ActiveX组件技术在网络课件中的应用

结合网络多媒体课件项目的开发,介绍ActiveX技术的工作机制与特点,主要分析了在网络多媒体课件设计中如何开发ActiveX组件,如何通过组件播放可执行文件的方法,并给出了部分关键程序。实际应用表明,该方法简单实用,性能可靠,对其他同类型的WEB应用的设计有一定的借鉴作用。     

群件技术在质量管理中的应用研究

本文介绍了一些典型的群件技术和一个以取得ＩＳＯ９０００质量认证为目的的质量管理方法，对群件技术和质量管理过程两者的结合作了探讨，并以两个流行的群件软件ＬｏｔｕｓＮｏｔｅｓ和ＭｉｃｒＯｓｏｆｔＮｅｔＭｅｅｔｉｎｇ为例说明了群件技术在质量管理过程的作用。