A survey of CSCW systems

Over the last decade, computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) has emerged as an identifiable research area that focuses on the role of the computer in group work. CSCW is a generic term which combines the understanding of the nature of group working with the enabling technologies of computer networking, systems support and applications. The paper examines the classes of system which have emerged to support cooperative working. A framework for characterising and describing CSCW systems is presented and four major classes of cooperative system identified. Each of these classes of cooperative system are examined highlighting their general characteristics and applicability to CSCW.     

Taking CSCW seriously

The topic of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) has attracted much attention in the last few years. While the field is obviously still in the process of development, there is a marked ambiguity about the exact focus of the field. This lack of focus may hinder its further development and lead to its dissipation. In this paper we set out an approach to CSCW as a field of research which we believe provides a coherent conceptual framework for this area, suggesting that it should be concerned with thesupport requirements of cooperative work arrangements. This provides a more principled, comprehensive, and, in our opinion, more useful conception of the field than that provided by the conception of CSCW as being focused on computer support for groups. We then investigate the consequences of taking this alternative conception seriously, in terms of research directions for the field. As an indication of the fruits of this approach, we discuss the concept of ‘articulation work’ and its relevance to CSCW. This raises a host of interesting problems that are marginalized in the work on small group support but critical to the success of CSCW systems ‘in the large’, i. e., that are designed to meet current work requirements in the everyday world.     

协同工作的人与人交互界面

计算机支持的协同工作ＣＳＣＷ一般涉及到多台机器、多个应用程序和多个人。这样不仅存在人机对话，而且要求计算机能支持人与人之间的协同效互，并对应用工具进行管理。本文提出了人与人交互界面的概念，并在ＳＵＮ ＳＰＡＲＣ上设计并实现了一个原型系统ＨＨＩ。ＨＨＩ以语言学中的言语－行为理论为基础，将多个应用程序和参与人员集中起来，进行统一管理并允许动态地变化。通过ＨＨＩ，不同地点的用户能同步或异步地交互。     

最优预测理论在同步CSCW中的应用

运用现代控制论中的最优预测理论,对同步ＣＳＣＷ系统中的对象行为进行Ｋａｌｍａｎ预测,并通过这种方法来限制系统的带宽,同时给出了一个使用最优预测算法的,低带宽网的ＣＳＣＷ网络软件平台（ＣｏｎＷｏｒｋ）的设计方法及其实现,并提供了定量测试的数据,该系统运行以太网环境中。     

Data management issues and trade-offs in CSCW systems

Substantial interest has developed in recent years in building computer systems that support cooperative work among groups without the need for physical proximity. This paper examines some of the difficult data management issues in designing systems for computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW). Specifically, we consider an example CSCW system to support large-scale team science over the Internet: the Collaboratory Builder's Environment. We discuss the issues of managing shared data in such systems, reducing information overload and providing group awareness and access control. We discuss several promising approaches to these issues. We point out where a significant gap remains in addressing the requirements of such systems and where designers have to make design trade-offs that can be difficult to evaluate. Finally, we discuss several open issues for future work     

Intelligent support for activity management (ISAM): an architectureto support distributed supervisory control

Distributed supervisory control is the monitoring and control of complex, dynamic, highly automated systems by a team of human operators. As such, it is an example of a cooperative work environment. The goal of this paper is to analyze the nature of cooperative work in distributed supervisory control environments and describe implications for computer support. In particular, we argue that flexible support for activity management is a key requirement for computer support for distributed supervisory control, and we propose the intelligent support for activity management (ISAM) architecture as one infrastructure for doing so. The design and implementation of ISAM draws from previous work on intelligent operator's associate systems and computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) systems. A graphical user interface to ISAM and an evaluation study of this system in the context of team supervisory control are also described     

Multigroup decision-support systems in CSCW

Research in computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) has concentrated on developing techniques and support systems for groups of tightly coupled individuals focused on activities such as group writing and design development. A natural extension involves group decision-support systems (GDSS) that can assist multiple groups working in different places at different times. Our work extends the GDSS approach to a multigroup decision-support system (MGDSS) and uses the advanced integrated requirements engineering system (AIRES) for support. Two case studies, including data from user questionnaires, indicate a high level of user satisfaction with the support the system provides. The MGDSS process and AIRES software support idea elicitation to solve complex problems. The system automatically organizes and assesses these ideas to help large groups build consensus     

Serendipity: Integrated Environment Support for Process Modelling, Enactment and Work Coordination

Large cooperative work systems require work coordination, context awareness and process modelling and enactment mechanisms to be effective. Support for process modelling and work coordination in such systems also needs to support informal aspects of work which are difficult to codify. Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) facilities, such as inter-person communication and collaborative editing, also need to be well-integrated into both process-modelling tools and tools used to perform work. Serendipity is an environment which provides high-level, visual process modelling and event-handling languages, and diverse CSCW capabilities, and which can be integrated with a range of tools to coordinate cooperative work. This paper describes Serendipity's visual languages, support environment, architecture, and implementation, together with experience using the environment and integrating it with other environments.     

一个基于CSCW的协同式计算机辅助设计系统

文中首先建立了一个CSCW系统的基本模型;然后详细介绍了一个基于复制式应用程序共享方式技术的协同式计算机辅助设计系统－CoopCAD的系统结构和关键技术,最后,给出了一个使用CoopCAD系统进行协同设计的例子。     

Vehicle Routing and Production Planning Decision Support Systems: Designing Graphical User Interfaces

Given the inherent complexity of vehicle routing and production planning decision support systems, designing user interfaces for them is challenging and can make a big difference in the usability of these systems. Many heuristic and optimization-oriented systems that have been implemented for this type of problem have failed in part due to a poor graphical user interface. This work proposes an approach that can be applied to improve the design of user interfaces for this type of system and make its implementation easier. The approach is based on tools that were adapted from the FW/SM system for Structured Modeling and commercially available tools, such as Powerbuilder and CPLEX. Two systems that were implemented using this approach, in two different firms, are presented. These systems run on standard PCs under MS Windows, follow the Windows applications design guidelines, and interact with relational database management systems.     

Object-oriented activity support: A model for integrated CSCW systems

This paper proposes a model for integrated CSCW systems, the model of Object-Oriented Activity Support OOActSM. In contrast to existing systems for the support of collaborative work, the model aims at the integrated support of all aspects of CSCW in a single frame system. The major properties of our model are the use of activity as the basic concept and the use of object-oriented mechanisms for providing solutions of typical CSCW problems. I demonstrate how all major aspects of current CSCW systems can be supported and integrated with each other in our model.     

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     

Meaning,the central issue in cross-cultural HCI design

In this paper, we focus on the design of systems intended to be shared by culturally heterogeneous users (e.g., users of Computer-Supported Co-operative Work (CSCW) and Internet applications). We discuss the limitations of current approaches to designing interfaces for culturally diverse users — such as internationalisation and localisation — before describing a study conducted to elicit and understand culturally determined usability problems, in which a World-Wide Web (WWW) system was evaluated.It is concluded that culturally determined usability problems converge in the understanding of representations the meanings of which are rooted in culturally specific contexts. We explain why existing approaches are inadequate for dealing with this issue. In conclusion, we outline an HCI approach, called Meaning in Mediated Action (MMA), designed to tackle this problem.     

基于CSCW的商用CAD系统框架结构

在充分研究现有商业CAD体系结构的基础上提出了一种新的基于CSCW的商用CAD系统框架结构.该系统框架在原有DoctorCAD系统的基础上全面采用JAVA技术,并增加了外部用户接口和协同控制模块,实现了异地协同设计.最后具体讨论了关于本系统的一些关键性技术并给出了一个系统的应用实例.通过应用实例表明,该系统框架很好地满足了现代商业设计的要求.     

Design and implementation of a multimedia CSCW platform

In this paper, a generic four-layer framework for computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) is proposed. With clear separation of functionalities in each layer of the framework, application developers could implement their specific CSCW applications easily. Based on the four-layer framework, the architecture of a general purpose CSCW platform is designed and implemented with the necessary functionalities to help the collaborations among group members. To provide the system with more features and user friendliness, multimedia processing and transmission capabilities for audio and video are incorporated into the platform. Features like application-sharing, group decision support, multimedia mail transmission, etc., are well implemented in the platform. Moreover, an efficient network transport protocol, called VXTP, is designed and implemented to avoid the transmission overhead of conventional TCP. The performance measurements using both VXTP and TCP are given in the paper for comparison. Lastly, compared with other CSCW systems, our design achieves greater flexibility and portability by adopting the generality philosophy in the framework.     

CSCW tools: concepts and architectures

Building efficient frameworks for computer-supported cooperative work requires different approaches. The combination of CSCW transparency and awareness produces an advanced environment adaptable to specific applications. The authors provide a CSCW taxonomy that defines and describes criteria for identifying CSCW systems and serves as a basis for defining CSCW system requirements. They consider how the psychological, social, and cultural processes active within groups of collaborators are the real keys to the acceptance and success of CSCW systems     

The relevance of Computer Supported Cooperative Work for advanced manufacturing

Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) is faced with issues which are crucial to Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). However, despite the large amount of work on Enterprise Integration and its obvious links to the CSCW field, this domain is almost totally absent in the work of the CSCW community. Therefore, this paper is intended to contribute to the discussion on the relevance of CSCW in manufacturing and to combine new concepts for cooperative work with requirements for information system design in production. Production related models, e.g., an order-driven mode of coordination, can be augmented with mechanisms of interaction for coordination, collaboration and co-decision and the design of customer/supplier chains. It is suggested, as one example, to use workflow management technology in advanced manufacturing for shop-floor production planning and control (PPC). The proposed enterprise model and support technology is especially useful for small-batch production.     

TheEvolve project: Component-based tailorability for CSCW applications

Tailorability is generally regarded as a key property of groupware systems owing to the dynamics and differentiation of cooperative work. This article investigates the use of software components as a generic architectural concept for designing tailorable groupware applications. First, the issues raised by this approach are discussed in the context of an exploratory experiment during which component-based tailorability was applied to a real tailoring problem in thePoliTeam project. The experiment's results led us to concentrate on questions concerning the support of distributed CSCW applications. As a consequence, we have developed theEvolve platform, whose design concepts are described. Furthermore, a concrete example for the application of the approach to the design of a tailorable distributed coordination tool is given. We discuss related work, summarise the current state of the component-based tailorability approach and propose venues of further research.     

A Review of 25 Years of CSCW Research in Healthcare: Contributions, Challenges and Future Agendas

CSCW as a field has been concerned since its early days with healthcare, studying how healthcare work is collaboratively and practically achieved and designing systems to support that work. Reviewing literature from the CSCW Journal and related conferences where CSCW work is published, we reflect on the contributions that have emerged from this work. The analysis illustrates a rich range of concepts and findings towards understanding the work of healthcare but the work on the larger policy level is lacking. We argue that this presents a number of challenges for CSCW research moving forward: in having a greater impact on larger-scale health IT projects; broadening the scope of settings and perspectives that are studied; and reflecting on the relevance of the traditional methods in this field - namely workplace studies - to meet these challenges.     

Coordinating computer-mediated work

Coordination of inter-dependent work activities is central to CSCW. However, little is known about how people coordinate their work activities, especially when confronted with computer systems that are intended to support collaboration. This paper examines how a close-knit group of engineers attempt to collaborate when managing a networked system whilst at the same time trying to maintain coordination of their interdependent work activities. Drawing from theoretical constructs developed in distributed cognition, an analysis is presented that contrasts the role played by common objects and mediating mechanisms in coordinating such activities with the negotiative practices that emerge when they break down. The implications of the problematic and dynamic nature of coordination is subsequently discussed in relation to CSCW design.