| Collaboration Using Social Media: The Case of Podio in a Voluntary Organization | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 1-9 | |
| Liana Razmerita | |||
| Social media enables a new model of managing knowledge that involves formal
and informal communication, collaboration using a variety of applications.
Using a case study approach, this article investigates the affordances of such
Social Media enhanced Platforms (SMeP) for the management of knowledge work
(communication and collaboration). In particular it aims to address the
following research questions: What are the affordances of SMeP for the
management of knowledge work in a voluntary organization? How do individuals
experience the opportunities and challenges of these collaborative platforms?
This paper presents the results of an empirical study on the adoption and use of social media in a voluntary organization. The findings pinpoints towards the potential use of SMeP for shaping new work practices but also towards the issues encountered when social media is introduced in organizations. Keywords: social media; collaboration; e-collaboration; knowledge sharing; social
software; web 2.0 | |||
| Keep Querying and Tag on: Collaborative Folksonomy Using Model-Based Recommendation | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 10-17 | |
| Angelina de C. A. Ziesemer; João Batista S. de Oliveira | |||
| Tags are terms commonly used in collaborative media systems like Flickr,
Youtube and Picasa to classify a subject, image, video, music or any related
content. Despite its popularity, tagging is a repetitive task and that may
affect the quality and reuse of tags in collaborative systems. In this paper we
use a model-based tag recommendation approach to perform an experiment and
analyze the vocabulary homogeneity of queries (tags provided by users), the
recommended tags and their reuse. Results show that the use of recommendation
improves the quality and reuse of tags. Furthermore, based on users attribution
behavior, we conclude with a proposal for personalized tag recommendation. Keywords: collaborative filtering; folksonomy; recommendation | |||
| Understanding Real-World Events via Multimedia Summaries Based on Social Indicators | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 18-25 | |
| Mauricio Quezada; Barbara Poblete | |||
| We present a novel methodology for creating multimedia summaries of
real-world events through social media information. Summaries are generated
using selected multimedia data disseminated through Twitter. The proposed
summarization technique takes into account social indicators of relevance,
which are used to select a set of representative multimedia objects for
summarizing the event from a social perspective. In addition, our approach
incorporates different news angles by extracting topics within each event. Keywords: Social Networks; Collaborative Summaries; Multimedia | |||
| How Do Researchers on Collaboration Technology Collaborate with Each Other? A Social Network Analysis | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 26-41 | |
| Andreas Harrer; Tilman Göhnert; H. Ulrich Hoppe | |||
| In this paper we present a network analytic approach for the detection and
improved understanding of the dynamics of communities. As a practical example
of our own research practice we applied these ideas to the community of CRIWG
researchers and checked for the feasibility of our approach. We will present
our results on indicators for collaboration and also propose some practices
from other fields to intensify scientific discussion and production. Keywords: Collaboration analysis; Social Network Analysis; CRIWG | |||
| Inferring Hidden Trust Relationships in Social Networks for Encouraging Collaboration and Cooperation among Individuals | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 42-60 | |
| Edeilson Milhomem Silva; Diego Oliveira Rodrigues; Jackson Gomes de Souza; Parcilene Fernandes de Brito; Ana Carolina Salgado; Silvio Romero Lemos Meira; José Alfredo F. Costa | |||
| This paper presents the T-SWEETS algorithm, a novel approach for inferring
trust in social networks and its deployment in a social network knowledge-based
management platform, titled Konnen (Knowledge Organization in a Native Network
ENvironment). An objective of trust inference is to recommend trust
relationships. The features of T-SWEETS come from an inquiry with a group of 53
people. We also present results obtained from experiment conducted with a group
of 57 people during the second half of 2012. Keywords: Recommender Systems; Trust; Social Networks; Communication; Cooperation;
Collaborative Systems | |||
| Providing Awareness, Understanding and Control of Personalized Stream Filtering in a P2P Social Network | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 61-76 | |
| Sayooran Nagulendra; Julita Vassileva | |||
| In Online Social Networks (OSNs) users are often overwhelmed with the huge
amount of social data, most of which are irrelevant to their interest.
Filtering of the social data stream is the way to deal with this problem, and
it has already been applied by OSNs, such as Facebook. Unfortunately,
personalized filtering leads to "the filter bubble" problem where the user is
trapped inside a world within the limited boundaries of her interests and
cannot be exposed to any surprising, desirable information. Moreover, these
OSNs are black boxes, providing no transparency of how the filtering mechanism
decides what is to be shown in the social data stream. As a result, the user
trust in the system can decline. This paper proposes an interactive method to
visualize the personalized stream filtering in OSNs. The proposed visualization
helps to create awareness, understanding, and control of personalized stream
filtering to alleviate "the filter bubble" problem and increase the users'
trust in the system. The visualization is implemented in MADMICA -- a privacy
aware decentralized OSN, based on the Friendica P2P protocol. We present the
results of a small-scale study to evaluate the user experience with the
proposed visualization in MADMICA. Keywords: Online communities; Social networks; Social visualization | |||
| OurMap: Representing Crowdsourced Annotations on Geospatial Coordinates as Linked Open Data | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 77-93 | |
| André Lins Gonzalez; Diego Izidoro; Roberto Willrich; Celso A. S. Santos | |||
| There is an increasing number of initiatives using Web-based mapping systems
that rely on crowdsourcing as a collaborative problem-solving and data
production model. In these initiatives, large groups of users can
collaboratively annotate spatial things on a map. Ideally, these crowdsourcing
initiatives should produce Linked Open Data (LOD) to enable people/systems to
share structured data and, consequently, improve distributed problem-solving on
the Web. This paper presents an approach for producing LOD from crowdsourced
annotations on Web-based mapping systems. In this approach, annotations are
represented using the Open Annotation data model and they have as target a
geospatial coordinate referenced using the geo URI. Moreover, we combine
crowdsourced map annotations with semantic Web technologies to enrich maps with
semantic information. To demonstrate the feasibility of our approach, we
present the OurMap system, which performs the proposed approach allowing the
representation of open and semantic annotations associated with geospatial
coordinates independently of the Web map interface adopted. Keywords: Open Annotation; Semantic Web; RDF; Volunteered Geographic Information | |||
| A Theoretical Model of User Engagement in Crowdsourcing | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 94-109 | |
| Triparna de Vreede; Cuong Nguyen; Gert-Jan de Vreede; Imed Boughzala; Onook Oh; Roni Reiter-Palmon | |||
| Social media technology has enabled virtual collaborative environments where
people actively interact, share knowledge, coordinate activities, solve
problems, co-create value, and innovate. Organizations have begun to leverage
approaches and technologies to involve numerous people from outside their
boundaries to perform organizational tasks. Despite the success and popularity
of this 'crowdsourcing' phenomenon, there appears to be a distinct gap in the
literature regarding the empirical evaluation of the factors involved in a
crowdsourcing user experience. This paper aims to fill this void by proposing a
theoretical model of the antecedents and their relationships for crowdsourcing
user engagement. It is defined as the quality of effort online users devote to
collaboration activities that contribute directly to desired outcomes. Drawing
from research in psychology and IS, we identify three critical elements that
precede crowdsourcing user engagement: personal interest in topic, goal
clarity, and motivation to contribute. This paper examines the theoretical
basis of these variables of interest in detail, derives a causal model of their
interrelationships, and identifies future plans for model testing. Keywords: Crowdsourcing; engagement; open collaboration; motivation; social media | |||
| Factors Influencing the Decision to Crowdsource | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 110-125 | |
| Nguyen Hoang Thuan; Pedro Antunes; David Johnstone | |||
| In order to integrate a crowdsourcing strategy to an organization's business
processes, managers need to decide whether or not crowdsourcing is suitable for
the organizational context. This study conducted a structured literature review
to identify factors related to this decision. These identified factors have
been synthesized into a framework for supporting the decision to crowdsource.
Based on this framework, recommendations for managers, which were summarized in
the decision tables, have been proposed. Keywords: Crowdsourcing; crowdsourcing decision; business process; literature review;
socio-technical system | |||
| Data Quality in an Output-Agreement Game: A Comparison between Game-Generated Tags and Professional Descriptors | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 126-142 | |
| Rasmus Thogersen | |||
| A novel way to address the challenge of creating descriptive metadata for
visual cultural heritage is to invite users to play Human Computation Games
(HCG). This study presents an investigation into tags generated by an HCG
launched at The Royal Library of Denmark and compares them to descriptors
assigned to the same images by professional indexers from the same institution.
The analysis is done by classifying tags and descriptors by term-category and
by measuring semantic overlap between the tags and the descriptors. The
semantic overlap was established with thesaurus relations between a sample of
tags and descriptors.
The analysis shows that more than half of the validated tags had some thesaurus relation to a descriptor added by a professional indexer. Approximately 60% of the thesaurus relations were either 'same/equivalent' and roughly 20% were 'associative' and 20% 'hierarchical'. For the hierarchical thesaurus relations it was found that tags typically describe images at a less specific level than descriptors. Furthermore game-generated tags tend to describe 'artifacts/objects' and thus typically represent what is in the picture, rather than what it is about. Descriptors also primarily belonged to this term-category but also had a substantial amount of 'Proper nouns', mainly named locations. Tags generated by the game, not validated by player-agreement, had a much higher frequency of 'subjective/narrative' tags, but also more errors and a few cases of vandalism. The overall findings suggest that game-generated tags could complement existing metadata and be integrated into existing workflows. Keywords: Games with a purpose; crowdsourcing; image indexing; cultural heritage
institutions; participatory cultural heritage; Output-agreement games | |||
| Analyzing Two Participation Strategies in an Undergraduate Course Community | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 143-158 | |
| Francisco Gutierrez; Gustavo Zurita; Sergio F. Ochoa; Nelson Baloian | |||
| Nowadays, information systems, and more particularly, learning support
systems, tend to include social interaction features in their design. These
features generally aim to sustain the activities of partially virtual
communities and help extend the physical presence of the community in the
virtual space. In order to achieve a sustainable community, it is important to
understand how the strategies used to promote participation influence the way
in which community members interact and relate with each other. This article
reports a comparative study on two different student participation strategies
mediated by a learning support system. The first strategy stressed the quantity
of contributions, and the second one promoted both quantity and quality of
contributions. By analyzing the resulting interaction networks, we could better
understand the interaction patterns among students in their respective
communities and conclude ways to monitor interaction and help maintain the
community sustainability in time. Keywords: Interaction patterns; participation; community structure; sociotechnical
analysis; monitoring; partially virtual communities | |||
| Work and Learning across Boundaries: Artifacts, Discourses, and Processes in a University Course | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 159-174 | |
| Mikhail Fominykh; Ekaterina Prasolova-Førland; Sobah Abbas Petersen; Monica Divitini | |||
| Boundary objects can provide bridges across boundaries and facilitate
collaboration between learners with different backgrounds. In this paper, we
explore cooperation in a cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural context,
focusing on the opportunities for learning that arise at different boundaries
and on corresponding boundary objects to facilitate both collaboration and
learning. We present and discuss a study we conducted within a Cooperation
Technology course. The discussion provides implications for collaboration
support across boundaries, including insights on why they are important, how to
facilitate their creation, and how to use technologies for that. Keywords: cooperation technology; boundary objects; collaborative learning | |||
| Redesigning Collaboration Tools to Enhance Social Presence in Online Learning Environments | | BIBA | Full-Text | 175-191 | |
| Francisco Medeiros; Alex Gomes; Ricardo Amorim; Gabriela Medeiros | |||
| This study aimed to investigate through a rapid ethnographic research the behavior of the main communication tools of collaborative learning environments (CLE) to foster students' social presence. Two research questions guided this work: (1) Are there limitations of synchronous and asynchronous collaboration tools in promoting students social presence? (2) Does extending social interactions to external collaborative tools from the CLEs contribute to the improvement of social presence of the students? This research provided support for the redesign of synchronous and asynchronous communication tools for the CLE Amadeus [1], in order to improve students' social presence in online courses. | |||
| The Metafora Design Principles for a Collaborative, Interoperable Learning Framework | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 192-207 | |
| Andreas Harrer; Thomas Irgang; Andreas Lingnau; Norbert Sattes; Kerstin Pfahler | |||
| In this paper we present the Metafora project for the support of
collaborative learning activities in larger problems of science and math
topics. We will present the design principles that guided our technical
development of an architecture supporting collaboration across different
learning tools. Interoperability between the tools mediated by so called
referable objects is described, as well as the design issues of awareness and
visualisation for the learning groups. We demonstrate the flexibility of our
designs and framework in giving example cases for the usage of the Metafora
framework with different tools and educational scenarios. Keywords: Web-based collaborative applications; collaborative workspaces;
computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL); design principles | |||
| Integrating Formal and Informal Learning through a FLOSS-Based Innovative Approach | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 208-214 | |
| Sara Fernandes; Maria Helena Martinho; Antonio Cerone; Luis Soares Barbosa | |||
| It is said that due to the peculiar dynamics of FLOSS communities, effective
participation in their projects is a privileged way to acquire the relevant
skills and expertise in software development. Such is probably the reason for a
number of higher education institutions to include in their Software
Engineering curricula some form of contact with the FLOSS reality. This paper
explores such a perspective through an on-going case study on university
students' collaboration in FLOSS projects. The aim of this research is to 1)
identify what should be learnt about software development through regular
participation in a FLOSS project/community, and 2) assess the didactic
potential of this kind of non-standard learning experiences. To this aim we
resorted to a participatory research action approach and qualitative methods,
namely case studies combining direct observation and interviews. Keywords: FLOSS; Communities of Practice; Collaborative Learning | |||
| Using Geo-collaboration and Microblogging to Support Learning: Identifying Problems and Opportunities for Technological Business | | BIBA | Full-Text | 215-232 | |
| Gustavo Zurita; Nelson Baloian | |||
| Many services are nowadays offering the use of a ("Cloud") which allows large groups of people to interact with one another in different ways by means of sharing textual information, to collaboratively constructing complex information objects using text, images, maps, and other multimedia information. Current literature reports a number of works where these services have been used to support collaborative learning. The reliability, scalability and ubiquity are the characteristics that make these services especially convenient in supporting large group collaborative learning activities that require computer support in various settings, in and outside the classroom. In this work we first analyze the use of Google Maps for supporting a learning activity in an urban environment, concluding that some important features are missing. We then propose an approach for taking advantage of cloud computing services for learning activities by integrating different services in a new application. We conclude that this approach may be used for further developing applications supporting large group learning activities. | |||
| Ontology-Based Resource Discovery in Pervasive Collaborative Environments | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 233-240 | |
| Kimberly García; Manuele Kirsch-Pinheiro; Sonia Mendoza; Dominique Decouchant | |||
| Most of the working environments offer multiple hardware and software that
could be shared among the members of staff. However, it could be particularly
difficult to take advantages of all these resources without a proper software
support capable of discovering the ones that fulfill both a user's requirements
and each resource owner's sharing preferences. To try to overcome this problem,
several service discovery protocols have been developed, aiming to promote the
use of network resources and to reduce configuration tasks. Unfortunately,
these protocols are mainly focused on finding resources based just on their
type or some minimal features, lacking information about: user preferences,
restrictions and contextual variables. To outstrip this deficiency, we propose
to exploit the power of semantic description, by creating a knowledge base
integrated by a set of ontologies generically designed to be adopted by any
type of organization. To validate this proposal, we have customized the
ontologies for our case of study, which is a research center. Keywords: shared resource discovery; ubiquitous collaborative environments; semantic
resource description | |||
| Identifying the Awareness Mechanisms for Mobile Collaborative Applications | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 241-256 | |
| Valeria Herskovic; Sergio F. Ochoa; José A. Pino; Pedro Antunes; Emilio Ormeño | |||
| The complexity of modeling collaborative systems has been broadly recognized
by the CSCW community. Mobile collaborative applications are a particular case
of those systems, where design requirements and constraints are even more
complex than in stationary solutions. Design complexity in mobile application
increases because mobility changes the interaction requirements of nomadic
users and the capabilities of devices to support them. Consequently, the
awareness support provided by these systems should also be adjusted according
to the nomadic users' context. This article presents a method that helps
identifying the awareness mechanisms required by nomadic users to support a
certain activity. The method, named Awareness Identification Method for Mobile
Applications (AIMMA), suggests particular awareness components embedded in
mobile collaborative applications, which will increase the interaction
possibilities of users participating in a collaborative process. AIMMA can be
used by software developers as a design guideline. This article reports the
results of a proof of concept where the proposed method helped identifying
suitable awareness mechanisms to improve the collaboration support of a mobile
application. This method could also be extended to help identify, e.g., the
services required by mobile workers to support their interactions. Keywords: Mobile collaboration; awareness mechanisms; software design; users
interaction; system evaluation | |||
| In-Vivo Therapy Procedures: Design Process of a Geo-Referenced System | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 257-273 | |
| Luís Carriço; Luís Duarte; Isabel Sá | |||
| This paper presents the design process of a geo-referenced communication
system which aims at providing technological support to Cognitive Behavioral
Therapy and Social Competences and Skills Training therapeutic procedures. The
usage of geo-spatial information while communicating between therapists and
patients can be critical, particularly in in-vivo sessions, to identify
locations which evoke negative experiences to patients or to encourage the
latter to overcome obstacles. We show a high-fidelity prototype multi-iteration
design process and complement the discussion with the results from an
experimental period which aimed at assessing the system from a usability, user
satisfaction and functionality perspectives. Results were positive and led to
the revision and ultimately the final design iteration which is reported here.
We present the rationale behind these design choices, discuss the advantages
over existing similar tools, analyze possible challenges and comment on the
fulfillment of providing seamless context to scenarios where such information
is paramount. Keywords: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy; Geo-Referenced Systems; Group Monitoring | |||
| Extending the Dependency Taxonomy of Agile Software Development | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 274-289 | |
| Diane E. Strode | |||
| Systems and software development is a collaborative activity and agile
software development epitomises collaboration by formalising how teams and
their customers work together to develop a software product. Collaboration is
achieved, in part, using mechanisms for coordinating interdependent work.
Coordination is defined as the managing of dependencies and this study explores
the nature of dependencies in software development projects. Firstly, this
study extends an existing taxonomy of dependencies based on evidence from agile
projects by showing that three agile and one non-agile project show the same
pattern of dependencies. Secondly, this study finds that knowledge dependencies
are the most frequently occurring dependencies in these small co-located
software projects. The key contribution of this research is a better
understanding of the dependencies in software development projects.
Understanding dependencies can lead to more informed selection of coordination
mechanisms, and ultimately more effective collaboration. Keywords: Agile software development; coordination mechanisms; dependency analysis;
knowledge dependencies | |||
| Building a Domain Model for Mobile Collaborative Systems: Towards a Software Product Line | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 290-305 | |
| Pedro O. Rossel; Valeria Herskovic | |||
| Software Product Lines are a recent approach to the software reuse problem:
they allow implementing a set of applications that share common features. The
mass use and increased availability of mobile computing devices has allowed for
people to use their devices to work while on the move, including emergency
response workers. Several initiatives propose software reuse for collaborative
systems, e.g. components, architectures, toolkits and frameworks. We propose
building a software product line for mobile collaboration in the emergency
management domain, as there is a need for different products depending on user
types, fire company needs, and evolving requirements. This paper proposes a
domain model as the first step towards building a software product line. The
domain model summarizes findings in related work and several years of
experience working in the emergency management domain. It was evaluated in
interviews with firefighters, who said it was a useful summary of their needs
in emergency management. Keywords: Emergency management; Domain Model; Software Product Line | |||
| Supporting Requirements Elicitation Practices | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 306-321 | |
| Mohd Ilias M. Shuhud; Alexander Richter; Aishah Ahmad | |||
| In this paper, we examine the practices in requirements elicitation
activities from the perspective of a developer of software projects. By doing
so, we want to contribute to a better understanding of how the main activities
between stakeholders can be supported by IT, particularly social software. We
have interviewed six key persons from five different software projects and
identified the potential roles of social software to improve in five main
activities of requirements elicitation. We present these critical points in the
context of the cases and discuss them across the cases. Keywords: Requirements elicitation; practices; social software | |||