Browsing by Subject "collaboration"

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    An Admissibility-Based Operational Transformation Framework for Collaborative Editing Systems
    (Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 19, No. 1, 40210) Li, Du; Li, Rui
    Operational transformation (OT) as a consistency control method has been well accepted in group editors. With OT, the users can edit any part of a shared document at any time and local responsiveness is not sensitive to communication latencies. However, established theoretical frameworks for developing OT algorithms either require transformation functions to work in all possible cases, which complicates the design of transformation functions, or include an under-formalized condition of intention preservation, which results in algorithms that cannot be formally proved and must be fixed over time to address newly discovered counterexamples. To address those limitations, this paper proposes an alternative framework, called admissibility-based transformation (ABT), that is theoretically based on formalized, provable correctness criteria and practically no longer requires transformation functions to work under all conditions. Compared to previous approaches, ABT simplifies the design and proofs of OT algorithms.
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    Beyond Expertise Seeking: A Field Study of the Informal Knowledge Practices of Healthcare IT Teams
    (Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 21, 41061) Spence, Patricia Ruma; Reddy, Madhu
    CSCW has long been concerned with formal and informal knowledge practices in organizations, examining both the social and technical aspects of how knowledge is sought, shared, and used. In this study, we are interested in examining the set of activities that occur when co-located knowledge workers manage and resolve issues by seeking, sharing, and applying their informal knowledge. Informal knowledge seeking involves more than identifying the expert who has the knowledge or accessing the knowledge through physical artifacts. It also involves working with that expert to identify and apply the appropriate knowledge to the particular situation. However, our understandings of how people collaboratively work together to find, share and apply this knowledge are less well understood. To investigate this phenomenon, we conducted a field study of how professionals in three IT teams of a regional hospital managed and resolved IT issues. These knowledge workers used various collaborative practices such as creation of ad-hoc teams and the use of email to identify, share, and use informal knowledge to resolve IT issues. In addition, particular team practices such as how issues are assigned affected these knowledge activities. Our findings highlight how informal knowledge activities are affected by a variety of implicit and sometimes subtle features of the organization and that organizational knowledge management systems should support informal knowledge seeking activities and collaboration amongst the knowledge sharers.
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    Bridging Identity Gaps—Supporting Identity Performance in Citizen Service Encounters
    (Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 21, No. 6, 2012) Borchorst, Nikolaj Gandrup; McPhail, Brenda; Smith, Karen Louise; Ferenbok, Joseph; Clement, Andrew
    This paper explores in situ citizen service encounters in government offices. Drawing upon ethnographically informed fieldwork in Canada and Denmark, we discuss the challenges to supporting citizens in constructing and performing identities in public service settings. Our data suggests that citizens make use of at least three strategies in their attempts to perform the appropriate identities needed to “fit within the system” in specific encounters with government. There exists a strong correlation between citizens’ ability to perform identities that are compatible with the bureaucratic administrative processes and the quality and swiftness of the service they receive. As we bring to light in this paper, this “fitting in” with rigid bureaucratic procedures and IT systems interestingly requires a substantial collaborative effort between the receiver(s) of the service and a complex constellation of surrounding stakeholders and intermediaries. This collaboration and the performing of multiple identities raises challenges for the design of e-government systems aimed at supporting physical and digital citizen service provision, as well as issues regarding privacy, citizenship, and public service quality. Lastly, we turn to a discussion of how the established identity gaps can be addressed through design. Information and communication technologies as well as face-to-face encounters have an important role to play in the building of an interface to government. Here, it is paramount to consider the context in which people and systems must function in order to meet the need for dynamic identity performance.
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    Bridging, Patching and Keeping the Work Flowing: Defect Resolution in Distributed Software Development
    (Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 18, 40072) Avram, Gabriela; Bannon, Liam; Bowers, John; Sheehan, Anne; Sullivan, Daniel K.
    This paper reports on results from a long-term field study of globally distributed software development projects within a multinational organization. The research explores the issues involved in performing global software development, utilizing a perspective informed by CSCW research concerning the local organization of work practices and the key role of workers in being able to intervene in the ‘flow of work’ where necessary. The paper also raises some more general questions concerning the field of Global Software Development (GSD), in terms of the concepts and methods being used in the area. Our contribution is in the form of a CSCW-informed empirical study of the use of defect (or ‘bug’) tracking systems—systems which support the identification, classification and resolution of defects in the emerging software. In one case, the team persisted with a defect tracking system that they had used for years and maintained it in parallel with a system used by co-workers in other countries—all the while attempting to implement a bridge between the two. In the other, we report on how local software patches were created to allow for local work to proceed while not interfering with the existing coordination mechanisms between the local site and remote co-workers who were responsible for creating daily builds according to the overall project plan. In both cases, local practices were shaped by the necessity to keep work flowing across the whole project, even if this involved what might, at first sight, seem to go against project-wide practice. We discuss implications of these findings in terms of a key distinction between externally-prescribed ‘workflow’ and internally-managed ‘flow of work’ activities. We also explore how a heterogeneous ‘assembly’ of variably coupled systems may be the most appropriate image for technological support of distributed teams as they keep the work flowing in an orderly fashion. Overall, our work suggests that studies of global software development can profit from the CSCW tradition of workplace studies both conceptually and methodologically.
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    Conference Paper
    Collaboration and Coordination in the Context of Informal Care (CCCiC): Concepts, Methods, and Technologies
    (Proceedings of the 2014 ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work, 2014) Tellioğlu, Hilda; Lewkowicz, Myriam; Pinatti De Carvalho, Aparecido Fabiano; Brešković, Ivan; Schinkinger, Susanne; Tixier, Matthieu
    Increasing attention is currently paid to informal care and the physical, emotional, and psychological burden stemming from it. Research findings suggest that such a burden might be intensified when informal caregivers are at older ages. Aiming at reducing the burden associated with informal care, some research studies have focused on developing innovative technologies to support caregivers with their activities and responsibilities. These studies highlight the importance of understanding the many variables that characterise different care situations, emphasizing the relevance of user-centered and participatory design approaches. Following up the successful first edition of the CCCiC workshop held at the 2014 ACM CSCW conference in Baltimore, this workshop elaborates on the resulting roadmap for future research in the domain: concepts, methods, and technologies. This workshop seeks contributions exploring issues of collaboration and coordination for informal care addressing concepts emerging from field research, methodological challenges, work-in-progress, and the design and evaluation of technological solutions.
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    Collaboration and Trust in Healthcare Innovation: The eDiaMoND Case Study
    (Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 14, No. 4, 2005) JIROTKA, MARINA; PROCTER, ROB; HARTSWOOD, MARK; SLACK, ROGER; SIMPSON, ANDREW; COOPMANS, CATELIJNE; HINDS, CHRIS; VOSS, ALEX
    This paper presents findings from an investigation into requirements for collaboration in e-Science in the context of eDiaMoND, a Grid-enabled prototype system intended in part to support breast cancer screening. Detailed studies based on ethnographic fieldwork reveal the importance of accountability and visibility of work for trust and for the various forms of ‘practical ethical action’ in which clinicians are seen to routinely engage in this setting. We discuss the implications of our findings, specifically for the prospect of using distributed screening to make more effective use of scarce clinical skills and, more generally, for realising the Grid’s potential for sharing data within and across institutions. Understanding how to afford trust and to provide adequate support for ethical concerns relating to the handling of sensitive data is a particular challenge for e-Health systems and for e-Science in general. Future e-Health and e-Science systems will need to be compatible with the ways in which trust is achieved, and practical ethical actions are realised and embedded within work practices.
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    Collaboration on Social Network Sites: Amateurs, Professionals and Celebrities
    (Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 19, No. 5, 2010) Ploderer, Bernd; Howard, Steve; Thomas, Peter
    Amateurs are found in arts, sports, or entertainment, where they are linked with professional counterparts and inspired by celebrities. Despite the growing number of CSCW studies in amateur and professional domains, little is known about how technologies facilitate collaboration between these groups. Drawing from a 1.5-year field study in the domain of bodybuilding, this paper describes the collaboration between and within amateurs, professionals, and celebrities on social network sites. Social network sites help individuals to improve their performance in competitions, extend their support network, and gain recognition for their achievements. The findings show that amateurs benefit the most from online collaboration, whereas collaboration shifts from social network sites to offline settings as individuals develop further in their professional careers. This shift from online to offline settings constitutes a novel finding, which extends previous work on social network sites that has looked at groups of amateurs and professionals in isolation. As a contribution to practice, we highlight design factors that address this shift to offline settings and foster collaboration between and within groups.
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    Collaborative Feed Reading in a Community
    (Proceedings of the 2009 ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work, 2009) Aizenbud-Reshef, Netta; Guy, Ido; Jacovi, Michal
    Feed readers have emerged as one of the salient applications that characterize Web 2.0. Lately, some of the available readers introduced social features, analogously to other Web 2.0 applications, such as recommendations and tagging. Yet, most of the readers lack collaborative features, such as the ability to share feeds in a community or divide the reading task among community members. In this paper we describe CoffeeReader, a web-based feed reader, which combines social and collaborative features, and is deployed in a small community within our company. CoffeeReader provides awareness of other users' feed lists and read status; it enables information sharing such as tags and recommendations; and aims to support coordination of filtering through feeds to locate important items. We compare these group collaboration features of CoffeeReader with emerging features in publicly available feed readers; present the outcomes of using CoffeeReader within our community; and discuss our findings and their implications on making feed readers more collaborative.
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    The Collaborative Management of Information Problems in Hospitals
    (Proceedings of the 2014 ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work, 2014) Murphy, Alison R.
    With the rapid emergence of health information technologies (HIT) in hospitals, it is important to understand how the design of these systems affects the communication of patient information and the collaboration of hospital teams. HIT systems can provide benefits to the patient-care process, but they do not always address serious information problems. In some cases, the design and use of HIT systems can cause additional information problems. Therefore, this qualitative study seeks to understand how hospital teams identify and manage these information problems, and how information problems impact the collaborative activities of the hospital team
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    Collaborative Reflection at Work: Supporting Informal Learning at a Healthcare Workplace
    (Proceedings of the 2012 ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work, 2012) Prilla, Michael; Degeling, Martin; Herrmann, Thomas
    Reflection is a common means to improve work: Every day, people think back to past work and - oftentimes in a group - try to find out whether they can improve it or whether they can derive better practices from it. However, especially collaborative reflection is neglected in research and design and consequently, there are hardly any insights on how it takes place in the practice of daily work and how tools can support it. To shed light on these questions, this paper presents a case that has been analyzed in a hospital as part of a series of studies on collaborative reflection in practice. Focusing this case and backing it with the other studies, the paper presents peculiarities and needs of collaborative reflection in healthcare workplaces as well as a more general formalization of collaborative reflection characteristics. Based on these results, an application to support physicians in their reflection was prototyped and tested. The presented results primarily apply to healthcare workplaces, but also cover general findings for the support of collaborative reflection.
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    Concept Indexing
    (Proceedings of the 1999 ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work, 1999) Voss, Angi; Nakata, Keiichi; Juhnke, Marcus
    Marking text in a document is a convenient way of identifying bits of knowledge that are relevant for the reader, a colleague or a larger group. Based on such markings, networks of concepts with hyperlinks to their occurrences in a collection of documents can be developed. On the Internet, marked documents can easily be shared, concepts can be constructed collaboratively and the concept-document network can be used for navigation and direct access. Text marking, grounded concepts and the Internet as base technology are characteristics of our tool for managing so called “concept indexes”. We describe the current and the new design and outline some application scenarios: electronic help desks, information digests on the Web, teaching design in virtual classes and planning under quality control in distributed teams.
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    Constructing Interdependencies with Collaborative Information Technology
    (Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 12, No. 4, 37956) Karsten, Helena
    Interdependencies are constructed when peoplegradually build mutual relationships betweenthemselves. In this study the focus is oninterdependencies at work, in long-termprojects or groups. Viewing interdependencerelationships dynamically, as social practices,it is possible to appreciate the complex andsituated nature of this formation. The maingoal of the study is to develop a theoreticalaccount of the dynamics of the intertwinedprocesses of interdependence construction andcollaborative technology appropriation and use.The main dimensions of this account are: (1)how interdependence is constructed andestablished as a social process, (2) howinformation and communication are involved inthese processes, and (3) in what wayscollaborative information technology cancontribute to or hamper these processes. Thefirst dimension builds upon structurationtheory. Three earlier case studies arere-visited with the approach, with the outcomeof several issues to be explored. Thetheoretical approach opens up an extensiveresearch program of interdependenceconstruction in relation to collaborativeinformation technology appropriation and use.
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    COVE: A Visual Environment for Multidisciplinary Science Collaboration
    (Proceedings of the 2009 ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work, 2009) Grochow, Keith
    New technologies and approaches are transforming how we carry out and communicate science. In oceanography, large multidisciplinary teams are developing deep-water ocean observatories of unprecedented scale. These observatories will allow hundreds of scientists from disparate fields to conduct experiments together, provide real-time sensor and data access through the Internet, and create a vast archive of data. My work explores some of the challenges of creating collaborative tools to support this new science. Working together with a team of scientists, I designed and deployed the Collaborative Ocean Visualization Environment (COVE) to bring together the data, processes and people on the team. I then carried out three field evaluations of COVE: a multi-month deployment with the scientists, engineers, and graphics staff of the observatory design team, and two different two-week deployments as the primary planning and collaboration platform for expeditionary cruises to map observatory node sites and geothermal sites. Based on these experiences and insight gained in these deployments, I explore the needs of interactive tools to support the work of large multidisciplinary ocean science teams.
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    CSCL@work Revisited - beyond CSCL and CSCW? Are There Key Design Principles for Computer Supported Collaborative Learning at the Workplace?
    (Proceedings of the 2012 ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work, 2012) Goggins, Sean; Jahnke, Isa; Wulf, Volker
    We propose an interdisciplinary workshop to explore key design principles of collaborative learning in the workplace. The workshop's theme is, simply CSCL at the workplace". Our first workshop at ACM Group 2010, and the resulting book, raise an important set of issues and potentials for research, but does not solve the thorny and controversial issues. This workshop will be focused on for making progress on the identified issues. The ACM Group conference remains an ideal venue for a workshop on this topic because the North American and European communities who participate in Group include leading members of the international CSCL and CSCW communities. The proposed workshop will be a full day. It will open with a situating presentation by the organizers and, participant questions and proposed solutions aimed at the issues we have raised and begun to recognize, and focus working groups on the resolution of those issues in work to follow the conference. To participate in the workshop, discussants will be asked for a position paper of up to 2 pages in standard ACM format. Our edited book will be made available to participants in advance, and selected authors who will be present will provide overviews of their work and perspective in an interleaved way with the more action oriented working sessions."
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    Designing for Inclusion: Supporting Gender Diversity in Independent Innovation Teams
    (Proceedings of the 2016 ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work, 2016) Hui, Julie S.; Farnham, Shelly D.
    We study how independent innovation teams develop an environment of inclusion to support gender diversity. Through a mixed-methods study involving surveys and interviews with people involved in independent innovation, we sought to better understand the mechanisms by which their teams fostered a sense of inclusion to support gender diversity via interpersonal practices and communication and collaboration technology usage. By understanding how inclusion supports gender diversity, we discuss design implications to help more diverse independent innovation teams form and function.
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    Empirical Study on Collaborative Writing: What Do Co-authors Do, Use, and Like?
    (Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 13, No. 1, 38047) Noël, Sylvie; Robert, Jean-Marc
    How do people work when they are collaborating to write a document? What kind of tools do they use and, in particular, do they resort to groupware for this task? Forty-one people filled out a questionnaire placed on the World Wide Web. In spite of the existence of specialized collaborative writing tools, most respondents reported using individual word processors and email as their main tools for writing joint documents. Respondents noted the importance of functions such as change tracking, version control, and synchronous work for collaborative writing tools. This study also confirmed the great variability that exists between collaborative writing projects, whether it be group membership, management, writing strategy, or scheduling issues.
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    Examining Community Dynamics of Civic Crowdfunding Participation
    (Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 28, No. 5, 43709) Mayer, Martin
    Over the past decade, crowdfunding has emerged as a legitimate, albeit niche, resource for public service delivery. Predicated on utilizing the resources of the crowd to address public issues, civic crowdfunding has the potential to offer citizens a greater role in service delivery and community development. This study investigates community dynamics and their potential impact on project success in jurisdictions proposing civic crowdfunding proposals. The results highlight the dynamics and characteristics of communities where project proposals are likely to find funding success. The results further highlight several potential opportunities for future research to better understand how and why these projects truly work.
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    Exploring How a Co-Dependent Tangible Tool Design Supports Collaboration in a Tabletop Activity
    (Proceedings of the 2014 ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work, 2014) Fan, Min; Antle, Alissa N.; Neustaedter, Carman; Wise, Alyssa F.
    Many studies suggest that tangibles and digital tabletops have potential to support collaborative interaction. However, previous findings show that users often work in parallel with such systems. One design strategy that may encourage collaboration rather than parallel use involves creating a system that responds to co-dependent access points in which more than one action is required to create a successful system response. To better understand how co-dependent access points support collaboration, we designed a comparative study with 12 young adults using the same application with a co-dependent and an independent access point design. We collected and analyzed categories of both verbal and behavioural data in the two conditions. Our results show support for the co-dependent strategy and suggest ways that the co-dependent design can be used to support flexible collaboration on tangible tabletops for young adults.
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    From Intersubjectivity to Group Cognition
    (Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 25, 42644) Stahl, Gerry
    The question of how it is possible for people to understand each other has been a controversial theme throughout the recent history of philosophy. It is a foundational issue for the social sciences, in which researchers try to understand the behaviors and statements of other people. It is of particular relevance to CSCW and CSCL, where participants have to understand, work with and learn with each other. Philosophers have posed the issue of how an individual can understand another and how a small group or community can have a joint understanding, shared intentionality or we-awareness. Studies of CSCW not only adopt insights from the philosophy of intersubjectivity to ground their methodology, they also contribute to the analysis of how intersubjectivity is established in concrete settings, including in virtual environments. Similarly, CSCL research can investigate how groups of people learn to construct intersubjective understandings in both traditional and technologically enhanced interactions. While classical phenomenology of intersubjectivity started from the cognitions of a solitary mind, the notion of intersubjectivity has subsequently shifted to a more social view. Recent studies of intersubjectivity suggest a structure of group cognition, which can provide a foundation for collaboration in work and learning that incorporates but transcends individual cognition.
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    Group Dynamics Findings from Coordination in Problem Solving and Decision Making Meetings
    (Proceedings of the 2012 ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work, 2012) Roman, Flaviu; Verma, Himanshu; Jermann, Patrick; Dillenbourg, Pierre
    We present the results of group dynamics and their effect on success in problem solving/decision making meetings. We use a novel multiple input environment for collaboration and data collection, and a hidden profile task given to groups, whose goals are to find the correct solution. We observe that groups elect 0, 1 or 2 leaders, and the best results are obtained by the groups with a single leader. Prior acquaintance (familiarity), does not show any effect on the success or on the group strategies. Groups with a single leader tend to be more successful, and leaders expressed their authority verbally rather than by through the collaborative system.