| Object-Oriented Analysis of Organizational Activities | | BIBA | -- | |
| Yair Wand; Carson C. Woo | |||
| Our experience of teaching object-oriented analysis suggests difficulties in
applying the approach, in particular, in identifying the objects necessary to
model an organizational system. Examination of the literature as well as
teaching experience indicate that what is missing is a set of well-formulated
rules on how to apply the approach. We developed a set of rules for this
purpose. These rules are based on certain fundamental principles. We have
tested these rules in classes on systems analysis at both the undergraduate and
graduate levels and by applying them to many test cases. The rules were found
very useful in modelling organizational activities and in resolving ambiguities
identified in the modelling process. The resulting models were easy to
understand and verify against the case facts.
The purpose of this tutorial is to present and practice the aforementioned set of rules for object-oriented modelling in systems analysis. It is important to point out that the rules are independent of any specific object-oriented analysis approach or technique. | |||
| Computer-Supported Meeting Environments | | BIBA | -- | |
| Marilyn Mantei; Lisa Neal | |||
| This tutorial will help participants develop a general understanding of
existing research and development in computer supported meeting environments
(CSME). Participants will gain an understanding of the differences between
various CSME's and be introduced to the software technologies and physical
architectures that support each environment.
The tutorial will survey existing computer supported meeting environments, with an emphasis on the types of meetings each supports and their underlying communications and distributed systems architecture solutions. User interface design problems will be covered in-depth along with the psychological issues associated with building software for groups. The tutorial will present what is known about how groups interact, make decisions, brainstorm, perform work, cooperate and negotiate while using a CSME. It will conclude with a discussion of the major hurdles in understanding how to design for groups and in building robust software systems. | |||
| Supporting Cooperative Processes with Workflow Management Technology | | BIBA | -- | |
| Thomas Schael | |||
| Process management is the way to approach the transformation of
traditionally bureaucratic organizations into market-oriented companies. The
tutorial is aimed at identifying the benefit of a change from a functional to a
business process organization and defining methodological and design
implications for the transformation of an organization. New software products
with enhanced office information systems functionalities are developed which
fall under the new domain of workflow management technologies. The new
technology addresses the different aspect of cooperative work in their temporal
distribution in the process. However, workflow management technology is still
an unfamiliar term for many system developers and users. Growth is currently
hindered by a lack of knowledge about the concepts and benefits of workflow
management technology.
The tutorial is addressed to CSCW practitioners, managers (e.g., MIS, Human Resources, Organization), information systems people, organizational analysts, system designers, etc. of business or public organizations. The tutorial provides theoretical methods and practical experiences carried out by the instructor, a consistent guideline to understanding the key issues and how to approach concrete projects for process analysis and design, as well as for workflow technology implementation. | |||
| Marvelous Support for Semi-Structured Group Activities | | BIBA | -- | |
| Gail Kaiser | |||
| Processes (or workflows) for even the same basic tasks can vary
substantially across institutions and projects, and may change in response to a
variety of technological, sociological and political stimuli. Processes are of
major concern in many organizational activities, where goals are achieved by
breaking down participant tasks into steps, with prerequisites imposed on the
initiation of particular steps and consequences implied by the completion of
particular steps. Examples include group decision support, desktop publishing,
software engineering, CAD/CAM, and numerous other collaborative work areas.
A process-centered environment (PCE) provides computer-aided support for a range of project-specific processes across such application domains. The general goals of research in PCEs are to devise useful paradigms for representing processes, to develop ways in which environments may assist groups of users in collaborating to carry out processes, and to discover mechanisms that permit processes to evolve compatibly while in progress. The Programming Systems Laboratory at Columbia University has led this community, with research on: rule-based process definition languages; process execution software that supports process enforcement, consistency maintenance, and automation; facilities for integrating commercial off-the-shelf tools into new processes; semantics-based transactions for concurrency control and recovery in cooperative applications; and process evolution for long-lived processes. This work culminated in the Marvel 3.1 environment, released in March 1993. Marvel 3.1 and earlier releases 3.0 and 3.0.1 have been licensed to a total of 35 external sites, including industrial sponsors and government laboratories in North America as well as universities on four continents. Marvel 3.1 consists of over 150,000 lines of C code, and runs on Sun, DEC and IBM Unix workstations with X11 Windows. | |||
| Workflow Technology: Successes, Perils and Promises | | BIB | -- | |
| Clarence (Skip) Ellis; Raul Medina-Mora; Sunil Sarin; Thomas Schael; Baldev Singh | |||
| Comparing Rankings of Heterogeneous Agents | | BIBAK | PDF | 1-12 | |
| Norbert Kuhn | |||
| A central problem in the study of autonomous cooperating systems is that of
how to establish mechanisms for controlling the interactions between different
parts (which are called agents) of the system. For heterogeneous agents this
aims at, modeling the basics for their decisions.
The mechanisms we discuss in this paper are based on the assumption that the agents can estimate the effects of being attached to a certain set of goals. In the simplest case this is expressed by a single value e.g., the cost that will arise for the accomplishment of these goals. But in general this estimation may be arbitrarily complicated. In addition, we assume that the agents have a function available to rank their goals according to the estimated values and they pursue the goals they rank best. Then, these values can be used to resolve various kinds of conflicts in this kind of systems. For example in the task allocation phase the case of multiple applications for the allocation of a goal can be decided by allocating the goal to the agent with the "best estimation". Another way of using these values is for establishing collaborative actions between a pair (or a set) of agents: If one agent wants to get support in the accomplishment of a particular goal he will try to persuade another agent to modify his ranking of the goal in such a way that they both will rank best this "common" goal. Thus, the use of ranking functions provides a general framework for considering cooperative aspects within the study of multi-agent systems. An essential question in this context is how the rankings of different agents can be compared. Therefore, we develop in this paper a formalization of the concept of ranking functions and discuss mechanisms that establish the comparability of different rankings. Keywords: Multi-agent systems, Cooperative problem solving, Task decomposition and
task allocation | |||
| Multi-User Interfaces for Group Ranking: User-Centered Analysis | | BIBAK | PDF | 13-20 | |
| Wai-Lan Luk; V. Srinivasan Rao | |||
| The user-centered approach was adopted to design multi-user interfaces for
group ranking. Six groups of 4 members, four groups of 3 members, and one
group of 6 members were videotaped while performing a ranking task. The
videotapes were analyzed resulting in recommendations for the design of
multi-user human-computer interfaces for group ranking of items. The
usefulness of the findings and the usefulness of the method are discussed. Keywords: Multi-user interface, Computer supported cooperative work, User interface
design, Human computer interaction | |||
| A Tour Through Tapestry | | BIBAK | PDF | 21-30 | |
| Douglas B. Terry | |||
| The Information Tapestry is an experimental system that employs both
collaborative filtering and content-based filtering, as well as automatic
appraising and highlighting, to tailor the delivery and presentation of
information to each user's personal interests. This permits users to cope with
large volumes of incoming documents, including electronic mail, news wire
stories and NetNews articles. This paper presents the facilities available to
Tapestry users by way of a scenario depicting a day in the life of an active
user. Keywords: Information filtering, Personalized information delivery, Collaborative
filtering, Appraisers, Highlighting, Electronic mail | |||
| Making Contact: Getting the Group Communicating with Groupware | | BIBAK | PDF | 31-41 | |
| Andy Cockburn; Saul Greenberg | |||
| While groupware is readily available, people on wide area networks -- such
as the Internet -- have considerable trouble contacting each other and setting
up groupware connections. To pinpoint why this occurs, this paper identifies
human factors critical to getting a group communicating through groupware. It
addresses how people find suitable partners, and how people choose appropriate
communication mediums. These factors are discussed in detail, and form a
design foundation for systems that promote social presence and that integrate
communication.
Existing systems are critically reviewed and shown to be inadequate for general use over a wide area net, for they either do not meet some basic design criteria, or they require a very high technological entry level that is beyond the reach of most computer users. As an alternative, the paper presents the design considerations behind TELEFREEK, a flexible, extensible, and customizable platform for collaboration. Drawing on resources freely available to the Internet community, TELEFREEK assists people making contact with others, and integrates access to common communication facilities. Keywords: Contact facilitation, Casual interaction, Coordination, Computer supported
cooperative work, Groupware | |||
| Information and Context: Lessons from the Study of Two Shared Information Systems | | BIBAK | PDF | 42-51 | |
| Paul Dourish; Victoria Bellotti; Wendy Mackay; Chao-Ying Ma | |||
| With the increasing ease and power of computer networking technologies, many
organisations are taking information which was previously managed and
distributed on paper and making it available electronically. Such shared
information systems are the basis of much organisational collaboration, and
electronic distribution holds great promise. However, a primary focus of such
systems is on the ease of information retrieval. We believe that an equally
important component is the problem of information interpretation, and that this
interpretation is guided by a context which many electronic systems do not
fully acknowledge.
We report on a study of two systems, one paper-based and one electronic, managing similar information within the same organisation. We describe the ways in which information retrieved from these systems is interpreted subjectively by individuals, and point to some of the factors contributing to this interpretation. These factors, together making up the context of the information, are of critical importance in the design of successful electronic shared information systems. Keywords: Collaborative systems, Cooperative work, Information systems, Information
context, Coadaptive systems | |||
| Supporting Collaboration with Loose Relationship | | BIBAK | PDF | 52-58 | |
| Shin-ya Sato; Tatsuro Murakami | |||
| The potential of loose-style support of collaboration is discussed. This
kind of support does not directly control the way of doing jobs, but indirectly
supports collaboration by helping workers to recognize the current situation of
the project, to make decisions, to avoid mistakes, and so on. An example of a
collaboration supporting system for large-scale software development is
presented that adopts both loose-style and tight-style. In our implementation
of the loose-style, the system extracts information during the tightly
controlled collaboration processes and distributes it. This enables developers
to share information flow. Keywords: Tight relationship, Loose relationship, Management object, Management unit,
Information flow | |||
| A PilotCard-Based Shared Hypermedia System Supporting Shared and Private Databases | | BIBAK | PDF | 59-68 | |
| Satoshi Ichimura; Takeshi Kamita; Yutaka Matushita | |||
| We developed a PilotCard-based shared hypermedia system supporting a shared
database and a number of private databases. By integrating a layered
architectural object-oriented database with PilotCard mechanisms, we realized a
shared hypermedia system in which individual users can maintain private data in
their own private workstation and use the shared data in a remote workstation.
Furthermore, we extend the concept of a version-derivation hierarchy to cope
with the requirements of multi-user environments. In the system, the versions
of an object can be physically dispersed over both personal layers and the
common layer; the system combines the versions stored in the personal layer
with different versions in the common layer. Moreover, a user can attach
PilotCards to any data as annotations and create associative hypertext-links
between related data. Since PilotCards attached to shared data are invisible
to any other user, the user can add his/her personal view to the shared data
layer without disturbing other members. Keywords: Groupware, Hypermedia, Object-oriented database | |||
| Development of Multiple Media Documents | | BIBAK | PDF | 69-77 | |
| S. J. Morris; A. C. W. Finkelstein | |||
| Development of documents in multiple media involves activities in three
different fields, the technical, the discoursive and the procedural. The major
development problems of artifact complexity, cognitive processes, design basis
and working context are located where these fields overlap. Pending the
emergence of a unified approach to design, any method must allow for
development at the three levels of discourse structure, media disposition and
composition, and presentation. Related work concerned with generalized
discourse structures, structured documents, production methods for existing
multiple media artifacts, and hypertext design offer some partial forms of
assistance at different levels. Desirable characteristics of a multimedia
design method will include three phases of production, a variety of possible
actions with media elements, an underlying discoursive structure, and explicit
comparates for review. Keywords: Multimedia document, Design method, Discourse | |||
| Critical Success Factors in the Implementation of Information Centre in Hong Kong's Banking Industry | | BIBAK | PDF | 78-89 | |
| Willie Yip; Chi Wing To; Louis C. K. Ma | |||
| Information Centers (ICs) are an important strategic component in the
overall End-user Computing strategies of many banks in Hong Kong. This paper
presents the research findings on the differences and similarities in
perceptions of IC managers and IC users towards a list of Critical Success
Factors (CSFs). Data was collected through a mail questionnaire survey
conducted in late 1992. Nineteen banks participated in this research and
sixteen matched pairs of data were used in the final analysis. Seven
hypothesis were tested statistically on the perceptions of current level of
importance, current level of satisfaction, and future level of importance by IC
managers and IC users towards 28 CSFs. The results suggest that there is
disagreement among IC managers and IC users as to the importance of different
CSFs. Also, there is no direct relationship between importance and
satisfaction perceived by IC managers and IC users towards different CSFs. The
findings and recommendations in this study should provide some valuable inputs
for managers in the planning and implementation of ICs. Keywords: Information system management, End user computing, Information center | |||
| Towards Integrated Support of Synchronous and Asynchronous Communication in Cooperative Work: An Empirical Study of Real Group Communication | | BIBAK | PDF | 90-97 | |
| Yasuhisa Sakamoto; Eiji Kuwana | |||
| This paper analyzes the role of the two communication modes in cooperative
work: synchronous and asynchronous. While it is natural and indispensable that
both modes be used together, most existing groupware handles only one or the
other, which reduces the effectiveness of cooperation. This hypothesis is
confirmed by defining an argument model that uses the concept of cooperative
effects and using it to analyze a decision-making discussion consisting of both
synchronous face-to-face meetings and asynchronous electronic mail meetings.
Several discussion characteristics using both modes are identified and the need
for and the requirements for an integrated support system are clarified. Keywords: Communication modes, Argument model, Cooperative effects, Electronic mail | |||
| Information Artisans: Patterns of Result Sharing by Information Searchers | | BIBAK | PDF | 98-107 | |
| Vicki L. O'Day; Robin Jeffries | |||
| We studied the uses of information search results by regular clients of
professional intermediaries. We found that all of the participants in our
study acted as intermediaries themselves, sharing information they had received
from library searches with others in their work settings. There were four
basic models of sharing: updating team members, consulting, broadcasting, and
putting information into a shared archive. In many sharing scenarios, the
library clients acted as information artisans, creating new artifacts by
transforming and enhancing their search results before passing them on. When
possible, the library clients delivered their new information artifacts in
collaborative settings, to ensure that recipients understood and could apply
the results and to allow opportunities for follow-up search requests. These
observations suggest that new functionality is needed for information search
systems, to support the analysis, manipulation, and packaging of search
results, and collaborative information delivery with intertwined communication
and information components. Keywords: Information search, Information use, Information artifacts, Intermediaries,
Collaborative work | |||
| Supporting Dynamic Interdependencies among Collaborative Activities | | BIBAK | PDF | 108-118 | |
| Douglas P. Bogia; William J. Tolone; Simon M. Kaplan; Eric de la Tribouille | |||
| Real-life work requirements seldom result in tasks being truly independent.
Instead, webs of interdependencies evolve among tasks in a fashion which is
sometimes predictable, but often completely ad hoc. In this paper we are
concerned with both uncovering a family of basic concepts and mechanisms that
can be used to support the mixture of anticipated and ad hoc dependencies that
can arise among tasks and describing the reification of these concepts through
our Obligation System implemented within the prototype collaboration support
environment ConversationBuilder. Keywords: Toolkits, CSCW environments, Active/flexible support | |||
| Design and Implementation of CB Lite | | BIBAK | PDF | 119-129 | |
| Dan Kogan | |||
| The CB Lite project presents a case study in the design to integrate
flexible fund active support for cooperative work activities into an existing
environment. The system's underlying philosophy and architecture are based on
the ConversationBuilder work pioneered at the University of Illinois. Our
goals for this project were to understand the fundamental architectural issues
of this technology in order to integrate it with the operating environment of
the PC platform. Specifically, we sought to define a formal model of the
system's Architecture, to define a high level language for specifying
cooperative process models and to build a prototype embodying the model to
interpret the language. Keywords: Case study, System architecture, Conversation-based cooperation | |||
| Visual Support for Reengineering Work Processes | | BIBAK | PDF | 130-141 | |
| Keith D. Swenson | |||
| A model for collaborative work process and a graphical language to support
this model is presented. The model allows for informal flow of communications
and flexible access to information along with a formal flow of responsibility.
Work is decomposed into a network of task assignments (actually requests for
those tasks), which may be recursively decomposed to finer Trained tasks. The
model includes consideration for authority and responsibility. Process flow
can be dynamically modified. Policies (templates for a process) may be
tailored to provide versions of a process customized for different individuals.
The visual language is designed to ease the creation of policies and
modification of ongoing processes, as well as to display the status of an
active process. Keywords: Visual language, Collaboration, Work flow, Process modeling, Business
process reengineering | |||
| Workflow Management Systems for Financial Services | | BIBAK | PDF | 142-153 | |
| Thomas Schael; Buni Zeller | |||
| This paper describes the application of workflow management systems in an
Italian bank. Under a changing competitive and financial situation, the bank
had to react by redesigning its market-oriented business processes. Customer
related credit processes have been analyzed using a method based on a
client/supplier model. The credit management process was the target for a
workflow-based reporting system. The system copes with events in the daily
appearance of overdrafts on current accounts which have to be managed by the
agency director and the branch's staff. The reporting system developed is part
of a global change from the centralized into a distributed credit management
information system based on a client/server architecture. The functional
architecture for workflow management technology defines how to integrate the
different functional modules (message handling, data management and document
management), and in particular, mainframe EDP with end user computing. Keywords: Computer supported cooperative work, Groupware, Workgroup computing,
Workflow management technology, Office automation, Office procedure, Business
process automation, Process reengineering, Customer satisfaction | |||
| Reengineering a Business Process with an Innovative Workflow Management System: A Case Study | | BIBAK | PDF | 154-165 | |
| A. Agostini; G. De Michelis; M. A. Grasso; S. Patriarca | |||
| In this paper we report on the application to a real bank procedure of both
a new approach to the analysis of work processes, allowing the evaluation of
its transaction costs, and a prototype of a Workflow Management System,
allowing an effective handling of procedure breakdowns without forcing the
designers to take care of them. Keywords: Computer-supported cooperative work, Groupware, Office routine, Workflow
management system, Transaction cost, Work process, Conversation, Communication
system | |||
| An Interface for Navigating Clustered Document Sets Returned by Queries | | BIBAK | PDF | 166-171 | |
| Robert B. Allen; Pascal Obry; Michael Littman | |||
| An interface has been implemented for exploring the structure of document
sets returned in response to a query. The interface allows a user to find
subsets of documents that are especially relevant to the query through
interaction with an interactive dendrogram which displays a hierarchical
clustering of the documents. Dynamic lists of document titles are interlocked
with the dendrogram to provide detail of the clusters being viewed by the user.
For efficiency, the interface has been implemented in several parallel and
distributed computation environments and has been applied to retrieval of
encyclopedia articles and news stories. Keywords: Clustering, Information retrieval, Interfaces | |||
| MOCCA: An Environment for CSCW Applications | | BIBAK | PDF | 172-177 | |
| Steve Benford; John Mariani; Leandro Navarro; Wolfgang Prinz; Tom Rodden | |||
| Our belief is that in the future Computer Supported Cooperative Work will by
necessity involve a heterogeneous collection of applications, paradigms and
models and that no single system will meet all the requirements of all groups.
We propose a CSCW Environment which facilitates inter-working between many
different CSCW applications. We describe the key requirements of such an
environment, followed by a set of models which offer different perspectives on
the environment and which collectively define its functionality. We then
discuss how these models might be used to specify the components of an open
distributed architecture for implementing the model. Keywords: CSCW environments, CSCW architecture, Integration, Information-,
Organization-, Workspaces-, Rooms-model | |||
| Supporting the Dynamics of Knowledge Sharing within Organizations | | BIBAK | PDF | 178-183 | |
| Monica Divitini; Giuseppe Omodei Sale; Alberto Pozzoli; Carla Simone | |||
| The paper proposes an architecture to memorize the knowledge generated and
used by the members of an organization in their cooperative work. The main
focus is on the identification of mechanisms to enhance organization members
capability to reconstruct the dynamic evolution of the knowledge generated
through computer supported human to human communication within the
organization. These mechanisms are triggered by communicative events in a user
transparent way. The notion of degree of consciousness of knowledge sharing is
proposed as a basic means to allow members to look for the most appropriate
context of each communicative event. This context is where the reconstruction
becomes sensible in relation to the user needs. Keywords: CSCW, User models, Knowledge sharing, Commitments | |||
| Data Object Creation and Display Techniques for the Huge Database of Subscriber Cable Networks | | BIBAK | PDF | 184-189 | |
| Yasuyuki Kato; Yasuo Kataoka; Yoshihiro Nakamura; Yutaka Mitsunaga | |||
| Subscriber cable network management systems have huge-scale relational
databases. It is difficult to realize a user-friendly data display for these
systems due to their non-object data structure. Two techniques are proposed in
order to overcome this problem which create dynamic data objects and provide
multi-category views. The creation of dynamic data objects is successfully
developed by using a special class which manages an array containing data
elements of an arbitrary type. The multi-category view system is developed by
realizing a multi-category view server which provides several view objects for
client applications by object transportation. A complete prototype system
based on these techniques is constructed and evaluated. It is confirmed
experimentally that a total time of one second is required from the start of
data reference to the completion of data object display on a map. Keywords: Object-oriented, Database, Data-object, Subscriber cable network, Object
creation, Storage-list object, Display, View-object server, Dynamic loading | |||
| OMNI: A Model for Focused Collaborative Work Through Issue Management | | BIBAK | PDF | 190-195 | |
| Beth Lange; James B. Treleaven; Anatole Gershman | |||
| The bulk of the research done on collaborative work has been on improving
the effectiveness of meetings. Little work has been done on providing support
for knowledge-intensive, physically dispersed, asynchronous group tasks. These
tasks have the essential characteristics of requiring collaboration among a
team of participants, consisting of complex issue structures, requiring a
significant amount of shared information, and necessitating negotiation in
order to reach consensus. OMNI is a domain independent, general model of
collaborative issue management designed to support such tasks. This
collaboration model has four key elements which must be supported -- group
processes, dynamics of group interactions, communications, and group memory.
The central feature of the model is an issue management system capable of
supporting complex, domain independent issue structures. OMNI has been
implemented in the initial domain of venture capital investment
decision-making. Keywords: Collaboration, Issue management, Negotiation, Consensus, Group memory,
Visualization, Group support systems | |||
| Goal-Based Process Analysis: A Method for Systematic Process Redesign | | BIBAK | PDF | 196-201 | |
| Jintae Lee | |||
| A method is proposed for systematically analyzing and redesigning processes.
The method, Goal-based Process Analysis (GPA), helps its user to systematically
identify missing objectives, ensure implementation of all the objectives,
identify non-functional parts of a process, and explore alternative processes
for achieving a given set of objectives. As such, GPA addresses a critical
component in process reengineering, that of identifying which part of a given
process needs to be improved and what alternatives could be used instead. Keywords: Process redesign, Process analysis, Goal analysis, Work flow design,
Organizational design | |||
| Enactment Theory as a Paradigm for Enabling Flexible Workflows | | BIBAK | PDF | 202-209 | |
| Dirk E. Mahling | |||
| This paper proposes collective enactment theory as an alternative to speech
acts or situated actions as the basis for workflow systems. Enactment theory
goes beyond the conventional scope of theories of action by acknowledging
affordances in the environment, needs of individuals and organizations,
decision and preparation, motivation, planning and scheduling, execution,
evaluation, and consequential changes in the organization and their
environment. This encompassing scope allows to overcome limitations of current
workflow systems and to integrate a large range of organizational and
individual behavior. Particular emphasis in this paper is given to
organizational activities that precede or follow the planning, scheduling, and
execution of organizational work. The integration of planning and scheduling
activities in enactment theory is shown and implications for workflow design
and architectures are delineated. Keywords: CSCW, Workflow, Group work, Enactment theory | |||
| A Blackboard-Based Architecture for Filtering New Software Features | | BIBAK | PDF | 210-215 | |
| Masashi Uyama | |||
| Newly designed software products are frequently disseminated and installed
in an open network environment. This paper proposes a blackboard-based human
interface architecture for filtering these new software features. This
architecture performs three-step filtering. First, the credibility-based
selection mechanism selects features that trustworthy colleagues have
recommended. Second, the context-sensitive selection mechanism selects
features specific to the context of a user's task execution. Finally, the
context-sensitive disclosure mechanism discloses the selected features to the
user dynamically and unobtrusively. This disclosure allows users to try out
potentially useful features in their own task context and at the same time,
helps users evaluate the real usefulness of the features. With this filtering
mechanism, users can incorporate really useful features into their tasks with
little effort. Keywords: Intelligent assistance, Context sensitivity, Task model, Trialability,
Information filtering, Modifiability, Organizational memory | |||
| ORDIT: A New Methodology to Assist in the Process of Eliciting and Modelling Organisational Requirements | | BIBAK | PDF | 216-227 | |
| A. J. C. Blyth; J. Chudge; J. E. Dobson; M. R. Strens | |||
| Requirements engineering from an organisational perspective needs to be
viewed as social engineering. Thus in this paper a modelling language will be
presented, which is visual in nature, and with which we assert that it is
possible to diagrammatically represent and reason about the impact that an
information technology system may have on an organisation, and thus derive
organisational requirements. Keywords: Organisational requirements, Enterprise modelling, Structural relationships,
Functional relationships, Conversation modelling | |||
| Supporting Long Term Collaboration in Software Maintenance | | BIBAK | PDF | 228-238 | |
| Robert Lougher; Tom Rodden | |||
| The maintenance of large software systems is a collaborative activity
requiring the combined efforts of a team of maintenance engineers. Due to the
extended time period over which maintenance occurs, direct communication
between these team members is however, difficult or impossible.
This paper presents a system which supports long-term collaboration in software maintenance by allowing maintenance rationale to be captured and shared by maintenance engineers. The system concentrates on the construction of maintenance rationale by providing a range of unconstrained documentation facilities. The general model adopted exploits hypertext technology to allow rationale to be integrated into the system by attaching comments to the appropriate source component. Keywords: Support for long-term collaboration, Annotative collaboration, Software
maintenance, Hypertext | |||
| Combining Local Negotiation and Global Planning in Cooperative Software Development Projects | | BIBAK | PDF | 239-249 | |
| Kazuo Okamura | |||
| In cooperative software development, each programmer has their own plans and
conflicts or redundancies inevitably arise among them. We are concerned with
two main problems: first, to control changes without sacrificing programmers'
flexibility, and, second, to guide change activities to conform project
policies. Traditional methods of change request management focus on the
management process structure based on project policies while cooperative
development methodologies concern mainly with the conflict resolutions among
each changes. In this paper, we describe an architecture which deals with
proposal of changes. Based on plan integration it seamlessly supports both
change coordination through negotiations and the change management process to
have changes converge until they meet the project goals. Keywords: Change management, Software project management, Planning, Conflict
resolution, Negotiation, Version and configuration management | |||
| Methods for Organizational Development | | BIBAK | PDF | 250-257 | |
| Peter de Jong | |||
| Organizational development refers to the continual change which large,
distributed organizations undergo. Described are some methods for
organizational development. These methods include message elimination,
regrouping, reclustering, regression, and reuse.
Development occurs within a modeling system called Ubik. It is a concurrent object based system which supports a high level representation of an organization. The structure of an organization is modeled with collections of linked together objects. The action of an organization is carried out via message passing. Active messages are used to build a specialized object called a Tapeworm, which monitors and constrains organizational structure and action. The Tapeworms are used to identify the mismatch between the model and the external organization. They are also used to support the development methods. Keywords: Organizational computer systems, Organizational development, Distributed
systems, Distributed objects, Active objects, Active messages, Work flow,
Tapeworms, Object-based concurrent programming, Actor object model | |||
| An Actor Dependency Model of Organizational Work -- With Application to Business Process Reengineering | | BIBAK | PDF | 258-268 | |
| Eric S. K. Yu; John Mylopoulos | |||
| In developing information systems for use in an organization, one often
needs to understand the reasons that underlie established work patterns and
practices. Because organizational actors depend on each other for goals to be
achieved, tasks to be performed, and resources to be furnished, reasons for
work patterns can be revealed by examining the dependencies among actors. We
present a model which characterizes a work organization in terms of the network
of dependencies among organizational actors. Actor dependencies are taken to
be intentional -- they expand or restrict an actor's ability to pursue goals.
The network of actor dependencies constitutes the intentional structure of the
organization. We use examples from business process reengineering to motivate
and illustrate the model. Keywords: Organization model, Organization analysis and design, Business process
reengineering, Workflow, Requirements engineering | |||
| ASCW: An Assistant for Cooperative Work | | BIBAK | PDF | 269-278 | |
| Thomas Kreifelts; Wolfgang Prinz | |||
| The Assistant for Cooperative Work (ASCW) is a powerful system for the
management of distributed work. It consists of the Task Manager, the
organizational information system TOSCA and the video conferencing tool LIVE.
With the Task Manager, common tasks may be shared and manipulated independently
by a number of people. Users may organize cooperative tasks, monitor their
progress, share documents and services, and exchange messages during task
performance. TOSCA provides knowledge about the organizations and their
resources which are relevant for the support of communication and cooperation,
both for users and applications. Complementary to these two systems, LIVE
supports in-house and wide area video conferencing based on the broadband
telecommunication net of the German Telecom. Keywords: Group communication, Distributed work management, Organizational modeling,
Video conferencing, Integration | |||
| Building Flexible Groupware Through Open Protocols | | BIBAK | PDF | 279-288 | |
| Mark Roseman; Saul Greenberg | |||
| This paper presents a technical approach to building flexible groupware
applications. Flexibility provides the promise of personalizable groupware,
allowing different groups to work with the system in diverse ways which best
suit the group's own needs. An implementation technique called open protocols
is described, which is a variation of client/server architectures. Open
protocols facilitate the addition of group-specific modules long after the
system has been created. Three examples illustrating the use of open protocols
are presented: floor control, conference registration, and brainstorming.
Finally, a number of issues facing the groupware developer using open protocols
are addressed, along with strategies that can help in dealing with these
issues. Keywords: Personalizable groupware, Expandability, Open protocols, Implementation
technique | |||
| Access as a Means of Configuring Cooperative Interfaces | | BIBAK | PDF | 289-298 | |
| Gareth Smith; Tom Rodden | |||
| The emergence of CSCW has seen the development of a number of applications
which simultaneously present a number of interfaces to a community of users.
Limited consideration has been given to the provision of facilities that
support the configuration and tailoring of these cooperative user interfaces.
This paper presents a simple mechanism that enables dynamic support for
tailoring user interfaces. Rather than focus on the interface as having been
derived from a set of shared objects, we choose to view the problem as one of a
shared interface constructed from a collection of interface objects and access
to this shared interface. This paper presents an access model and an
environment that facilitates the construction and runtime support of
cooperative user interfaces. Keywords: Multi-user interface development environment, Access control, User interface
tailoring, CSCW architectures | |||