| Building Real-World Ad-Hoc Networks to Support Mobile Collaborative Applications: Lessons Learned | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 1-16 | |
| Roc Messeguer; Sergio F. Ochoa; José A. Pino; Esunly Medina; Leandro Navarro; Dolors Royo; H. Andrés Neyem | |||
| Mobile collaboration is required in several work scenarios, i.e. education,
healthcare, business and disaster relief. The features and capabilities of the
communication infrastructure used by mobile collaborative applications will
influence the type of coordination and collaboration that can be supported in
real work scenarios. Developers of these applications are typically unaware of
the constraints the communication infrastructure imposes on the collaborative
system. Therefore, this paper presents an experimental study of how ad-hoc
networks can effectively support mobile collaborative work. The article
analyzes several networking issues and it determines how they influence the
collaborative work. The paper also presents the lessons learned and it provides
recommendations to deal with the networking issues intrinsic to ad-hoc
networks. Keywords: Mobile Collaboration; Communication Support; Wireless Networks | |||
| Preserving Interaction Threads through the Use of Smartphones in Hospitals | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 17-31 | |
| David A. Mejia; Jesús Favela; Alberto L. Morán | |||
| Hospital workers need information to decide on the appropriate course of
action for patient care; this information could be obtained from artifacts --
such as medical records and lab results -- or as a result of interactions with
others. However, these exchanges could be a source of medical errors since this
information is not usually preserved and could be lost -- totally or partially
-- due to the volatility of human memory. This happens due to the verbal nature
of the interaction or due to the lack of an infrastructure that facilitates the
capture of information even when hospital workers are on the move. The
capabilities increasingly found in Smartphones, such as WiFi, touch screen or a
D-pad (directed pad), built-in camera, accelerometers, contact management
software, among others, make it feasible to record significant information
about the interactions that take place in the hospital and seamlessly retrieve
it to support work activities. Thus, in this paper we propose a system to
capture and manage collaboration outcomes in hospitals through the
implementation of mobile collaboration spheres in Smartphones. Keywords: Informal interactions; Capture of Interactions' Outcomes | |||
| Nomadic User Interaction/Cooperation within Autonomous Areas | | BIBA | Full-Text | 32-40 | |
| Victor Gómez; Sonia Mendoza; Dominique Decouchant; José Rodríguez | |||
| Ubiquitous computing integrates Internet/Intranet small integrated sensors as well as powerful and dynamic devices into the people's working and domestic areas. An intelligent area contains many devices that provide information about the state of each artifact (e.g., power failure of the refrigerator) without user intervention. Service discovery systems are essential to achieve this sophistication as they allow services and users to discover, configure and communicate with other services and users. However, most of these systems only provide support for interaction between services and software clients. In order to cope with this limitation, the SEDINU system aims at supporting interactions between nomadic users and services provided by areas. As users may move within the organization from an area to another one in order to accomplish their tasks, this system also provides support for user-user interaction and collaboration under specific contexts (role, location and goals). | |||
| Increasing Opportunities for Interaction in Time-Critical Mobile Collaborative Settings | | BIBA | Full-Text | 41-48 | |
| Valeria Herskovic; David A. Mejia; Jesús Favela; Alberto L. Morán; Sergio F. Ochoa; José A. Pino | |||
| The critical nature of some working environments, such as hospitals or search and rescue operations, gives rise to the need for timely collaboration. However, interactions are not always possible since potential collaborators may be unreachable because of the lack of a communication channel to carry out the interaction or due to their involvement in other activities. The use of adequate interaction facilitators may allow users to collaborate even in these circumstances. This paper presents a characterization of this type of situation and then introduces a set of design suggestions that may help improve opportunities for user interaction in time critical mobile collaborative settings. | |||
| A Social Matching Approach to Support Team Configuration | | BIBA | Full-Text | 49-64 | |
| Flavia Ernesto de Oliveira da Silva; Claudia Lage Rebello da Motta; Flávia Maria Santoro; Carlo Emmanoel Tolla de Oliveira | |||
| Organizations aim to store knowledge about their employees systematically in order to find "who knows what" in a timely fashion and match people by identifying their skills and competences. This paper presents a Social Matching Model, which brings together skills, socio-emotional factors and roles to support the composition of teamwork. | |||
| Understanding Open Source Developers' Evolution Using TransFlow | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 65-78 | |
| Jean Marcel dos Reis Costa; Francisco W. Santana; Cleidson R. B. de Souza | |||
| Due to the success of many Open Source Software projects, both the industry
and the academic community are interested in understanding how such software is
produced. Particularly, there is interest in understanding how these
communities are organized, maintained, and also how the contributors join and
evolve their roles in these projects. However, few studies have been conducted
around the evolution of the developers in the communities, i.e., how they reach
roles of greater importance, and how the software changes over time through
this evolution. This paper describes TransFlow, a tool aimed to support the
integrated study of the evolution of both: the software itself and the
developers' participation in open source projects. This integrated study is a
requirement since the software architecture may support or hinder developers'
participation in the project. We describe the rationale for building TransFlow
and illustrate how its features can be used to study open source projects. Keywords: Open Source; Software Evolution; Developers Evolution; Role Migration | |||
| Exploring the Effects of a Convergence Intervention on the Artifacts of an Ideation Activity during Sensemaking | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 79-93 | |
| Victoria Badura; Aaron Read; Robert O. Briggs; Gert-Jan de Vreede | |||
| Organizations must enlist the efforts of groups to solve important problems.
Six patterns of collaboration describe group behavior as they work towards
solutions. The convergence patterns of collaboration -- reduce and clarify are
key in helping a group focus effort on issues that are worthy of further
attention. These group behaviors have not been extensively studied in the
literature. In the current study, we further this research effort by exploring
and characterizing the effects of a fast focus intervention on an ideation
artifact. Researchers conducted an observational case study of executives
addressing a real task within a large organization. Analysis of the problem
statements generated during a problem identification and clarification session
revealed several implications about convergence activities. The FastFocus
thinkLet was found to reduce the number of concepts from 246 down to 30, a
reduction of 76%. Ambiguity was reduced from 45% in the ideation artifact to 3%
in the converged artifact. A serendipitous event in the field allowed
researchers a window into comprehensiveness, showing that the FastFocus
thinkLet may not contribute to comprehensiveness as much as was previously
thought. Finally implications for brainstorming instructions were identified
that may contribute to reduced ambiguity in ideation artifacts. Keywords: Collaboration; Convergence; Group Support Systems; Information Overload | |||
| Social Knowledge Management in Practice: A Case Study | | BIBA | Full-Text | 94-109 | |
| Ricardo Araujo Costa; Edeilson M. Silva; Mario G. Neto; Diego B. Delgado; Rafael A. Ribeiro; Silvio R. L. Meira | |||
| This case study describes the effects of using a Web Based Social Network (WBSN) approach to Knowledge Management in a Brazilian software development organization. During this work it was verified how the previous approach to Knowledge Management, a wiki based approach, did not work to this organization and how users voluntarily migrated from this environment to the WBSN. In addition to the WBSN environment, a Knowledge Management process has been proposed, with some metrics related to its phases. These metrics have been monitored since October 2006 and analyzed in order to verify the efficiency of this approach. In order to give a better understanding of the concepts related to Social Networks and Knowledge Management, it is presented a brief introduction to each one of them, including an evaluation of existing Knowledge Management approaches. | |||
| Tailoring Collaboration According Privacy Needs in Real-Identity Collaborative Systems | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 110-125 | |
| Mohamed Bourimi; Falk Kühnel; Jörg M. Haake; Dhiah el Diehn I. Abou-Tair; Dogan Kesdogan | |||
| Nowadays, collaboration and social interaction among people become everyday
activities in our evolving information age. In many learning platforms,
collaborative platforms in the educational and industrial field or social
networks like LinkedIn or Xing, users have to disclose private information and
reveal their identities. Working with those systems allows them to create user
profiles which could reveal more information about the user, than he wants to
give. Furthermore, such environments may construct profiles about users'
interaction, which may be used for attacks; thus preserving privacy is an
essential component of such environments. In this paper, a decentralized
group-centric approach for tailoring collaboration according privacy needs is
introduced. The main idea of our approach lays in its construction. In contrast
to traditional collaboration environments with central hosting, our approach
gives each group the whole responsibility of hosting the collaboration
environment by using their own technical means. The feasibility of our approach
is demonstrated through a lightweight ubiquitous collaboration platform. The
experiences gathered are discussed. Keywords: Shared workspaces; adaptation; group context; privacy; tailoring | |||
| Why Should I Trust in a Virtual Community Member? | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 126-133 | |
| Juan Pablo Soto; Aurora Vizcaíno; Javier Portillo-Rodríguez; Mario Piattini | |||
| A huge amount of virtual communities focusing on different topics currently
exist. In this paper we centre on those virtual communities in which people
share knowledge and experience. However, the level of knowledge shared may
decrease when there is no face to face communication and when members do not
have the chance to meet each other personally. In order to reduce this problem
we propose a trust model with which to help community members decide whether
another person is trustworthy or otherwise. Keywords: Virtual Communities; Trust; Software Agents | |||
| Antecedents of Awareness in Virtual Teams | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 134-141 | |
| Chyng-Yang Jang | |||
| This study examined the antecedents of awareness in geographically
distributed teams. Task structure, group propensity, communication frequency,
groupware usage, and subjective reliance on various communication tools were
proposed to affect the perceived level of awareness. Based on data collected
from seven distributed student engineering teams, results showed that perceived
task interdependence and communication frequency were positively associated
with the level of awareness, but group propensity and groupware usage were not.
Further analysis found the reliance on synchronous meetings mediated the
relationship between task interdependence and awareness level. Implications for
virtual team management are discussed. Keywords: Virtual team; awareness | |||
| A Flexible Multi-mode Undo Mechanism for a Collaborative Modeling Environment | | BIBA | Full-Text | 142-157 | |
| Tilman Göhnert; Nils Malzahn; Heinz Ulrich Hoppe | |||
| This paper presents a flexible multi-mode undo mechanism for a collaborative modeling environment supporting different types of graph representations (including Petri Nets and System Dynamics models) as well as free-hand annotations. The undo mechanism is first introduced on a formal basis. It is implemented as an extension of the underlying MatchMaker collaboration server and allows for selecting from and making use of several undo variants with minimal adaptation effort. This is a basis for future usability studies comparing different versions of undo and for better adapting the undo effects to the actual user goals. | |||
| Forby: Providing Groupware Features Relying on Distributed File System Event Dissemination | | BIBA | Full-Text | 158-173 | |
| Pedro Sousa; Nuno M. Preguiça; Carlos Baquero | |||
| Intensive research and development has been conducted in the design and creation of groupware systems for distributed users. While for some activities, these groupware tools are widely used, for other activities the impact in the groupware community has been smaller and can be improved. One reason for this fact is that the mostly common used applications do not support collaborative features and users are reluctant to change to a different application. In this paper we discuss how available file system mechanisms can help to address this problem. In this context, we present Forby, a system that allows to provide groupware features to distributed users by combining filesystem monitoring and distributed event dissemination. To demonstrate our solution, we present three systems that rely on Forby for providing groupware features to users running unmodified applications. | |||
| Extending a Shared Workspace Environment with Context-Based Adaptations | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 174-181 | |
| Dirk Veiel; Jörg M. Haake; Stephan Lukosch | |||
| Nowadays, many teams collaborate via shared workspace environments, which
offer a suite of services supporting group interaction. The needs for an
effective group interaction vary over time and are dependent of the current
problem and group goal. An ideal shared workspace environment has to take this
into account and offer means for tailoring its services to meet the current
needs of the collaborating team. In this article, we propose a service-oriented
architecture of shared workspaces, analyze this architecture to identify
adaptation possibilities, introduce the Context and Adaptation Framework as a
means to extend shared workspace environment for context-based adaptations and
validate our approach by reporting on our prototype implementation. Keywords: Shared workspaces; adaptation; group context | |||
| An Evolutionary Platform for the Collaborative Contextual Composition of Services | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 182-189 | |
| João Paulo Sousa; Benjamim Fonseca; Eurico Carrapatoso; Hugo Paredes | |||
| Besides services traditionally available in wireless networks, new ones may
be offered that transparently adjust and adapt to the user context. The user
would have more choice and flexibility if not only could he use platform and
third-party services, but also compose his own services in an ad-hoc way,
making it available to other users, involving them collaboratively in the
construction of a wide set of services. Moreover, collaboration among users can
be fostered by the availability of awareness services in mobile environments
that enable them to execute joint tasks and activities. This paper presents
iCas, an architecture to create context-aware services on the fly, and
discusses its main modules. Also a collaborative application scenario is
briefly described. Keywords: Context-aware; Services composition; Semantic Web; CSCW | |||
| Gesture Interaction in Cooperation Scenarios | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 190-205 | |
| Carlos Duarte; António Neto | |||
| Several computer based tools have been developed to support cooperative
work. The majority of these tools rely on the traditional input devices
available on standard computer systems, i.e. keyboard and mouse. This paper
focuses on the use of gestural interaction for cooperative scenarios,
discussing how it is more suited for some tasks, and hypothesizing on how users
cooperatively decide on which tasks to perform based on the available input
modalities and task characteristics. An experiment design is presented to
validate the proposed hypothesis. The preliminary evaluation results, also
presented, support this hypothesis. Keywords: Gestural Interaction; Collaboration; Shared Workspace; Evaluation | |||
| Strategies and Taxonomy, Tailoring Your CSCW Evaluation | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 206-221 | |
| Kahina Hamadache; Luigi Lancieri | |||
| With the rapidly growing development of Computer Supported Collaborative
Work technologies, the evaluation of these services becomes an essential
aspect. This evaluation mixes technical, business, social, perceptive,
ergonomic aspects which can't be considered independently. In this paper we
propose a new taxonomy of CSCW evaluation methods based on previous works and
on our analysis of current evaluation methods. With this new taxonomy and the
description of CSCW development process and life-cycle we are able to propose
evaluation strategies that can be adapted and tailored for most of systems. Keywords: Evaluating CSCW; Groupware evaluation; evaluation strategy; evaluation
adaptability | |||
| Analyzing Stakeholders' Satisfaction When Choosing Suitable Groupware Tools for Requirements Elicitation | | BIBA | Full-Text | 222-230 | |
| Gabriela N. Aranda; Aurora Vizcaíno; Alejandra Cechich; Mario Piattini | |||
| Global software development faces a series of problems related to various aspects of communication; for example, that people feel comfortable with the technology they use. In previous papers we have analyzed strategies to choose the most suitable technology for a group of stakeholders, taking advantages of information concerning stakeholders' cognitive characteristics. In this paper we present the preliminary results of an experiment in which our strategy was applied, and analyze stakeholders' satisfaction with regard to communication so as to discover if it is actually improved by our approach. | |||
| Assessment of Facilitators' Design Thinking | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 231-246 | |
| Anni Karhumaa; Kalle Piirainen; Kalle Elfvengren; Markku Tuominen | |||
| Meeting design is one of the most critical prerequisites of the success of
facilitated meetings but how to achieve the success is not yet fully
understood. This study presents a descriptive model of the design of
facilitated meetings based on literature findings about the key factors
contributing to the success of collaborative meetings, and links these factors
to the meeting design steps by exploring how facilitators consider them in
practice in their design process. The empirical part includes a case study
conducted among 11 facilitators. Session goals, group composition, supporting
technology, motivational aspects, physical constraints, and correct practices
are found to outline the key factors in design thinking. Furthermore, the order
of considering these factors in the design process is outlined. The results
contribute to the discussion on how to improve the effectiveness of
collaboration with better meeting design, providing also some insights into
further development of design support tools. Keywords: Collaboration engineering; meeting design; facilitation; group support
systems | |||
| Unraveling Challenges in Collaborative Design: A Literature Study | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 247-261 | |
| Kalle Piirainen; Gwendolyn L. Kolfschoten; Stephan Lukosch | |||
| The complexities of modern business technology and policy are straining
experts who aspire to design multi-actor systems to enhance existing
organizations. Collaborative design is one approach to try and manage
complexity in design activities. Still, collaboration in itself is not
necessarily an easy mode of working. In this paper, we seek insight to
challenges of collaborative design though a survey of design literature and
qualitative content analysis. The literature reveals that the challenges can be
condensed to five main challenges, creating shared understanding, balancing
requirements of different stakeholders, balancing rigor and relevance in the
process, organizing the collaboration effectively and creating ownership. Keywords: Design science; design research; design methodology; collaborative design | |||
| The Application of Design Patterns for the Adaptation of a Modeling Tool in Collaborative Engineering | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 262-269 | |
| Michael Klebl; Monika Hackel; Stephan Lukosch | |||
| In order to improve design processes in mechatronical engineering,
concurrent processes and interdisciplinary phases replace the hitherto existing
sequential processes. This change places high demands on the interdisciplinary
collaboration in teams of engineers from different disciplines. Collaborative
functions in engineering tools support this collaboration. The aim of this
contribution is to demonstrate the application of design patterns for the
design of adapted collaborative features within an adequate engineering tool.
This adaptation addresses the requirements and needs of process organization in
different engineering departments. Keywords: CSCW; Design Patterns; Collaborative Engineering; Socio-technical systems;
Social Scientific Research; Mechatronics | |||
| Communication Patterns to Support Mobile Collaboration | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 270-277 | |
| H. Andrés Neyem; Sergio F. Ochoa; José A. Pino | |||
| The mobility of the collaborators, the diverse technologies available to
support them and the continuous change in the collaboration scenarios bring new
challenges to design, implement, and reuse communication software for these
complex systems. This article presents a design patterns system to help
modeling the communication services required to support mobile collaboration.
These patterns serve as educational media for developers, students or
researchers on how to design communication services for mobile collaborative
applications. The patterns also foster the reuse of proven solutions. Keywords: Communication patterns; mobile collaboration | |||
| A Model for Designing Geocollaborative Artifacts and Applications | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 278-294 | |
| Pedro Antunes; Gustavo Zurita; Nelson Baloian | |||
| There are many human activities for which information about the geographical
location where they take place is of paramount importance. In the last years
there has been increasing interest in the combination of Computer Supported
Collaborative Work (CSCW) and geographical information. In this paper we
analyze the concepts and elements of CSCW that are most relevant to
geocollaboration. We define a model facilitating the design of shared artifacts
capable to build shared awareness of the geographical context. The paper also
describes two case studies using the model to design geocollaborative
applications. Keywords: Geocollaboration; sensemaking; collaborative capacity | |||
| MobMaps: Towards a Shared Environment for Collaborative Social Activism | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 295-302 | |
| Luís Gens; Hugo Paredes; Paulo Martins; Benjamim Fonseca; Yishay Mor; Leonel Morgado | |||
| Nowadays it is possible to disseminate information to the all world in real
time using current communication tools supported mostly by the Internet. The
work of several organizations reporting a multitude of problems that our
society faces can be sustained by participatory platforms, which stimulate the
collaboration of participants all over the world. In this paper we present a
technological platform that provides a shared environment for collaborative
social activism. We adapted the platform to a particular organization,
MachsomWatch that reports human rights abuses in Israelis checkpoints. Finally
we present some preliminary results obtained by ethnographic research using the
developed platform. Keywords: Mobile collaboration; georeferenced information; social activism | |||
| Spatial Operators for Collaborative Map Handling | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 303-310 | |
| Renato Rodrigues; Armanda Rodrigues | |||
| In this paper, we describe an online spatial decision-support system
developed to support asynchronous spatial collaboration between physically
distributed users, with a focus on defining spatial operators for supporting
these activities in a public participation context.
The developed system takes advantage of recent development on maps APIs and Web 2.0 technologies, to provide generic features that can improve spatial decision-making. It implements a web-based public participation GIS (PPGIS) while allowing geographic information based collaboration. The system, is based on a customizable platform, targets different types of spatial collaboration and user expertise, while encouraging debate between participants with similar spatial interests. The system's features, architecture and interface are presented in detail as well as usability testing procedures realized for different users' roles and expertise. Keywords: GeoCollaboration; Online Mapping; Geographic Information Systems; Spatial
Decision-Making; Public Participation | |||
| Cooperative Model Reconstruction for Cryptographic Protocols Using Visual Languages | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 311-318 | |
| Benjamin Weyers; Wolfram Luther; Nelson Baloian | |||
| Cooperative work in learning environments has been shown to be a successful
extension to traditional learning systems due to the great impact of
cooperation on students' motivation and learning success. In this paper we
describe a new approach to cooperative construction of cryptographic protocols.
Using an appropriate visual language (VL), students describe a protocol step by
step, modeling subsequent situations and alternating this with the creation of
a concept keyboard (CK) describing the operations in the protocol. The system
automatically generates a colored Petri subnet that is matched against an
existing action logic specifying the protocol. Finally, the learners implement
role-dependent CKs in a cooperative workflow and perform a role-play
simulation. Keywords: Cooperative construction; cryptographic algorithm; learning environment;
dialog and interaction logic modeling | |||
| Enacting Collaboration via Storytelling in Second Life | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 319-327 | |
| Andréia R. Pereira; Katia Cánepa; Viviane David; Denise Filippo; Alberto Raposo; Hugo Fuks | |||
| This work presents a collaborative educational game, Time2Play, developed in
Second Life, which allows the creation of stories in a collaborative fashion,
offering a new form of expression in education. This game is projected for
children from 7 to 12 years old, enabling them to express their creativity and
imagination by creating and enacting stories of their own. The proposed game
can become a resource for implementing collaborative projects in school
activities. Keywords: Collaborative Learning; 3D Collaborative Virtual Environments; Storytelling;
Second Life | |||
| An Approach for Developing Groupware Product Lines Based on the 3C Collaboration Model | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 328-343 | |
| Bruno Gadelha; Ingrid Nunes; Hugo Fuks; Carlos José Pereira de Lucena | |||
| Software Product Lines (SPLs) are a new software engineering technology that
aims at promoting reduced time and costs in the development of system families
by the exploitation of applications commonalities. Given that different
Groupware applications typically share a lot of functionalities, Groupware
Product Lines (GPLs) have emerged to incorporate SPL benefits to the Groupware
development. In this paper, we propose an approach for developing GPLs, which
incorporates SPL techniques to allow the derivation of customized groupware
according to specific contexts and the systematic reuse of software assets. Our
approach is based on the 3C Collaboration Model that allows identifying
collaboration needs and guiding the user to select appropriate features
according to their collaboration purpose. A GPL of Learning Object
repositories, named FLOCOS GPL, is used to illustrate the proposed approach. Keywords: Groupware development; software product lines; learning objects | |||
| Negotiation-Collaboration in Formal Technical Reviews | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 344-356 | |
| Giovana Brandao Ribeiro Linhares; Marcos R. S. Borges; Pedro Antunes | |||
| This paper discusses the negotiation-collaboration process: a binomial
process mixing collaboration, negotiation and argumentation. We applied the
negotiation-collaboration process to Formal Technical Reviews, commonly adopted
to verify the functional specification of software. We developed a groupware
tool demonstrating the dynamic of the negotiation-collaboration process in
Formal Technical Reviews. And we provide results from an experiment with the
tool in a software engineering firm. The obtained results demonstrate the
negotiation-collaboration process promotes bigger participation in FTR. Keywords: Formal Technical Reviews; Negotiation; Software Quality Assurance | |||
| Generating User Stories in Groups | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 357-364 | |
| Cuong D. Nguyen; Erin Gallagher; Aaron Read; Gert-Jan de Vreede | |||
| Communicating about system requirements with user stories is a distinctive
feature of Agile Software Development methods. While user stories make system
requirements intelligible to both customers and technical developers, they also
create new challenges for the requirements elicitation process such as personal
bias and requirements coverage. In this study we propose that when elicited
from groups instead of individuals, the number of stories generated, the
uniqueness and the comprehensiveness of the stories is likely to increase. A
lab experiment design is delineated and partially completed. Future research
will need to be conducted to determine conclusions. Keywords: Requirements elicitation; user stories; group story telling | |||