Post-mechanistic groupware primitives: rhythms,boundaries and containers

We are exploring a middle path bridging two prevailing but polar opposite approaches to groupware: (1) mechanism—making groups work through the use of explicit forms and procedures; and (2) context or open space—allowing groups to self-organize. A group is a living system, and its work is a creative, dynamic process. Appropriate forms come and go. Computer-supported groups need groupware that provides more than procedural mechanisms and open space. They need groupware that can be tailored for their changing needs and evolving purposes. Life is organized in rhythms, boundaries and containers. Using tailorable groupware of our own design, we have implemented post-mechanistic groupware primitives that bridge the prevailing approaches to groupware in six steps: open space (context), timing, rhythms, boundaries, containers and procedures (mechanism). In the laboratory of our on-line learning community, we tailor the groupware to support the purpose and flow of a variety of educational activities. In the years ahead, nearly all organizations will be affected by rapid and fundamental change. Those that thrive will be in a state of continuous, accelerated learning regardless of their purpose. We believe that the educational principles of purpose-centered groupware explored here potentially apply to any computer-supported group work. As the virtual reflection of developing society, purpose-centered groupware is an essential part of the necessary transition to a vital, sustainable culture.     

Supporting intergenerational groups in computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW)

The workforce is ageing as older workers re-enter the workforce or delay retirement. One consequence is that work groups are increasingly becoming intergenerational. Because group work relies on many collaborative tools (e.g. email, shared calendars), it is essential to understand the special requirements that intergenerational groups have for groupware. Can we design collaborative tools that leverage the differing abilities and contributions of older and younger workers in groups? We focus on how best to support intergenerational groups, offering an analytical framework that combines ideas from the theory of small groups and activity theory. We consider design implications for computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) and outline design principles for groupware that supports intergenerational groups. Finally, we discuss methodological issues that arise when studying intergenerational cooperative work.     

Integration of collaboration and interaction analysis mechanisms in a concern-based architecture for groupware systems

Collaboration and interaction analysis allows for the characterization and study of the collaborative work performed by the users of a groupware system. The results of the analyzed processes allow problems in users’ collaborative work and shortcomings in the functionalities of the groupware system to be identified. Therefore, automating collaboration and interaction analysis enables users’ work to be assessed and groupware system support and behavior to be improved. This article proposes a concern-based architecture to be used by groupware developers as a guide to the integration of analysis subsystems into groupware systems. This architecture was followed to design the COLLECE groupware system, which supports collaborative programming practices and integrates an analysis subsystem that assesses different aspects of the work carried out by the programmers and adapts the functionality of the system under specific conditions.     

Social activity indicators for groupware

Suppose you're a member of a few development teams, working with people who are geographically dispersed. You're using distributed groupware to work with your team mates. How do you decide when to work on a project and when to ignore requests to work on a project, when there are enough users on the groupware system to bother using it, who is available to answer a question, and which applications should get the most real estate on your screen? To help answer these questions, distributed groupware systems must indicate something about the social world they represent-who is on the system and what they are doing. User interfaces for groupware (or computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) applications) must therefore convey social information. It's energizing to know, for example, that your team mates are busy working away on a project. And it's nice to know when your friends or colleagues are available on a chat system. You might not need to know the semantics of the messages or documents involved, just that some activity is occurring. This is true for systems used by work groups as well as those used by an organization or a community of users. We think such social indicators should be a standard part of the CSCW user interface. On the basis of social psychology theory, we believe that a class of social indicator, which we call social activity indicators, is a simple, powerful way to improve user-interface functionality. Furthermore, social activity indicators are easy to build     

The artful use of groupware: an ethnographic study of how Lotus Notes is used in practice

This paper uses the results from an ethnographic study of a groupware system in use to argue against two accepted views on groupware systems. Firstly, this paper argues that groupware is useful in how it supports existing everyday organizational processes, rather than as an agent of radical organizational change. Discussing the use of Lotus Notes in a British oil company shows how groupware supports mundane processes such as tracking repairs to equipment or encouraging good ideas. In this case groupware is a useful, yet unradical, technology. This is contrasted with discussions of groupware as a technology of radical change. Secondly, this paper argues that rigidity-the inability to change how a system works-can be a positive feature of a groupware system, or indeed, a very requirement of that system. A Notes system is shown being used to support accountability, in that staff used the record kept within the system to make their actions seem orderly and sensible to others. In this case the rigidity of the system was needed to convince others that the record was not being altered or fabricated. This is contrasted with those who have argued that groupware systems should be highly customisable by their users. More generally, this study uncovers the 'artful use' of groupware systems, how they are inventively integrated into work processes by those who use them.     

F2FMI: A toolkit for facilitating face-to-face mobile interaction

The importance of mobile groupware systems resides in the specific tasks that they can perform and other systems cannot. On the one hand, groupware systems allow groups of users to work together providing facilities that single-user systems are unable to offer. On the other hand, unlike stationary systems, mobile systems allow users to work on the move. The intersection of these two technologies offers a new support for activities, such as spontaneous collaboration, that could be facilitated neither by stationary groupware systems nor by mobile single-user systems. However, implementations of this new support are uncommon, probably because of the high development effort required and the seemingly little benefit obtained. In this paper, we aim to reduce this effort by facilitating the development of mobile groupware applications that support such activities. Our proposal to achieve this objective involves the design and implementation of the Face-to-Face Mobile Interaction (F2FMI) toolkit, whose goal is to provide generic and reusable software components required in most cases. We expect this strategy to yield a higher variety of successfully deployed applications, which in turn will demonstrate the benefits of supporting this kind of interactions through mobile devices.     

The artful use of groupware: An ethnographic study of how Lotus Notes is used in practice

This paper uses the results from an ethnographic study of a groupware system in use to argue against two accepted views on groupware systems. Firstly, this paper argues that groupware is useful in how it supports existing everyday organizational processes, rather than as an agent of radical organizational change. Discussing the use of Lotus Notes in a British oil company shows how groupware supports mundane processes such as tracking repairs to equipment or encouraging good ideas. In this case groupware is a useful, yet unradical, technology. This is contrasted with discussions of groupware as a technology of radical change. Secondly, this paper argues that rigidity-the inability to change how a system works-can be a positive feature of a groupware system, or indeed, a very requirement of that system. A Notes system is shown being used to support accountability, in that staff used the record kept within the system to make their actions seem orderly and sensible to others. In this case the rigidity of the system was needed to convince others that the record was not being altered or fabricated. This is contrasted with those who have argued that groupware systems should be highly customisable by their users. More generally, this study uncovers the 'artful use' of groupware systems, how they are inventively integrated into work processes by those who use them.     

CSCW系统中协作感知技术的研究

在ＣＳＣＷ系统中，协作感知是多用户协同工作的基础。如何向用户提供有效的协作感知是设计实时群件系统接口的关键技术之一。     

Construction of interaction observation systems for collaboration analysis in groupware applications

Interaction observation systems for groupware applications capture and process all the actions performed by users engaged in workgroups. These actions are then stored in log documents that enable the work process carried out by the users to be analyzed and the interaction between users to be studied. This article proposes an approach, based on ontological models, which is devised to help the developer of an observation system for a groupware application to structure and record user actions. In order to achieve this aim, we present a specific ontology that shapes the collaborative work process of the users so as to obtain an XML-based log document that stores all the actions carried out by the users and facilitates the subsequent analysis of the system usage and users’ behavior. This approach has been used to improve communication and collaboration capabilities in the COLLECE groupware application.     

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.     

Efficient peerGroup management in JXTA-Overlay P2P system for developing groupware tools

With the fast development of IT technologies, virtual organizations are more and more present in the current collaborative work and learning activity. For instance, many subjects in virtual distance learning are organized as online groups of students, who use groupware tools to complete their learning tasks. In this paper, we address the efficient management of peer groups in JXTA-based P2P systems as a key issue in many P2P applications that use peer group as a unit such as for remote execution of tasks in parallel and distributed applications. From this perspective, we consider peer grouping as the basis in the development of groupware tools in P2P systems.     

Psychological safety and social support in groupware adoption: A multi-level assessment in education

In this paper, the authors propose that psychological safety, a sense of interpersonal trust and being valued in a work team, is an important determinant of groupware technology adoption in an educational setting. They develop and test a model of antecedents and consequences of psychological safety. Data were collected from 361 university students, organized in 36 teams. Results of multi-level regression analysis reveal positive individual-level effects of perceived tutor support and perceived peer support on psychological safety. Furthermore, our findings show a positive unique group-level effect of perceived tutor support on psychological safety, where an individual’s level of self-consciousness strengthens this positive impact. In addition, findings of structural equation modeling demonstrate that both perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use partially mediate the positive effect of psychological safety on groupware usage. Psychological safety also shows a positive direct effect on groupware usage. Finally, a student’s offline communication frequency with his tutor and peers appears to strengthen the impact of psychological safety on perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and groupware usage.     

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。     

PDM系统与群件系统的集成

在CIMS环境下,企业的产品信息管理主要由PDM来完成;而办公部门则使用群件系统作为协同工作办公自动化平台,要实现整个的信息集成,不可避免地要将PDM系统与群件系统集成起来,文中通过对PDM系统和群件系统主要功能的分析,总结出这两种系统集成的需求,内容和原理,并以具体的软件系统探讨了集成的实现。     

Perceived critical mass effect on groupware acceptance

Groupware technologies have become an important part of the business computing infrastructure in many organizations, but many groupware applications, especially those requiring significant collaboration and cooperation among users, are still not adequately used. While the successful implementation of groupware depends on many different factors, achieving a ‘critical mass’ of users has been recognised as the key for groupware acceptance. By extending the technology acceptance model (TAM), this paper advances a groupware acceptance model that incorporates perceived critical mass as an independent variable for predicting groupware acceptance. The model is empirically evaluated using survey data collected from 385 students responding about their perception of Lotus Domino Discussion Databases. The results reveal that perceived critical mass had the largest total effect (direct and indirect) on intention to use groupware. Other relationships postulated in the model were also found to be significant. These findings corroborate the belief that it is essential to create a critical mass of users in the early stages of groupware implementation. A discussion of the implications of these findings for managers and researchers is also presented.     

Collaborative technologies in knowledge telework: an exploratory study

Abstract.  Knowledge workers in distributed work environments require substantial communication with colleagues and supervisors to perform their work activities, and collaborative technologies, like groupware, continue to improve the potential for such communication. This study investigates how an improvement in collaborative technology among a group of knowledge teleworkers impacts their communication patterns. The study focuses on one communication-based work process: knowledge sharing. The research involves a 6-month exploratory longitudinal case study of a group of teleworkers where a new groupware technology was implemented. The results indicate that while there are fewer instances of communication among group members after the technology is implemented, communication becomes more centralized around the district manager. These results suggest that increased collaborative technologies result in an adjustment between explicit and tacit knowledge sharing, as the availability of a centralized and updateable database reduces workgroup communications. However, consistent with structuration theory, telework group members do use communication technologies to address their most apparent needs and concerns. Other potential explanations and implications of these findings are discussed.     

Development and Evaluation of a Groupware System to Support Chemical Design Processes

This article presents the concept of a groupware system adapted to the early stages of chemical design processes. To ensure best usability for chemical engineers during the chemical plant design, a field study in an international chemical group was carried out. Several theoretical concepts of cooperation and workspace design models were analyzed to meet the requirements of cooperative and distributed work during the design process. Based on this, a new groupware concept was developed that consists of 4 main design elements. This concept was evaluated empirically for the relevance of the design elements and efficiency of use.     

Model-driven development of interactive groupware systems: Integration into the software development process

Modeling interactive groupware systems is a complex and multi-disciplinary task. It is necessary to provide designers and engineers with a set of methods, notations and tools to specify the different aspects to consider when designing this type of systems. In this work we present a methodological framework based on the integration of several notations and processes for modeling some of these aspects, in particular: interaction, collaboration and functionality. The objective of this work is to provide a more complete support to the design of groupware systems, considering different viewpoints and modeling perspectives of the several stakeholders involved in the development of such applications.