| CSCW'96 Workshops | | BIB | PDF | 1-2 | |
| Simon Kaplan; Lisa Neal | |||
| Extending CSCW into Domestic Environments | | BIBA | PDF | 1 | |
| Jon O'Brien; John Hughes; Mark Ackerman; Debby Hindus | |||
| This half-day workshop will aim to build a community of interest and research agenda around extending CSCW methods and technologies to home settings. Relevant issues include the coordination of activities in public and private spaces; shared resource technologies; distributed coordination in and between households and the role of technology in everyday life. | |||
| Approaches for Distributed Learning through Computer Supported Collaborative Learning | | BIBA | PDF | 1 | |
| Marla Capozzi; Peter Rothstein; Kathleen Curley | |||
| This half-day workshop will explore current and future CSCW tools, approaches, and methodologies for distributed learning through Computer Supported Cooperative Learning. We'll focus on understanding distributed learning in comparison with other forms of traditional and technology-supported learning as well as understanding social and cultural structures, facilitation and other factors that affect effective learning processes. | |||
| CSCW and Organizational Learning | | BIBA | PDF | 1 | |
| Liam Bannon; Giorgio De Michelis; Paal Soergaard | |||
| This workshop aims to bring together people engaged in the study of the
relationships between organizational learning and CSCW to present and discuss
their ideas and findings.
Issues will include conceptual frameworks; the role of organizational learning in getting the work done; empirical studies of the relation between organizational learning and CSCW; methods for developing applications that support organizational learning; and the relationship between studies of organizational learning and studies of organizational memory. | |||
| CSCW and the Internet | | BIBA | PDF | 1 | |
| Sara Bly; Susan Anderson | |||
| This full-day workshop will focus on understanding the range of ways in which the Internet and the Web are being used for collaboration, on the communities using it, and on how (and what) CSCW tools are appearing in this domain. The workshop will strive to characterize current on-line collaborations and their underlying technologies and to outline the implications of these for CSCW and distributed groups more generally. | |||
| Commercial Use of Meetingware | | BIBA | PDF | 1 | |
| Michele Cresmen; Robin Lampert; Kathy Ryan | |||
| This full-day workshop focuses on applications of meetingware within commercial settings. Our aim is to share information among people with experience in implementing groupware within organizations, and to share our knowledge about new meeting technologies and practices. | |||
| Introducing Groupware into Organizations: What Leads to Successes and Failures? | | BIBA | PDF | 2 | |
| Gloria Mark; Wolfgang Prinz; Volker Wulf; Vidar Hepsoe | |||
| This full-day workshop is intended for designers, researchers, and
decision-makers to discuss and compare their experiences with designing and
introducing groupware in an organizational context. Considering the impact
that groupware has had on collaboration in recent years, there are relatively
few published studies on experiences with introducing groupware. With so few
comparisons, it is difficult to develop an appropriate framework which could
guide its introduction. Yet it is important not only to understand successes
and failures with methods, but also design and methodology compromises that
groupware implementers must live with.
Workshop participants shall present and discuss their experiences with requirement analysis, design and realization, training, user support/mediation, roles in the design team, and user acceptance. One goal of the workshop is to identify commonalities between different methods associated with successes and problems in order to move in the direction of developing approaches that will benefit users in system adaptation. An important issue here will be to view the introduction of groupware as an integrated organizational and technological development, i.e., a design of technology, work, and organizations. | |||
| Integrating Personal and Community Recommendations in Collaborative Filtering | | BIBA | PDF | 2 | |
| Joseph A. Konstan; Krishna Bharat | |||
| This full-day workshop will bring together researchers and practitioners to explore techniques for integrating personal and community recommendations into CSCW systems. Personal recommendations are tailored to an individual user, while community recommendations reflect the values or tastes of a broader community of users. | |||
| Tacit Knowledge: Icebergs in Collaborative Design | | BIBA | PDF | 2 | |
| Brent N. Reeves; Frank Shipman | |||
| This full-day workshop provides a forum for discussing experiences and issues related to tacit knowledge in the use and design of collaborative systems. We invite attendees to discuss how to elicit tacit knowledge; the value of tacit knowledge to social practices; systems which support identifying, facilitating and revealing tacit knowledge; and difficulties and successes pertaining to the topic. | |||
| Strategies for Collaborative Modeling and Simulation | | BIBA | PDF | 2 | |
| Albert M. Selvin; Maarten Sierhuis | |||
| Participants will explore methods of increasing the quality and depth of cross-functional team participation in collaborative computer-supported modeling and simulation efforts. The workshop will focus on improving collaboration in approaches such as discrete event simulation, system dynamics, workflow modeling, and others. | |||
| Design and Use of MUDs for Serious Purposes | | BIBA | PDF | 2 | |
| Yvonne Wærn; Daniel Pargman | |||
| This workshop will investigate MUDs and their relationship to other CSCW systems, with a special focus on design issues. We will explore MUDs now available on the Internet, the role of users in MUD design, evaluation methods, and visions of the future. | |||
| Widening the Net: The Theory and Practice of Physical and Electronic Communities | | BIBA | PDF | 2 | |
| Steve Whittaker; Ellen Isaacs; Vicki O'Day | |||
| This 1.5 day workshop will bring together designers and researchers working on on-line communities, to discuss: (a) Existing understanding of real-world communities; (b) Experiences with the behaviour, implementation and design of on-line communities; (c) Lessons from "traditional" CSCW systems. We will develop design goals for such communities and identify outstanding research issues. | |||
| CSCW'96 Tutorials | | BIB | PDF | 3-6 | |
| Lee Sproull; Amy Pearl | |||
| An Introduction to the Internet and How It Can be Used for Collaboration for K-12 Teachers | | BIBA | PDF | 3 | |
| Nicole Yankelovich | |||
| This tutorial will provide a simple overview of the Internet for K-12 teachers with no Internet experience. It will demonstrate many useful resources that teachers can find on the Internet to use directly in their classrooms or in working with other teachers. It will explain how to get started using the Internet and will provide free admission to The Boston Computer Museum. | |||
| CSCW Overview | | BIBA | PDF | 3 | |
| Jonathan Grudin; Steven E. Poltrock; John Patterson | |||
| To provide an organized and entertaining overview of the world of CSCW for
newcomers to the field. We will offer a framework for understanding CSCW as a
research domain, a management opportunity, and a business challenge. We will
analyze some of the great successes and great disasters in CSCW.
We will provide an overview of the CSCW conference, including Sunday's tutorial program, and will suggest how to learn more about CSCW. We will conclude with refreshments and an opportunity to meet many of the conference participants. | |||
| CSCW, Groupware and Workflow: Experiences, State of Art and Future Trends | | BIBA | PDF | 3 | |
| Steven E. Poltrock; Jonathan Grudin | |||
| This tutorial draws on the experiences of the participants and instructors
with groupware and workflow technologies, and with CSCW issues and methods, to
construct an informed picture of what is happening and possible.
To lectures and video-taped illustrations of commercial systems and research prototypes we have added structured subgroup activity by participants. We cover the multi-disciplinary nature of CSCW; emerging groupware products and research that support communication, collaboration, and coordination; and behavioral, social, and organizational challenges to developing, acquiring, or using these technologies, and approaches that can lead to success. | |||
| Using the Java Programming Environment to Build Collaborative Applications | | BIBA | PDF | 3 | |
| Jim Waldo | |||
| The morning session will focus on the Java language, Java safety and security, and the Java object model. The afternoon session will focus on doing collaborative applications in the Java environment, emphasizing such class libraries as those for remote method invocation, object serialization, and multi-media presentation and collaboration. | |||
| Designing and Implementing Collaborative Applications | | BIBA | PDF | 4 | |
| Prasun Dewan | |||
| This tutorial will address the design and implementation of collaborative
applications. The design space will be described using the dimensions of
session management, coupling, user awareness, and undo/redo.
We will examine tools for building collaborative applications including shared window systems, toolkits, and object-oriented frameworks. Then we will examine the implementation space of collaborative applications using the dimensions of layering, replication, distribution, concurrency, collaboration awareness, and algorithms for supporting consistency. At the end of the tutorial, the audience will be able to understand the motivation for collaborative applications, summarize important parts of the collaboration design and implementation space, and identify and compare collaborative architectures and tools. | |||
| Developing Collaborative Applications Using the World Wide Web Shell | | BIBA | PDF | 4 | |
| Alison Lee; Andreas Girgensohn | |||
| The tutorial discusses how to develop collaborative applications using the WWW Shell as a rapid prototyping and development platform. Using an example collaborative application, we introduce particular development topics to illustrate the suitability of the WWW Shell and its use. Also, we discuss recent additions in functionality as well as constraints with the WWW Shell approach. | |||
| An Introduction to Distributed Cognition: Analyzing the Organizational, the Social and the Cognitive for Designing and Implementing CSCW Applications | | BIBA | PDF | 4 | |
| Christine Halverson; Yvonne Rogers | |||
| This tutorial will give a detailed overview of the theoretical and methodological framework of distributed cognition. Detailed case studies will be presented to demonstrate how it can be applied to the design and implementation of CSCW systems. Participants will then put into practice the theory and methodology through hands-on group exercises using video material of actual and hypothetical work settings. | |||
| Working through Meetings: A Framework for Designing Meeting Support | | BIBA | PDF | 4 | |
| John Bennett; John Karat | |||
| Through this tutorial, participants will: understand distinctions among various types of meetings and the role of various types of conversations in successful meetings; understand the importance of partnership for achieving team results in meetings; formulate plans for successful technological support for meetings. Participants will experience, through a series of connected exercises, an ad hoc meeting designed to highlight what is important about meetings. Out of this experience, various theories that apply to meetings will become relevant. From an integration of experience and theory, we will explore how technology can be used innovatively and effectively to support meetings. | |||
| Asynchronous Learning Networks: The Theory and Practice of Collaborative Learning Online | | BIBA | PDF | 5 | |
| Starr Roxanne Hiltz; Murray Turoff | |||
| This tutorial will survey major efforts in asynchronous learning networks and will explore detailed examples of successful projects at the college and K-12 levels. It will then consider a variety of practical issues including steps for putting classes on-line; how to function as an "electronic professor"; how to handle logistical issues. The tutorial will conclude with a discussion of probable developments in the next ten years. | |||
| Ethnography and Systems Development: Bounding the Intersection | | BIBA | PDF | 5 | |
| Dave Randall; Mark Roucefield | |||
| Participants will learn the relevance of ethnographic analysis for capturing social complexity and its relationship to other social investigation methods for systems development in cooperative environments in the morning session. The afternoon session will specify and elaborate the problems inherent in integrating ethnographic methods with systems development. These problems will be highlighted through examination of data from the instructors' own research in air traffic control and retail financial services. | |||
| A Hands-On Introduction to Collaborative Filtering | | BIBA | PDF | 5 | |
| Brad Miller; John Riedl | |||
| The morning session will introduce the concepts of information filtering develop a taxonomy of the techniques used and take a detailed look at present and historical applications of collaborative filtering technology. The afternoon session will investigate design issues including algorithms for making recommendations, obtaining user ratings, privacy, communications, and data storage. | |||
| Cooperative Information Systems: A Research Agenda | | BIBA | PDF | 5 | |
| Matthais Jarke; John Mylopoulos | |||
| The tutorial proposes a generic architecture for Cooperative Information Systems which consists of four layers: the system layer which includes legacy systems, a system integration layer, a human cooperation layer, and an organizational layer. For each, the tutorial will review fundamental concepts, promising research directions, and open questions. The concepts will be illustrated with detailed case studies from production and service industries and with results from ongoing research efforts. | |||
| Behavioral Evaluation of CSCW Technologies | | BIBA | PDF | 5 | |
| Tom Finholt; Gary Olson; Judy Olson | |||
| Evaluating CSCW systems is much more difficult than evaluating single-user
systems because of the additional group and organizational factors. Behavioral
evaluation consists of having people use CSCW technologies under appropriate
conditions and gathering either qualitative or quantitative information about
their behavior.
We will examine a variety of methods, including case studies, large scale field studies, surveys, and laboratory studies. | |||
| Community Networks | | BIBA | PDF | 6 | |
| John Carroll; Carmen Sears | |||
| This tutorial will survey community networks (such as Berkeley community
Memory and the Cleveland Freenet) focusing on how they may impact human
activities and institutions.
The tutorial offers a tour of the Blacksburg Electronic Village both to demonstrate one networked community in action and to illustrate important design decisions for any networked community. | |||
| Networking for Collaboration: Video Telephony and Media Conferencing | | BIBA | PDF | 6 | |
| Rob Fish; Bob Kraut | |||
| This tutorial will explain how video/audio networks are built and how they are typically used. An introduction to the concepts and terminology of video, audio, digital compression, transmission networks, and station equipment is provided. Participants can expect to learn what people like and dislike about these systems, and the avenues that are being explored to overcome their shortcomings. | |||
| Law in Cyberspace | | BIBA | PDF | 6 | |
| David Post | |||
| The tutorial will explore the following issues regarding law on the global network: copyright and trademark law, privacy, free speech and "obscenity," defamation, protection of proprietary interests in factual data, and computer contracts. | |||
| Business Process Reengineering and its Role in Developing CSCW Applications | | BIBA | PDF | 6 | |
| Frank von Martial | |||
| This tutorial provides an introduction into Business Process Reengineering (BPR) on its own and as a technique for developing CSCW applications. It will address such questions as: How can the workflow in a customer oriented organization be modeled? What are the implications for business process management systems? | |||
| GroupWeb: A Groupware Web Browser | | BIBA | PDF | 7 | |
| Saul Greenberg; Mark Roseman | |||
| GroupWeb is a prototype browser that allows group members to visually share and navigate World Wide Web pages in real time. Its groupware features include document and view slaving for synchronizing information sharing, telepointers for enacting gestures, and relaxed "what you see is what I see" views to handle display differences. A groupware text editor lets groups create and attach annotations to pages. An immediate application of GroupWeb is as a presentation tool for real time distance education and conferencing. The video illustrates GroupWeb and all its features. | |||
| ARGUS: An Active Awareness System Using Computer-Controlled Multiple Cameras | | BIBA | PDF | 7 | |
| Tomoaki Kawai; Yuichi Bannai; Hideyuki Tamura | |||
| ARGUS is a prototype system which achieves awareness before starting face-to-face communication by utilizing multiple far-end controllable cameras on a broadband network. A user desiring awareness information can change camera directions and angular fields of view at will in order to get the desired image. We call this active control of cameras to acquire awareness information "active awareness." Camera locations and viewing fields can be quickly grasped by camera icons on the Map Viewer, which shows the actual office layout. ARGUS has a merit to provide both wide area views and close, detailed views via the control of remote cameras. However, the privacy of people may be violated, for example, through extreme magnification. Therefore, it is very important to carefully consider the camera placement and usage. We have modeled office environments and have introduced two camera types: private cameras and public cameras. The aim of the former type is to catch a personal view whereas the aim of the latter type is to monitor common spaces. To protect privacy, ARGUS has several levels of access restrictions for each of these camera types. In this video, we describe the policy and implementation of ARGUS from the viewpoints of user interface and privacy. | |||
| InterSpace Project -- CyberCampus | | BIBA | PDF | 7 | |
| Shohei Sugawara; Norihiko Matsuura; Yoichi Kato; Keiichi Sasaki; Michita Imai; Takashi Yamana; Yasuyuki Kiyosue; Kazunori Shimamura; Tomoaki Tanaka; Takashi Nishimura; Carol Leick; Tim Takeuchi; Gen Suzuki | |||
| InterSpace is a revolutionary communication environment that allows users
the flexibility of multi-modal interaction. People in InterSpace communicate
using audio as well as video interaction in a three dimensional world. Remote
terminals are connected to a central server via networks. Facial image, audio,
and proximity, are processed and sent out to the remote terminals to enable
multi-modal communication in a virtual world. InterSpace technology comes a
step closer to bridging the gap between virtual reality and real world
experiences. We conducted a trial service, CyberCampus, based on the
InterSpace platform. Individual actions can now be shared with other users as
you explore, talk, shop, learn, and experience the many facets of CyberCampus.
Environments related to entertainment, distance learning, on-line shopping, and
advertisement are currently being explored in CyberCampus with unlimited
expansion capabilities.
CyberCampus debuted in September 1995 and has been hosted by several universities and businesses in the San Francisco area. Preliminary usage suggests that multi-user, multi-modal interaction has a prominent role in the future of telecommunications. | |||
| Prairie: A Conceptual Framework for a Virtual Organization | | BIBA | PDF | 8 | |
| Stephen H. Sato; Anatole V. Gershman; Kishore S. Swaminathan | |||
| Prairie is a simulation prototype or vision, demonstrating how individuals may work together in a virtual work environment designed for a whole enterprise. Prairie addresses various organizational and social issues exacerbated by distance and time. By using the concept of communities and by extending physical interaction cues to others across distance and time, we demonstrate possible solutions to these issues. In Prairie, people and information are organized into communities. The communities are organized into mission-based (organizational units), goal-based (project teams) and interest-based (special interest groups) hierarchies for ease of navigation. A worker may alternately navigate to communities by using personal links from their private virtual desktops. Each community has two areas. One area contains the information germane to a community, that is pushed or pulled depending on the nature of the information. Each community also has an area with a shared view where community members can meet or congregate. Presence in these community areas range from seeing thumbnail photos to holding a video-conference. The shared view facilitates ad hoc, informal interactions which are important for maintaining and building social networks and organizational culture. We believe the framework for Prairie is flexible, integrated, and scaleable so it can be adapted to model other organizations, communities, and processes. | |||
| Supporting Workspace Awareness in Groupware | | BIBA | PDF | 8 | |
| Carl Gutwin; Saul Greenberg; Mark Roseman | |||
| Real-time groupware systems often let each participant control their own view into a shared workspace. However, when collaborators do not share the same view they lose their awareness about where and how others are interacting with the workspace artifacts. We have designed a number of add-on awareness windows that help people regain this awareness. Two general strategies and several variations are illustrated in this video that extend work done in a few other groupware systems. First, radar overviews shrink the entire workspace to fit within a single window. Awareness is indicated by overlaying the overview with boxes representing others' viewports, by telepointers that show where they are working, and by seeing changes to objects in the workspace as they are made. The workspace can be represented within the radar overview as a scaled miniature, by stylized objects, or by its semantic structure. Second, two types of detailed views show some or all of what another person can see, providing awareness of fine-grained details of others' actions. | |||
| Applying Distortion-Oriented Displays to Groupware | | BIBA | PDF | 8-9 | |
| Saul Greenberg; Carl Gutwin; Andrew Cockburn | |||
| Real time groupware systems are now moving away from strict view-sharing and towards relaxed "what-you-see-is-what-I-see" interfaces, where distributed participants in a real time session can view different parts of a shared visual workspace. As with strict view-sharing, people using relaxed-WYSIWIS require a sense of workspace awareness -- the up-to-the-minute knowledge about another person's interactions with the shared workspace. The problem is deciding how to provide a user with an appropriate level of awareness of what other participants are doing when they are working in different areas of the workspace. In this video, we illustrate distortion oriented displays as a novel way of providing this awareness. These displays, which employ magnification lenses and fisheye view techniques, show global context and local detail within a single window, provide both peripheral and detailed awareness of other participants' actions. Three prototypes are presented as examples of groupware distortion-oriented displays. The head-up lens uses a see-through lens to show full-sized local detail in the foreground, and a miniature overview showing global context in the background. The offset lens employs a magnifying lens to show detail over a miniature overview. The fisheye text viewer provides people with detail of what everyone is doing through multiple focal points, one for each participant. | |||
| GestureCam: A Video Communication System to Support Spatial Workspace Collaboration | | BIBA | PDF | 9 | |
| Hideaki Kuzuoka; Gen Ishimoda; Yushi Nishimura; Yoshihiro Nakada | |||
| In this paper, the collaboration in the real three-dimensional environment is defined as spatial workspace collaboration, and an experimental system, GestureCam, is presented which supports spatial workspace collaboration via a video-mediated communication. The GestureCam system has an ability to look around a remote site, an ability of remote pointing, and an ability to support gaze awareness, all of which are the essential system requirements for spatial workspace collaboration. The GestureCam consists of an actuator with three degrees of freedom and a video camera mounted on the actuator. The actuators can be controlled by a master-slave method, by a touch-sensitive CRT, or by a gyro sensor. Also, a laser pointer is mounted on an actuator to assist remote pointing. The experiments with human subjects are also shown in the video. | |||
| MAJIC and DesktopMAJIC Conferencing System | | BIBA | PDF | 9 | |
| Ken-ichi Okada; Shunsuke Tanaka; Yutaka Matsushita | |||
| This video shows a multiparty videoconferencing system "MAJIC" and a
multiparty desktop conferencing system "DesktopMAJIC". MAJIC is composed of 2
video cameras, 2 video projectors, a one-way transparent screen, and a tilted
workstation forming a desk. Life-size video images of participants are
projected without boundaries onto a large curved screen as if users in remote
locations are sitting around a table attending a meeting together. MAJIC
supports gaze awareness and multiple eye-contact among the participants.
Moreover, a shared work space is provided at the center, enabling users to
carry on a discussion in a manner comparable to face-to-face meetings.
Although MAJIC is very effective, it needs a high speed network and special facilities. DesktopMAJIC is implemented on a conventional computer workstation, and supports pseudo gaze awareness and pseudo hand action. Still-picture portraits of the user in 9 different gaze directions are sent to every DesktopMAJIC in advance, and an appropriate one is dynamically selected during the conference to reflect where the user is paying attention. Moreover, other participants' mouse cursors on the shared application window are linked to their portrait window, allowing each user to intuitively see which cursor belongs to whom. Since DesktopMAJIC does not need a high speed network, it may work smoothly even in a telephone or wireless network environment. | |||
| Collaborative Wearable Systems Research and Evaluation | | BIBA | PDF | 9-10 | |
| Jane Siegel; Robert E. Kraut; Mark D. Miller; David J. Kaplan; Malcolm Bauer | |||
| An interdisciplinary research group at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is investigating the design and usefulness of mobile CSCW systems for the support of distributed diagnosis, repair, and redesign of large vehicles, such as aircraft and trains. These systems incorporate diagnostic aids, online maintenance manuals, schematic drawings, and telecommunications that allow workers to access both stored information and interactive help from remote experts. This videotape illustrates the problem area and some wearable computer prototypes. It describes some of the field work we have done documenting the value of collaboration when workers are diagnosing and repairing complex equipment. Our laboratory experiments investigate whether wireless video capabilities are useful. One prototype incorporates both shared computer-based information (an on-line repair manual) and a shared view of the non-computerized work space (a video feed from a head-mounted camera). Experiments so far show that communication with a remote expert improves the speed and quality of repairs, but that shared video does not. Video does, however, affect how collaborators coordinate their behavior, for example by allowing a pair to be less verbally explicit. The videotape illustrates how a collaborative pair can exploit both shared data sources to communicate more effectively. | |||
| The MIT Design Studio of the Future: Virtual Design Review | | BIBA | PDF | 10 | |
| Seraj Bharwani | |||
| The MIT Design Studio of the Future is an interdisciplinary effort to focus
on geographically distributed electronic design and work group collaboration
issues. The physical elements of this virtual studio comprise networked
computer and videoconferencing connections among electronic design studios at
MIT in Civil and Environmental Engineering, Architecture and Planning,
Mechanical Engineering, the Lab for Computer Science, and the Rapid Prototyping
Lab, with WAN and other electronic connections to industry partners and
sponsors to take advantage of non-local expertise and to introduce real design
and construction and manufacturing problems into the equation. This prototype
collaborative design network is known as StudioNet.
The project is looking at aspects of the design process to determine how advanced technologies impact the process. The first experiment within the electronic studio setting was the "virtual design review", wherein jurors for the final design review were located in geographically distributed sites. The video captures the results of that project, as does a paper recently published in the journal Architectural Research Quarterly (Cambridge, UK; Vol. 1, No. 2; Dec. 1995). | |||
| From Electronic Whiteboards to Distributed Meetings: Extending the Scope of DOLPHIN | | BIBA | PDF | 10 | |
| Ajit Bapat; Jorg Geisler; David Hicks; Norbert Streitz; Daniel Tietze | |||
| This video demonstrates different aspects of the DOLPHIN cooperative
hypermedia environment in the context of electronic meeting rooms. There are
three parts. First, the basic functionality of DOLPHIN for electronic
whiteboards is demonstrated. This includes the pen-based user-interface for
creating informal structures such as scribbling, freehand sketching, and the
creation of nodes and links. Interaction for frequently used operations is
based on gesture-recognition. Second, it shows how DOLPHIN supports different
aspects of meetings including the processes in the pre-, in-, and post-meeting
phases. During the meeting, participants can use computers mounted in the
meeting room table. Thus, everybody can access and modify information on the
public space displayed on the whiteboard while sitting at the table. They can
also engage in parallel private work which can be shared with the group later
on. The third part demonstrates how DOLPHIN can be used to support meetings
between two groups in physically distributed meeting rooms. Shared workspaces
are complemented by audio/ video connections between the rooms. It is noted
that DOLPHIN can also be used in distributed desktop-based situations.
Streitz, N., Geissler, J. Haake, J., Hol, J. (1994). DOLPHIN: Integrated meeting support across LiveBoards, local and remote desktop environments. Proceedings of CSCW'94, pp.345-358. | |||
| Policies and Roles in Collaborative Applications | | BIBAK | PDF | 11-20 | |
| W. Keith Edwards | |||
| Collaborative systems provide a rich but potentially chaotic environment for
their users. This paper presents a system that allows users to control
collaboration by enacting policies that serve as general guidelines to restrict
and define the behavior of the system in reaction to the state of the world.
Policies are described in terms of access control rights on data objects, and
are assigned to groups of users called roles. Roles represent not only
statically-defined collections of users, but also dynamic descriptions of users
that are evaluated as applications are run. This run-time aspect of roles
allows them to react flexibly to the dynamism inherent in collaboration. We
present a specification language for describing roles and policies, as well as
a number of common "real-world" policies that can be applied to collaborative
settings. Keywords: Computer-supported cooperative work, Policies, Roles, Infrastructure, Access
control, Intermezzo | |||
| DCWPL: A Programming Language for Describing Collaborative Work | | BIBAK | PDF | 21-29 | |
| Mauricio Cortes; Prateek Mishra | |||
| A difficult issue in the development of groupware applications is the
specification of control and coordination mechanisms to handle the execution of
common tasks on shared resources. The definition of these mechanisms depend on
several factors, such as the current group of participants, their shared
resources, tasks, and goals. These factors can change dynamically requiring
coordination mechanisms to be updated at runtime.
We propose that a collaborative program be divided into two main components, a computational program that models the shareable artifacts (e.g. pen, blackboard), and a coordination program that specifies the way these artifacts need to be shared. The main advantage of this approach is that coordination programs can be easily modified, often without any change to the computational program. We are developing a coordination language and its runtime interpreter that allows the specification of coordination mechanisms separately from computational programs. Keywords: CSCW, Groupware, Programming languages, Coordination, Reengineering,
Distributed systems | |||
| Designing Object-Oriented Synchronous Groupware with COAST | | BIBAK | PDF | 30-38 | |
| Christian Schuckmann; Lutz Kirchner; Jan Schummer; Jorg M. Haake | |||
| This paper introduces COAST, an object-oriented toolkit for the development
of synchronous groupware, which enhances the usability and simplifies the
development of such applications. COAST offers basic and generic components
for the design of synchronous groupware and is complemented by a methodology
for groupware development. Basic features of the toolkit include
transaction-controlled access to replicated shared objects, transparent
replication management, and a fully optimistic concurrency control.
Development support is provided by a session concept supporting the flexible
coupling of shared objects' aspects between concurrent users and by a fully
transparent updating concept for displays which is based on declarative
programming. Keywords: Toolkit, Synchronous collaboration, Groupware, Replicated objects, Sessions,
Display updating, Concurrency control | |||
| Identifying and Analyzing Multiple Threads in Computer-Mediated and Face-to-Face Conversations | | BIBAK | PDF | 39-47 | |
| Susan E. McDaniel; Gary M. Olson; Joseph C. Magee | |||
| We compared face-to-face (FTF) and computer-mediated (CMC) conversations
among small groups of scientists carrying out data collection campaigns. We
found multiple threads of conversation in both settings, but this was much more
extensive in the CMC cases. The two kinds of conversation were very similar in
content and nature of participation, but differed in their temporal flow. The
software that supported the CMC conversations allowed interactions that were
quite similar in character to the FTF situations. The low incidence of thread
confusions and the potential value of overhearing useful conversations does not
seem to warrant providing technology in the CMC situation to split apart
conversational threads. Keywords: Collaboratory, Computer-mediated communication, Multiple threads of
discourse | |||
| Voice Loops as Cooperative Aids in Space Shuttle Mission Control | | BIBAK | PDF | 48-56 | |
| Jennifer C. Watts; David D. Woods; James M. Corban; Emily S. Patterson; Ronald L. Kerr; LaDessa C. Hicks | |||
| In domains like air traffic management, aircraft carrier operations, and
space mission control, practitioners coordinate their activities through voice
loops that allow communication among groups of people who are spatially
separate. Voice loops have evolved into essential coordination support tools
for experienced practitioners in space shuttle mission control, as well as
other domains. We describe how voice loops support the coordination of
activities and cognitive processes in event-driven domains like space shuttle
mission control. We discuss how the loops help flight controllers synchronize
their activities and integrate information, and how they facilitate directed
communication and support the negotiation of interruptions. In addition, we
suggest factors like attentional cues, implicit protocols, and the structure
and features of the loops, which might govern the success of voice loops in the
mission control domain. Our results should provide insight into the important
functions that should be considered in the development of systems intended to
support cooperative work. Keywords: Voice loops, Space shuttle mission control, Control rooms, Coordination,
Ethnography | |||
| Collaboration in Performance of Physical Tasks: Effects on Outcomes and Communication | | BIBAK | PDF | 57-66 | |
| Robert E. Kraut; Mark D. Miller; Jane Siegel | |||
| We report an empirical study of people using mobile collaborative systems to
support maintenance tasks on a bicycle. Results show that field workers make
repairs more quickly and accurately when they have a remote expert helping
them. Some pairs were connected by a shared video system, where the video
camera focused on the active workspace and they communicated with full duplex
audio. For other pairs, either the video was eliminated or the audio was
reduced to half duplex (but not both). Pairs' success at collaboration did not
vary with the communication technology. However, the manner in which they
coordinated advice-giving did vary with the communication technology. In
particular, help was more proactive and coordination was less explicit when the
pairs had video connections. The results show the value of collaboration, but
raise questions about the interaction of communication media and conversational
coordination on task performance. Keywords: Wearable computers, Empirical studies, Collaborative work, Conversation,
Media effects, Vehicle maintenance | |||
| Re-Place-ing Space: The Roles of Place and Space in Collaborative Systems | | BIBAK | PDF | 67-76 | |
| Steve Harrison; Paul Dourish | |||
| Many collaborative and communicative environments use notions of "space" and
spatial organisation to facilitate and structure interaction. We argue that a
focus on spatial models is misplaced. Drawing on understandings from
architecture and urban design, as well as from our own research findings, we
highlight the critical distinction between "space" and "place". While
designers use spatial models to support interaction, we show how it is actually
a notion of "place" which frames interactive behaviour. This leads us to
re-evaluate spatial systems, and discuss how "place", rather than "space", can
support CSCW design. Keywords: Space, Place, Media space, Virtual reality, MUDs, Metaphor | |||
| Shared Spaces: Transportation, Artificiality, and Spatiality | | BIBAK | PDF | 77-86 | |
| Steve Benford; Chris Brown; Gail Reynard; Chris Greenhalgh | |||
| We review current spatial approaches to CSCW (mediaspaces, spatial video
conferencing, collaborative virtual environments and telepresence) and classify
them along the proposed dimensions of transportation, artificiality and
spatiality. This classification leads us to identify new shared space
applications; so called mixed realities. We present an example of a mixed
reality called the Internet Foyer, an application which provides a unified
entry point into an organisation's physical and electronic environments and
which supports awareness and chance encounters between the occupants of
physical and synthetic space. Keywords: Shared spaces, Virtual reality, Mediaspaces | |||
| Populating the Application: A Model of Awareness for Cooperative Applications | | BIBAK | PDF | 87-96 | |
| Tom Rodden | |||
| This paper presents a model of awareness for shared cooperative
applications. The model developed in this paper takes as its starting point a
previous spatial model of interaction. A more general model is suggested that
allows the action of users to be represented and made available to other users
of the application. The developed model exploits the partitioning of space
inherent within the spatial model to allow its application to non-spatial
applications. The general applicability of the model is demonstrated by
considering a range of different interpretations across a number of cooperative
applications. Keywords: Information sharing, Awareness, Cooperative systems infrastructure | |||
| Answer Garden 2: Merging Organizational Memory with Collaborative Help | | BIBAK | PDF | 97-105 | |
| Mark S. Ackerman; David W. McDonald | |||
| This research examines a collaborative solution to a common problem, that of
providing help to distributed users. The Answer Garden 2 system provides a
second-generation architecture for organizational and community memory
applications. After describing the need for Answer Garden 2's functionality,
we describe the architecture of the system and two underlying systems, the Cafe
ConstructionKit and Collaborative Refinery. We also present detailed
descriptions of the collaborative help and collaborative refining facilities in
the Answer Garden 2 system. Keywords: Computer-supported cooperative work, Organizational memory, Community
memory, Corporate memory, Group memory, Information refining, Information
retrieval, Information access, Information systems, CMC, Computer-mediated
communications, Help, Collaborative help, CSCW | |||
| Using Frequency-of-Mention in Public Conversations for Social Filtering | | BIBAK | PDF | 106-112 | |
| Will Hill; Loren Terveen | |||
| We report on an investigation of using Usenet newsgroups for social
filtering of Web resources. Our main empirical results are: (1) for the period
of May '96 to Jul '96, about 23% of Usenet news messages mention Web resources,
(2) 19% of resource mentions are recommendations (as opposed, e.g., to home
pages), (3) we can automatically recognize recommendations with at least 90%
accuracy, and (4) in some newsgroups, certain resources are mentioned
significantly more frequently than others and thus appear to play a central
role for that community. We have created a Web site that summarizes the most
frequently and recently mentioned Web resources for 1400 newsgroups. Keywords: Human-computer interaction, Human interface, Computer-supported cooperative
work, Organizational computing, Social filtering, Collaborative filtering,
Browsing, Resource discovery, World Wide Web, Usenet, Netnews | |||
| CLUES: Dynamic Personalized Message Filtering | | BIBAK | PDF | 113-121 | |
| Matthew Marx; Chris Schmandt | |||
| Workgroups that defy traditional boundaries require successful communication
among people whose interests, schedules, and locations may differ and are
likely to change rapidly. CLUES is a dynamic personalized message filter that
facilitates effective communication by prioritizing voice and text messages
using personal information found in an individual's work environment. CLUES
infers message timeliness by considering calendar appointments, outgoing
messages and phone calls, and by correlating these "clues" via a personal
rolodex. Experience shows that CLUES can be especially useful to mobile users
with high message traffic who often access their messages over the telephone. Keywords: Messaging, Electronic mail, Voice mail, Filtering, Personal information
management | |||
| Notification Servers for Synchronous Groupware | | BIBAK | PDF | 122-129 | |
| John F. Patterson; Mark Day; Jakov Kucan | |||
| We introduce the Notification Service Transfer Protocol (NSTP), which
provides a simple, common service for sharing state in synchronous multi-user
applications. A Notification Server provides items of shared state to a
collection of clients and notifies the clients whenever one of the items
changes. The division between client and server in this system is unusual; the
centralized state is uninterpreted by the server. Instead, the responsibility
for semantics and processing falls on the clients, which collude to implement
the application. After describing NSTP, we differentiate it from other systems
in terms of the four design principles that have guided its development. Keywords: Synchronous groupware, Multi-user applications, Groupware infrastructure,
Client server architectures, Notification, Protocol, Design principles,
Performance, State sharing | |||
| A Protocol for User Awareness on the World Wide Web | | BIBAK | PDF | 130-139 | |
| Kevin Palfreyman; Tom Rodden | |||
| This paper presents the development of an open awareness protocol for the
world wide web. The protocol is intended to convey the presence of users to
other web users. To encourage uptake of the systems the protocol adheres to
the principles that made the world wide web a success, simplicity and openness.
An initial version of the protocol is presented along with servers realising
the protocol. The paper concludes by showing how the awareness information can
support both 2D and 3D presentations of the World Wide Web. Keywords: Protocol, World Wide Web, Awareness, Client-server, CSCW | |||
| Corona: A Communication Service for Scalable, Reliable Group Collaboration Systems | | BIBAK | PDF | 140-149 | |
| Robert W. Hall; Amit Mathur; Farnam Jahanian; Atul Prakash; Craig Rasmussen | |||
| We consider the problem of providing communication protocol support for
large-scale group collaboration systems for use in environments such as the
Internet which are subject to packet loss, wide variations in end-to-end
delays, and transient partitions. We identify a set of requirements that are
critical for the design of such group collaboration systems. These include
dynamic awareness notifications, reliable data delivery, and scalability to
large numbers of users. We present a communication service, Corona, that
attempts to meet these requirements. Corona supports two communication
paradigms: the publish-subscribe paradigm and the peer group paradigm. We
present the interfaces provided by Corona to applications which are based on
these paradigms. We describe the semantics of each interface method call and
show how they can help meet the above requirements. Keywords: CSCW, Awareness, Groupware, Communication services, Publish-subscribe, Peer
group, Multicast, Java | |||
| Evolutionary Engagement in an Ongoing Collaborative Work Process: A Case Study | | BIBAK | PDF | 150-159 | |
| Thomas P. Moran; Patrick Chiu; Steve Harrison; Gordon Kurtenbach; Scott Minneman; William van Melle | |||
| We describe a case study in which experimental collaboration technologies
was used for over two years in the real, ongoing work process of intellectual
property management (IPM) at Xerox PARC. The technologies include
LiveBoard-based meeting support tools, laptop notetaking tools, digital audio
recording, and workstation tools to later access and replay the meeting
activities. In cooperation with the IPM manager, both the work process and the
tools were continuously evolved to improve the process. We supported and
observed over 60 meetings, leading to a rich set of empirical observations of
the meeting activities. We note some practical lessons for this research
approach. Keywords: Activity capture, Audio recording, Co-development, Evolutionary engagement,
LiveBoard, Meeting support tools, Notetaking, Salvaging, Work process support | |||
| The Social-Technical Design Circle | | BIBAK | 160-169 | |
| Vicki L. O'Day; Daniel G. Bobrow; Mark Shirley | |||
| Computer systems developed for groups of people often have built-in social
imperatives, either explicitly or implicitly brought to bear during technology
design and use. Even when users are active, ongoing participants in design,
conflicts can arise between the social assumptions inscribed in technical
mechanisms and those in existing or proposed social practices, resulting in
changes to both. This paper describes the joint evolution of tools and social
practices in Pueblo, a school-centered learning community supported by a MOO
(an Internet-accessible virtual world). Examples illustrate how one can design
and use a social practice to simplify a technical implementation, and how one
can make a choice in technical implementation to work towards a desirable
social goal. Social and technical practices in a network community co-evolve
as social values and policies become clearer and as growth in the community
pushes it toward changes in the distribution of authority and power. Keywords: Network community, Educational MOO, CSCW design, Work practice,
Participatory design | |||
| Hypermedia Structures and the Division of Labor in Meeting Room Collaboration | | BIBAK | PDF | 170-179 | |
| Gloria Mark; Jorg M. Haake; Norbert A. Streitz | |||
| The type of collaboration for a group, whether working in parallel or
collectively, is a style for a group influenced by many factors, among them the
technology that the group works with. In an empirical study using the DOLPHIN
system, we focused on the effect that using hypermedia structures in an
electronic meeting room had on collaborative style. We found that groups who
created documents using hypermedia were: 1) more likely to divide up their
labor and work in parallel, and 2) to have a slower frequency of switching
between the task phases of planning and developing ideas. We present a model
to explain this effect of hypermedia on task division which suggests the
involvement of mechanical and semantic components. We also discuss how DOLPHIN
supports awareness of others people's activities for a parallel collaborative
style. Keywords: Collaborative work, Collaborative style, Electronic meeting room, Electronic
whiteboard, Hypermedia user-interface, Group process, Task division, Empirical
studies | |||
| Generalized Process Structure Grammars (GPSG) for Flexible Representations of Work | | BIBA | PDF | 180-189 | |
| Natalie S. Glance; Daniele S. Pagani; Remo Pareschi | |||
| The promise of workflow solutions for coordinating organizational processes is currently being obscured by strong criticism of the rigidity of their work representations. This rigidity arises in part from viewing work processes as unfolding along a single line of temporally chained activities. In reality, work evolves both horizontally, in the cooperation of causally unrelated, but information-sharing tasks, and vertically, in the coordination of causally-dependent activities. In this paper, we present our process modeling approach which (1) views documents and tasks as duals of each other, capturing horizontal cooperation; and (2) exploits constraints to express the soft dependencies among related activities and documents within the framework of generative rule-based grammars for processes, thus handling vertical coordination. | |||
| Freeflow: Mediating Between Representation and Action in Workflow Systems | | BIBAK | PDF | 190-198 | |
| Paul Dourish; Jim Holmes; Allan MacLean; Pernille Marqvardsen; Alex Zbyslaw | |||
| In order to understand some problems associated with workflow, we set out an
analysis of workflow systems, identifying a number of basic issues in the
underlying technology. This points to the conflation of temporal and
dependency information as the source of a number of these problems.
We describe Freeflow, a prototype which addresses these problems using a variety of technical innovations, including a rich constraint-based process modelling formalism, and the use of declarative dependency relationships. Its focus is on mediation between process and action, rather than the enactment of a process. We outline the system and its design principles, and illustrate the features of our approach with examples from ongoing work. Keywords: Workflow, Process support, Process description, Constraints, Dependencies,
Temporal organisation | |||
| Support for Workflows in a Ministerial Environment | | BIBAK | PDF | 199-208 | |
| Wolfgang Prinz; Sabine Kolvenbach | |||
| This paper presents the POLITeam solutions and experiences with the support
of ministerial workflows by electronic circulation folders. An application
scenario is presented that illustrates the user actions and cooperation that
occur during the processing of a ministerial workflow. This scenario is
afterwards examined to identify essential requirements for a computer based
support of such processes. Based on that this paper describes the design of an
electronic circulation folder and how this is augmented by a support for
digital signatures, the integration of paper documents and a video conferencing
system to satisfy the major user requirements. Keywords: Workflow, Electronic circulation folder, Shared workspaces, Digital
signatures, Participatory design | |||
| Walking Away from the Desktop Computer: Distributed Collaboration and Mobility in a Product Design Team | | BIBAK | PDF | 209-218 | |
| Victoria Bellotti; Sara Bly | |||
| A study of a spatially distributed product design team shows that most
members are rarely at their individual desks. Mobility is essential for the
use of shared resources and for communication. It facilitates informal
interactions and awareness unavailable to colleagues at remote sites.
Implications for technology design include portable and distributed computing
resources, in particular moving beyond individual workstation-centric CSCW
applications. Keywords: Distributed collaboration, Field study, Mobility, Communication, Awareness | |||
| Getting Others to Get It Right: An Ethnography of Design Work in the Fashion Industry | | BIBAK | PDF | 219-228 | |
| James Pycock; John Bowers | |||
| This paper reports an ethnographic study of design work in the fashion
industry. Contrary to many images of fashion design, in this setting, it is
essentially tied to organizational and inter-organizational coordination, and
the demands of manufacture and supply chain management. Relatively little
design work involves artistic drawing, much requires retrieval from databases,
data analysis, information gathering and matters which members themselves call
'technological'. Experiences collaborating with developers and the relevance
of advanced 3D design tools and Virtual Reality for CSCW are considered on the
basis of these findings and in the light of debates over ethnography in system
development. Keywords: Ethnography, Studies of work, CSCW, Virtual reality, Field studies, Design,
The fashion industry | |||
| Back to Labor: Returning to Labor Process Discussions in the Study of Work | | BIBAK | PDF | 229-237 | |
| Joan Greenbaum | |||
| This paper argues that the CSCW focus on work needs to be expanded to
include labor issues. Specifically it examines the role of labor issues such
as wages, working conditions and division of labor in analyzing the
consequences of information system design for white-collar jobs. It offers
suggestions for including labor issues in the study of both current work
practices and in the analysis of future design. A labor process perspective
can offer the advantage of being able to design complex and interdependent
systems while more clearly viewing current jobs and the consequences of planned
systems for different interest groups. Keywords: Distributed work, Division of labor, Employment, Interdependent work, Jobs,
Labor process, Skill, Use, Work | |||
| Thunderwire: A Field Study of an Audio-Only Media Space | | BIBAK | PDF | 238-247 | |
| Debby Hindus; Mark S. Ackerman; Scott Mainwaring; Brian Starr | |||
| To explore the potential of using audio by itself in a shared media system,
we studied a workgroup using an audio-only media space. This media space,
called Thunderwire, combined high-quality audio with open connections to create
a shared space for its users.
The two-month field study provided a richly nuanced understanding of this audio space's social use. The system afforded rich sociable interactions. Indeed, within the field study, audio by itself afforded a telepresent environment for its users. However while a usable media space and a useful social space, Thunderwire required its users to adapt to many audio-only conditions. Keywords: Audio, Audio spaces, Media spaces, Electronic social spaces, Social
presence, Speech interactions, Mediated communication, Computer-mediated
communication, CMC, Telepresence, Social interactions, Rich interactions, Norms | |||
| Techniques for Addressing Fundamental Privacy and Disruption Tradeoffs in Awareness Support Systems | | BIBAK | PDF | 248-257 | |
| Scott E. Hudson; Ian Smith | |||
| This paper describes a fundamental dual tradeoff that occurs in systems
supporting awareness for distributed work groups, and presents several specific
new techniques which illustrate good compromise points within this tradeoff
space. This dual tradeoff is between privacy and awareness, and between
awareness and disturbance. Simply stated, the more information about oneself
that leaves your work area, the more potential for awareness of you exists for
your colleagues. Unfortunately, this also represents the greatest potential
for intrusion on your privacy. Similarly, the more information that is
received about the activities of colleagues, the more potential awareness we
have of them. However, at the same time, the more information we receive, the
greater the chance that the information will become a disturbance to our normal
work.
This dual tradeoff seems to be a fundamental one. However, by carefully examining awareness problems in the light of this tradeoff it is possible to devise techniques which expose new points in the design space. These new points provide different types and quantities of information so that awareness can be achieved without invading the privacy of the sender, or creating a disturbance for the receiver. This paper presents four such techniques, each based on a careful selection of the information transmitted. Keywords: Distributed work groups, Awareness support, Privacy, Audio, Video,
Visualization, Media spaces | |||
| A Usability Study of Awareness Widgets in a Shared Workspace Groupware System | | BIBAK | PDF | 258-267 | |
| Carl Gutwin; Mark Roseman; Saul Greenberg | |||
| Workspace awareness is knowledge about others' interaction with a shared
workspace. Groupware systems provide only limited information about other
participants, often compromising workspace awareness. This paper describes a
usability study of several widgets designed to help maintain awareness in
groupware workspaces. These widgets included a miniature view, a radar view, a
multi-user scrollbar, a glance function, and a "what you see is what I do"
view. The study examined the widgets' information content, how easily people
could interpret them, and whether they were distracting. Observations,
questionnaires, and interviews indicate that the miniature and radar views are
valuable for spatial manipulation tasks. The results also suggest new design
requirements for awareness widgets: they should support both shared and
individual work, provide familiar representations, and link perception and
action. Keywords: Workspace awareness, Shared workspaces, Usability study | |||
| Consistency Guarantees: Exploiting Application Semantics for Consistency Management in a Collaboration Toolkit | | BIBAK | PDF | 268-277 | |
| Paul Dourish | |||
| CSCW toolkits are designed to ease development of CSCW applications. They
provide common, reusable components for cooperative system design, allowing
application programmers to concentrate on the details of their particular
applications. The underlying assumption is that toolkit components can be
designed and implemented independently of the details of particular
applications. However, there is good evidence to suggest that this is not
true.
This paper presents a new technique which allows programmers to express application requirements, so that toolkit structures can be adapted to different circumstances. Prospero is a toolkit which uses this technique to meet different application needs flexibly. Keywords: Application control, CSCW toolkits, Prospero, Consistency management,
Consistency guarantees | |||
| A Concurrency Control Framework for Collaborative Systems | | BIBAK | PDF | 278-287 | |
| Jonathan Munson; Prasun Dewan | |||
| We have developed a new framework for supporting concurrency control in
collaborative applications. It supports multiple degrees of consistency and
allows users to choose concurrency control policies based on the objects they
are manipulating, the tasks they are performing, and the coupling and merge
policies they are using. Concurrency control policies are embodied in
hierarchical, constructor-based lock compatibility tables. Entries in these
tables may be specified explicitly or derived automatically from coupling and
merge policies. In this paper, we motivate and describe the framework,
identify several useful concurrency control policies it can support, evaluate
its flexibility, and give conclusions and directions for future work. Keywords: Concurrency control, Collaborative systems, Consistency criteria, Coupling,
Merging, Transactions | |||
| An Integrating, Transformation-Oriented Approach to Concurrency Control and Undo in Group Editors | | BIBAK | PDF | 288-297 | |
| Matthias Ressel; Doris Nitsche-Ruhland; Rul Gunzenhauser | |||
| Concurrency control and group undo are important issues in the design of
groupware, especially for interactive group editors. We present an improved
version of an existing distributed algorithm for concurrency control that is
based on operation transformations. Since the usability of the algorithm
relies on its formal correctness, we present a set of necessary and sufficient
conditions to be satisfied in order to ensure consistency in a replicated
architecture. We identify desirable properties of operation transformations
and show how our approach can be employed to implement group undo. The
approach has been applied to build a prototypical group editor for text; some
experiences gained are presented. Keywords: Concurrency control, Group editors, Group undo, Groupware, Interaction
model, Operation transformation | |||
| Supporting Social Awareness @ Work, Design, and Experience | | BIBAK | PDF | 298-307 | |
| Konrad Tollmar; Ovidiu Sandor; Anna Schomer | |||
| During the last year we have been designing and studying a computer based
tool intended to strengthen social group awareness within a research
laboratory. While awareness has been a subject of previous research it is
still unclear how it should be conceptualized and how it can be provided for a
CSCW system. In order to investigate this, and hence to attempt to create a
system that would gain acceptance in the user community, we have been using a
mixture of user-centered and participatory design methods. This paper presents
the design process, the resulting system as well as users' comments on it.
Based on all this, issues related to awareness are discussed and ideas for
further studies are suggested. Keywords: Computer supported cooperative work, Awareness, User centered design,
Participatory design | |||
| FreeWalk: Supporting Casual Meetings in a Network | | BIBAK | PDF | 308-314 | |
| Hideyuki Nakanishi; Chikara Yoshida; Toshikazu Nishimura; Toru Ishida | |||
| FreeWalk is a desktop meeting environment to support informal communication.
FreeWalk provides a 3-D community common where everybody can meet and can
behave just as they do in real life. Each participant is represented as a
pyramid of 3-D polygons on which his/her live video is mapped, and can move
freely. Voice volume is proportional to the distance between sender and
recipient so that many participants can talk without confusion. Various
behaviors have been noted so far, such as approaching a talking couple from a
distance to secretly listen to their conversation. Keywords: Video conference, Casual meetings, Informal communication, Tele-presence,
3-D space, Shared space, Community common, Communityware, CSCW | |||
| Piazza: A Desktop Environment Supporting Impromptu and Planned Interactions | | BIBAK | PDF | 315-324 | |
| Ellen Isaacs; John C. Tang; Trevor Morris | |||
| Much of the support for communication across distributed communities has
focused on meetings and intentional contact. However, most interactions within
co-located groups occur when people happen to run into each other. Such
unintended interactions should also be supported among distributed communities.
We conducted a study of the communication patterns of a large, distributed
organization and found that people tend to disseminate information using formal
techniques, even though people usually receive information informally. We then
designed a system called Piazza that is intended to support the range of
communication styles evident in large communities, paying particular attention
to addressing the problems revealed in our study. Piazza allows people to be
aware of others who are doing similar tasks when they are using their
computers, thereby enabling unintended interactions. It also supports
intentional contacts and planned meetings. We discuss issues for analysis in
an upcoming use study. Keywords: Informal communication, Unintended interactions, Awareness, Networkers,
Enterprise-wide communication | |||
| TeamRooms: Network Places for Collaboration | | BIBAK | PDF | 325-333 | |
| Mark Roseman; Saul Greenberg | |||
| Teams whose members are in close physical proximity often rely on team rooms
to serve both as meeting places and repositories of the documents and artifacts
that support their projects. TeamRooms is a groupware system that fills the
role of a team room for groups whose members can work both co-located and at a
distance. Facilities in TeamRooms allow team members to collaborate either in
real-time or asynchronously, and to customize their shared electronic space
with tools to suit their needs. Unlike many groupware systems, all TeamRooms
documents and artifacts are fully persistent. Keywords: Groupware, Shared electronic spaces, GroupKit | |||
| Physical Spaces, Virtual Places and Social Worlds: A Study of Work in the Virtual | | BIBAK | PDF | 334-343 | |
| Geraldine Fitzpatrick; Simon Kaplan; Tim Mansfield | |||
| This case study explores the nature of work for one group of systems
administrators. Their virtual work domain offered little support for
collaboration and mechanisms in the physical domain were often used instead.
However, the way that group members were able to make sense of their complex
virtual work environment suggests a new interpretation of spatial metaphors for
the design of collaborative systems. This is one based on 'place' or 'locale',
and 'centres', taking into account the observation that people work in multiple
social worlds simultaneously, that these social worlds provide a structuring
over the work domain, and that the individual draws from this structure
elements relevant to their tasks. Keywords: Ethnography, Grounded theory, Systems administration, Social worlds, Spatial
metaphors, CSCW | |||
| Supporting Multi-User, Multi-Applet Workspaces in CBE | | BIBAK | PDF | 344-353 | |
| Jang Ho Lee; Atul Prakash; Trent Jaeger; Gwobaw Wu | |||
| Our experience with Internet-based scientific collaboratories indicates that
they need to be user-extensible, allow users to add tools and objects
dynamically to shared workspaces, permit users to move work dynamically between
private and shared workspaces, and be easily accessible over a network. We
present the software architecture of an environment, called CBE, for building
collaboratories to meet such needs. CBE provides user-extensibility by
allowing a collaboratory to be constructed as a coordinated collection of
group-aware applets. To support dynamic reconfiguration of shared workspaces
and to allow access over the Internet, CBE uses the metaphor of rooms as the
high-level grouping mechanism for applets and users. Rooms may contain
applets, users, and arbitrary data objects. Rooms can be used for both
asynchronous and synchronous collaboration because their state persists across
synchronous sessions. Room participants may have different roles in a room
(such as administrator, member and observer), with appropriate access rights.
A prototype of the model has been implemented in Java and can be run from a
Java-enabled Web browser. Keywords: Groupware, CSCW toolkits, Shared electronic workspaces, Web-based
collaboration, Group communication, DistView, Access control | |||
| Documents and Professional Practice: 'Bad' Organizational Reasons for 'Good' Clinical Records | | BIBAK | PDF | 354-363 | |
| Christian Heath; Paul Luff | |||
| Despite the widespread introduction of information technology into primary
health care within the United Kingdom, medical practitioners continue to use
the more traditional paper medical record often alongside the computerised
system. The resilience of the paper document is not simply a consequence of an
impoverished design, but rather a product of the socially organised practices
and reasoning which surround the use of the record within day to day
consultative work. The practices that underpin the use of the medical records
may have a range of important implications, not only for the general design of
systems to support collaborative work, but also for our conceptions of
'writers', 'readers', 'objects' and 'records' utilised in those designs. Keywords: Documentary practices, Categorisation, Record keeping | |||
| Computer Support for Clinical Practice: Embedding and Evolving Protocols of Care | | BIBAK | PDF | 364-369 | |
| Barbara Katzenberg; Fred Pickard; John McDermott | |||
| Protocols of care are representations of practice that specify how patients
should be treated given specified conditions. We have been exploring ways that
protocols of care can be encoded in computers so that they can actively
structure work people do in clinics to accord with standards of care. We
describe one such implementation called the Care Manager. Because a protocol's
power to suggest action lies in people's alignment to it, and because
organizational change can make such standards obsolete overnight, means for
keeping protocols in sync with work practice are a necessary accompaniment to
any implementation of protocol-based care. Keywords: Standardization, Clinical information systems, Care management,
Protocol-based care, Guidelines, Coordination technologies | |||
| Paperwork At 78kph | | BIBAK | PDF | 370-379 | |
| Esa Auramaki; Mike Robinson; Anne Aaltonen; Mikko Kovalainen; Arja Liinamaa; Taina Tuuna-Vaiska | |||
| In Finnish paper mills the stream of paper being produced can, and does
break. A major concern is when these breaks are recurrent or prolonged.
Downtime is expensive. The causes and remedies for problem breaks in a
sophisticated and highly automated process can be hard to find. The paper
reports on research from a CSCW perspective into the work activities of
production crews, the social and information infrastructures that support them.
It makes design recommendations for enhanced support for Organisational Memory
and ways it might be differentially indexed to suit production crews. Keywords: CSCW, Paper mills, Process automation, Organisational memory, Indexing | |||
| Practically Accomplishing Immersion: Cooperation In and For Virtual Environments | | BIBAK | PDF | 380-389 | |
| John Bowers; Jon O'Brien; James Pycock | |||
| Collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) employ virtual reality technology
to support cooperative work. Building on ethnographic and interaction analyses
of CVEs in use, we argue that many and varied activities are required to set
up, maintain and troubleshoot CVEs. These activities cross-over between
virtual worlds and the real, physical environments which meeting participants
inhabit. Thus, an understanding of CVEs must attend to the relations between
cooperation within a CVE and for it to be established as an arena for
intelligible social action. These findings suggest a social scientifically
informed respecification of what it is to be 'immersed' in a CVE. Keywords: Virtual reality, CSCW, Studies of work, Ethnography, Interaction analysis,
Research methods, Evaluation | |||
| Cooperative Virtual Environments: Lessons from 2D Multi User Interfaces | | BIBAK | PDF | 390-398 | |
| Gareth Smith | |||
| Existing Cooperative Virtual Environments present the same shared world to
each of the cooperating users. This is analogous to the use of strict-WYSIWIS
in early 2D interfaces. Research in the area of shared 2D interfaces has shown
a strong trend to support individual tailoring of the shared views, and move
away from the strict-WYSIWIS abstraction. This paper argues that the
development of Cooperative Virtual Environments can gain from the experience of
research into in shared 2D interface systems, and presents a model to manage
the use of subjective views in Cooperative Virtual Environments. Keywords: WYSIWIS, Shared interfaces, View coupling, VR | |||
| My Partner is a Real Dog: Cooperation with Social Agents | | BIBAK | PDF | 399-408 | |
| Salvatore Parise; Sara Kiesler; Lee Sproull; Keith Waters | |||
| We investigated how cooperation with a computer agent was affected by the
agent's pictorial realism, human-likeness, and likability. Participants played
a social dilemma game with a talking computer agent that resembled a person, a
dog, or a cartoon dog, or with a confederate interacting through a video link.
Participants cooperated highly with the person computer agent and with the
confederate. They loved the dog and dog cartoon agents, but (excepting dog
owners), they cooperated significantly less with the dog agents. Behavioral
and questionnaire results suggest likability is less important than respect in
prompting cooperation with a computer agent. Keywords: Cooperation, Social agents, Social behavior, Interface design | |||
| Talking to Strangers: An Evaluation of the Factors Affecting Electronic Collaboration | | BIBAK | PDF | 409-418 | |
| Steve Whittaker | |||
| This empirical study examines factors influencing the success of a
commercial groupware system in creating group archives and supporting
asynchronous communication. The study investigates the use of Lotus Notes in a
workplace setting. We interviewed 21 Notes users and identified three factors
that they thought contributed to the successful use of Notes databases for
archiving and communication. We then tested the effect of these factors on
15,571 documents in 20 different databases. Contrary to our users' beliefs, we
found the presence of an active database moderator actually inhibited
discussions, and reduced browsing. Further paradoxical results were that
conversations and the creation of group archives were more successful in
databases with large numbers of diverse participants. Conversations and
archiving were less successful in smaller, more homogeneous, project teams.
Database size was also important: a large database containing huge amounts of
information was more likely to be used for further conversations and archiving,
than a small one. This result again ran counter to users' beliefs that small
databases are superior. We discuss possible reasons for these findings in
terms of critical mass and media competition and conclude with implications for
design. Keywords: Asynchronous communications, Newsgroups, Group memory, Empirical studies,
Workplace interaction, Interpersonal communication | |||
| Groupware in the Wild: Lessons Learned from a Year of Virtual Collocation | | BIBAK | PDF | 419-427 | |
| Judith S. Olson; Stephanie Teasley | |||
| Current research on CSCW for remote groups focuses on one technology at a
time: shared editing on the desktop, video conferencing, glancing at others'
offices, email, etc. When a real group sets out to work remotely, however,
they need to consider all aspects of work, synchronous, asynchronous, and the
transitions to and from. This paper explores the planning, implementation, and
use of a suite of groupware tools over the course of a year in a real group
with remote members. We found that groupware affected people's commitments and
the nature of the work distribution. Keywords: Groupware, Remote work, Analysis of work, Lotus Notes, Shared-X, Video on
the desktop | |||
| Groupware Implementation: Reinvention in the Sociotechnical Frame | | BIBAK | PDF | 428-437 | |
| Tora K. Bikson; J. D. Eveland | |||
| Sociotechnical systems theory suggests several themes about implementation,
including continuous mutual adaptation of tool and context, task emphasis, the
priority of process, and changes in evaluative criteria over time. The
effectiveness of these ideas is illustrated in the experience of the World Bank
in its implementation of a group decision support system, GroupSystems. Keywords: Groupware, Innovation, Implementation, Technological change, Sociotechnical
design | |||
| Groupware at Work: It's Here Now, But Do We Know What It Is Yet? | | BIBA | PDF | 438-439 | |
| Gianfranco Bazzigaluppi; Shoshana Zuboff; Claudio Ciborra; Wanda J. Orlikowski; Eleanor Wynn; Tora Bikson | |||
| Given the rapidly expanding deployment of groupware, do we now have an improved, empirically corroborated understanding of what groupware is? Each panelist has recently completed a case study of an implementation of groupware. Each offers a different answer to the question. | |||
| From Retrospective to Prospective: The Next Research Agenda for CSCW | | BIBA | PDF | 440 | |
| Liam Bannon; Lucy Suchman; Terry Winograd; Giorgio de Michelis; John Bowers | |||
| It is nearly a decade since the appearance of the enormously influential "Understanding Computers and Cognition" by Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores and "Plans and Situated Actions" by Lucy Suchman. This panel offers a continuation of the lively and often impassioned debate over some of the foundational issues in CSCW and the premises upon which we act as researchers, designers, developers and potential users of collaborative work systems. | |||
| Peopled Online Virtual Worlds: A New Home for Cooperating Communities, a New Frontier for Interaction Design | | BIBAK | PDF | 441-442 | |
| Bruce Damer; Amy Bruckman | |||
| Multi-user virtual worlds are proliferating on the Internet. These are two
and three dimensional graphical environments inhabited by users represented as
digital actors called "avatars". Through this new medium for cooperating
communities, a wide variety of Internet users are participating in a large
scale social experiment and collaborating on a variety of projects. The
inhabited virtual world is an exciting new medium for HCI professionals
including interaction and graphic designers, and educators and researchers
focused on distance learning and teleworking. It also appeals to children and
ordinary users of the Internet as a vast new digital playground and a venue for
personal expression. This panel will present a brief overview the inhabited
virtual world medium and then discuss its merits and limitations as a medium
for cooperating communities and interaction design. Keywords: Virtual worlds, Social computing, Avatars, Collaborative workspaces, VRML,
Three dimensional interfaces, Multi-user virtual reality, Internet | |||
| Red Light, Green Light: Using Peripheral Awareness of Availability to Improve the Timing of Spontaneous Communication | | BIB | PDF | 443 | |
| Trace Wax | |||
| A Group-Oriented Method of Interaction for Informal Communication | | BIB | PDF | 443 | |
| Akihiko Obata; Kazuo Sasaki; Yoshiharu Sato; Hideo Ueno | |||
| Desktopconferencing System Using Multiple Still-Pictures: Desktop MAJIC | | BIB | PDF | 443 | |
| Shunsuke Tanaka; Ken-ichi Okada; Shukei Kurihara; Yutaka Matsushita | |||
| Facilitating Collaborative Problem Solving with Distant Mentor | | BIB | PDF | 443 | |
| Patricia Schank; Mark Schlager | |||
| Video Contact Affects the Learning of Organizational Routines in Laboratory Studies | | BIB | PDF | 443 | |
| Daniel B. Horn; Michael Cohen | |||
| COBRA-Based Cooperative Learning System Using Three-Dimensional Shared Space | | BIB | PDF | 443 | |
| Katsumi Hosoya; Akihisa Kawanobe; Susumu Kakuta | |||
| Prairie: Supporting Navigation and Social Networks in a Virtualized Organization | | BIB | PDF | 443 | |
| Stephen H. Sato; Anatole V. Gershman; Kishore S. Swaminathan | |||
| Enhanced Mailing Lists Server: Active Circulation of Comments on Web Pages | | BIB | PDF | 443 | |
| Shinichi Hiraiwa; Youji Kohda | |||
| Patterns of Communication between Reporters and University PR Professionals: The Role of New Communication Technologies in the Rhetorical Practice of Institutional Agents | | BIB | PDF | 443 | |
| Jolene Galegher; Gilbert Wilkes | |||
| Medicine in the Dark: Obtaining Design Requirements for a Medical Collaboratory from Observation of Radiologists at Work | | BIB | PDF | 444 | |
| Elizabeth Yakel; Stephane Cote; Thomas Finholt; Michael Cohen | |||
| Collaborative Interfaces for Customer Service | | BIB | PDF | 444 | |
| Catherine Wolf; Shuang Chen; Shahrokh Daijavad; Tong Fin; Tetsu Fujiasaki; Eric Roffman; Maroun Touma | |||
| Experiences with Distributed, Asynchronous Software Inspection | | BIB | PDF | 444 | |
| Michael Stein; Vahid Mashayekhi; John Riedl; Soren Harner | |||
| To Cook or Not to Cook: A Case Study of Decision Aiding in Quick-Service Restaurant Environments | | BIB | PDF | 444 | |
| Ann M. Bisantz; Sally M. Cohen; Michael Gravelle | |||
| Towards the Definition of a Design Space for Collaborative Systems | | BIB | PDF | 444 | |
| M. Teresa Soriano; Jesus Favela | |||
| Feather, Scent, and Shaker: Supporting Simple Intimacy | | BIB | PDF | 444 | |
| Rob Strong; Bill Gaver | |||
| An Active Microphone Method for CSCW Systems -- Toward Open Co-Operative Work Space | | BIB | PDF | 444 | |
| Takashi Endo; Masayuki Nakazawa; Toshiro Mukai; Shigeki Nagaya; Ryuichi Oka | |||
| CSCW'96 Doctoral Colloquium | | BIB | PDF | 445-447 | |
| JoAnne Yates; Barbara Dickmann | |||
| Conflict and Cooperation in the Courts: Case Study of How CSCW Alters Work | | BIBA | PDF | 445 | |
| Margaret S. Elliott | |||
| Cooperative work has been studied by social scientists since the 19th century. Recently, computer scientists have explored cooperative work to understand how to best design computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) systems for effective use in organizations. Less attention has been focused on the study of conflict within cooperative work settings. This qualitative study addresses conflict within cooperative work in the California criminal courts where attorneys and judges work cooperatively to resolve disputes in an adversarial setting. The CSCW applications being studied are computer-aided realtime transcription and legal research digital libraries. Results will contribute to our understanding of the nature of conflict in cooperative work and of the use of production level CSCW embedded in complex work. | |||
| Group Memories: A Knowledge Medium for Communities of Practice | | BIBA | PDF | 445 | |
| Stefanie N. Lindstaedt | |||
| Designing domain-oriented systems requires knowledge both in system and in the domain to be supported. Communication between domain experts and system developers is essential to elicit or "activate" this knowledge. Contextualized information, conveyed in ongoing communication and evaluation, sheds light on problems and solutions that may otherwise remain uncovered. This information is valuable beyond the particular situation in which it originates. Experiences of our L3D research group with industries and universities have shown that the tasks of activating and capturing communication about system design, relating it to prior experiences, and feeding new insights back into a group memory face a number of challenges. I am developing an interactive group memory management system called GIMMe for growing diverse group memories during software design to explore the issues surrounding these challenges. | |||
| Metonymy as an Organising Principle of IT Communities | | BIBA | PDF | 445 | |
| Olaf Boettger | |||
| This research suggests two ways of examining 'technologies-in-community'
assemblages: a local-horizontal approach (similar to anthropology) and a
global-vertical approach (theory). Both approaches as well as the movement
between them are assembled according to organising principles. My PhD research
specifically examines the role of metonymy as an organising principle.
Metonymy has been neglected in research when compared with metaphor but is one of the main mechanisms for human categorisation, i.e. for making sense of complexity and instability. Examining metonymy leads us back to basic cybernetic concerns about the nature of information and its influence in structuring our ways of thinking about information (technology). These insights can then be used to link the two approaches mentioned above and apply this knowledge to practical issues such as e.g. the development of genres or questions of design. | |||
| How Organizational Structure and Culture Shape CSCW | | BIBA | PDF | 446 | |
| Angela Lin | |||
| This research project investigates how organizational structure and culture
shape the experience of CSCW applications. The project aims to explore how
computer support for work is implemented and how it evolves through time. The
research is given a strong theoretical basis through a carefully structured
analysis of motivating theories within the CSCW literature. This analysis
reveals areas of (relative) strength in terms of theoretical and empirical work
to date, as well as areas of (relative) weakness. The research is intended to
contribute in particular to these 'weaker' areas.
The empirical element of the research is to be carried out through multiple case studies using an interpretive approach, and seeks to provide rich description and insight, rather than tested hypotheses. The negotiation of case study location is currently under way, but one main intention is to undertake studies in organizational settings with significant cultural and physical distance, as for example in multi-national organizations working around the globe. | |||
| Providing Awareness Information in Remote Computer-Mediated Collaboration | | BIBA | PDF | 446 | |
| Susan E. McDaniel | |||
| When people are working together from remote locations, they have much less awareness of each others' activities, presence, and availability than if they were co-located. I present a summary of a plan designed to determine the information people want and need about colleagues, the information they find useful, the information they use, and how the provision of such information changes their work and communication processes. | |||
| Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Clinical Practice | | BIBA | PDF | 446 | |
| Jakob E. Bardram | |||
| The primary objective of this Ph.D.-project is to provide an understanding of the close-knit cooperation between healthcare professionals within hospitals and utilise this knowledge to design a prototype for supporting this cooperation. This prototype will become a substantial part of the design requirements for a major re-design of a large mainframe-based Hospital Information System. From a research perspective the objectives are to engage in a Participatory Design (PD) effort in product development and to learn how the cooperative design strategies can be brought into play in such a development project. Furthermore, the objective is to investigate how ideas and theories from the research field of CSCW can become more design-oriented. CSCW shares with PD the emphasis on understanding the work-practices of an organisation in order to develop computer support for this work, which seems very promising from a design perspective. | |||
| The Language of Coordination: A Method for the Distributed Design of Complex Organizations | | BIBA | PDF | 446 | |
| George M. Wyner | |||
| A critical problem facing any organization is the task of coordinating its disparate components so that they function together as a coherent, effective whole. A limitation of existing approaches to coordination is the assumption that this problem can be solved using an a priori centralized design process. Such an assumption is problematic given the enormous complexity of even the smallest organization. In this dissertation I propose a coordination design method which supports an iterative design process distributed over multiple independent designers. The method centers on a coordination design language which can be used to systematically generate possible solutions to a given coordination problem. The method supports distributed design by using the design language to resolve and integrate a series of local coordination solutions into a globally coherent coordination strategy. I evaluate this method by means of a distributed design scenario based on interviews and observation in an actual organization. | |||
| Temporal Interface Issues and Software Architecture for Remote Cooperative Work | | BIBA | PDF | 447 | |
| Devina Ramduny | |||
| The rapid growth in world-wide communications enable cooperative users to collaborate and access shared resources when distributed remotely. Most current systems assume that network communications are fast enough to give the illusion of communicating over local networks. However, these assumptions do not always hold and this may give rise to unexpected behaviour for the users. Together with temporal problems which occur as a result of communication channels, the very nature of cooperative work introduces delays and lags. Although these temporal properties are theoretically important, they have been poorly investigated with the exception of a few studies. The aim of this research is to develop the existing theoretical analysis of these temporal problems and to use this analysis to drive the development of software architectures for widely distributed groupware systems. The need for feedthrough and the way that awareness issues are affected by communication delays will be investigated. | |||
| Groupware Support for Workspace Awareness | | BIBA | PDF | 447 | |
| Carl Gutwin | |||
| Maintaining awareness of others is a normal part of everyday collaboration, but when group work is distributed, people are less able to keep track of one another. In particular, real-time groupware systems often do not help people maintain workspace awareness, the understanding of others' interaction with a shared workspace. The goal of this research is to provide effective and general support for maintaining workspace awareness in groupware. This overview discusses workspace awareness and the steps being taken to understand how it can be supported. I describe four areas of the research: the identification of critical elements of information, its transformation to a groupware context, the development of display principles for presenting the information, and the evaluation of systems built according to those principles. | |||
| Research in Communication Services for Collaborative Systems | | BIBA | PDF | 447 | |
| Robert W. Hall | |||
| My research considers the problem of providing communication protocol
support for large-scale group collaboration systems for use in environments
such as the Internet which are subject to packet loss, wide variations in
end-to-end delays, and transient partitions.
The Corona Communication Services framework supports two communication paradigms: the publish/subscribe paradigm and the peer group paradigm. In the publish/subscribe paradigm one or more data sources or publishers send data to multiple subscribers. This paradigm is characterized by the anonymous nature of communication, where a publisher is aware of the set of subscribers, but the subscribers are unaware of each other and only aware about the publisher that they are receiving data from. In the peer group paradigm of communication on the other hand, all the group members are aware of each other, and can send and receive data directly to each other. From this initial implementation, my research is moving towards a more general frame-work of communication services with the emphasis of providing mechanisms to support different policies that may be specified by open distributed collaborative systems while addressing fundamental problems in providing such scalable, reliable services. | |||