Browsing by Subject "coordination"

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    Journal Article
    A Review of 25 Years of CSCW Research in Healthcare: Contributions, Challenges and Future Agendas
    (Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 22, 41487) Fitzpatrick, Geraldine; Ellingsen, Gunnar
    CSCW as a field has been concerned since its early days with healthcare, studying how healthcare work is collaboratively and practically achieved and designing systems to support that work. Reviewing literature from the CSCW Journal and related conferences where CSCW work is published, we reflect on the contributions that have emerged from this work. The analysis illustrates a rich range of concepts and findings towards understanding the work of healthcare but the work on the larger policy level is lacking. We argue that this presents a number of challenges for CSCW research moving forward: in having a greater impact on larger-scale health IT projects; broadening the scope of settings and perspectives that are studied; and reflecting on the relevance of the traditional methods in this field - namely workplace studies - to meet these challenges.
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    Categories, disciplines, and social coordination
    (Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 2, No. 3, 1993) Winograd, Terry
    Lucy Suchman's paper, “Do categories have politics,” challenges the validity of speech act theory as a basis for computer systems for workflow support. Suchman fears that the explicitiness of the theory leads to undue discipline when it is applied in practice. Her fear is grounded in a misunderstanding of what it means to use such a theory, and this paper clarifies the difference between formal comprehensive models of behavior and formal structures used in communication and recording, Explicit speech act theory, like explicit accounting procedures, enforces a kind of uniformity that is necessary in any communication situation where ambiguity and vagueness cannot be routinely resolved through direct personal contact and knowledge. The practicalities of large geographically distributed organizations makes the appropriate use of shared structuring a precondition for effective cooperation.
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    Collaborating with Others Trying to Do the Same Thing: Coordination in an Educational Improvement Network
    (Proceedings of the 2012 ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work, 2012) Wardrip, Peter Samuelson
    The use of networks to support and scale school reform initiatives and educational programs are becoming more and more prevalent. Through an initiative of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT), an emerging organizational form known as a Networked Improvement Community (NIC), offers an infrastructure for implementing and improving educational innovations. Fundamental to the work of this network is the collaboration of multiple actors and teams at multiple sites. Yet, this collaboration across time and space does not just happen. It requires coordination mechanisms to guide the actions of those involved in collaboration. This research seeks to build an initial conceptual framework to study how the joint work on an educational reform happens in a distributed or networked organizational environment. A NIC is a case of one such environment.
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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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    Communication content relations to coordination and trust over time: a computer game perspective
    (Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Communities and Technologies - C&T '11, 2011) Richter, Sebastian; Lechner, Ulrike
    We research synchronous ad-hoc teams coping with complex tasks in a dynamic virtual computer game environment. We shed light on relations of communication, coordination and trust. We develop a model of coordination and show how coordination evolves over time.
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    Comparative study on the effects of groupware and conventional technologies on the efficiency of collaborative writing
    (Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 3, No. 3-4, 1995) Michailidis, Antonios; Rada, Roy
    In this paper the concept of efficiency in collaborative writing is considered in detail and a definition of efficiency is proposed. The definition of efficiency leads to the development of a research framework that delineates five operational measures of efficiency: (a) writing activities efficiency, (b) coordination efficiency, (c) quality of output, (d) absence of breakdowns, and (e) satisfaction with group performance. A comparative study is subsequently presented on the effects that groupware and conventional technologies have on the effciency of collaborative writing. The hypothesis is advanced that groupware can improve the efficiency of collaborative writing over conventional technologies. The results seem to support the hypothesis and indicate that (a) the groupware system examined in this study (MUCH system) offers efficiency benefits in terms of coordination, (b) MUCH users tend to face communication breakdowns while users of conventional technologies tend to face task-related breakdowns, (c) the documents produced with MUCH are of higher content quality, more coherent, and of higher rhetorical effectiveness than the documents produced with conventional technologies, and (d) the comparison of MUCH with conventional technologies shows no significant difference in terms of their effects on group performance satisfaction.
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    Coordination mechanisms: Towards a conceptual foundation of CSCW systems design
    (Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 5, No. 2-3, 35217) Schmidt, Kjeld; Simonee, Carla
    The paper outlines an approach to CSCW systems design based on the concept of ‘coordination mechanisms.’ The concept of coordination mechanisms has been developed as a generalization of phenomena described in empirical investigations of the use of artifacts for the purpose of coordinating cooperative activities in different work domains. On the basis of the evidence of this corpus of empirical studies, the paper outlines a theory of the use of artifacts for coordination purposes in cooperative work settings, derives a set of general requirements for computational coordination mechanisms, and sketches the architecture of Ariadne, a CSCW infrastructure for constructing and running such malleable and linkable computational coordination mechanisms.
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    The Coordinative Functions of Flight Strips: Air Traffic Control Work Revisited
    (Proceedings of the 1999 ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work, 1999) Berndtsson, Johan; Normark, Maria
    Cooperation in time-critical and physically distributed work settings, such as air traffic control, requires extensive coordination between the involved actors. For this coordination to be efficient the controllers rely both on the comprehensive use of rules and procedures, and on artifacts supporting them in following these procedures. At the Copenhagen Air Traffic Control Center this coordination is largely carried out through the use of a flight plan database system, paper flight strips, and a closed-circuit television system. In relation to the introduction of a new and increasingly automated system in the year 2003 this paper discusses the coordinative functions served by these three, soon to be replaced, artifacts from a design perspective. Despite the skepticism expressed in previous research, our results show that a further computerization could be successful if the coordinative functions the system currently fulfills are properly preserved.
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    Conference Paper
    The Emergence of High-Speed Interaction and Coordination in a (Formerly) Turn-Based Groupware Game
    (Proceedings of the 2016 ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work, 2016) Gutwin, Carl; Barjawi, Mutasem; Pinelle, David
    Although some forms of distributed groupware now enable fast-paced real-time collaboration (e.g., first-person shooter games), little work has been done to determine how coordination and interaction occur when people attempt to work together at high speed. Understanding the elements of high-speed coordination is important, because shared-workspace groupware systems offer opportunities for new kinds of high-speed work that is, they provide freedom from the physical constraints that can slow and restrict coordination in physical shared spaces. To better understand high-speed coordination, and to examine whether these opportunities can enable new kinds of interaction in groupware, we created and studied a new multi-player game (called RTChess) that is based on traditional chess, but adds multiple players and removes all turns from the gameplay. The result is a free-for-all game where people are limited only by their ability to move quickly and expertly a situation that is more like a team sport than a tabletop game. We carried out an observational study of 448 games of RTChess to look for the emergence of high-speed interaction, team coordination, and interactional expertise. We found that people can interact extremely quickly through distributed groupware, and saw evidence that people build expertise and develop several kinds of coordination in the game. Groupware systems like RTChess indicate that coordination and interaction in shared-workspace collaboration can occur at high speed, and suggest ways to free groupware users from the slow and stilted interactions that are common in many current multi-user systems.
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    Grounding Interpersonal Privacy in Mediated Settings
    (Proceedings of the 2009 ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work, 2009) Romero, Natalia A.; Markopoulos, Panos
    Recent technologies supporting continuous connectivity enable sustained awareness within social networks, which eventually boosts interaction and therefore the need of individuals to manage their interpersonal privacy. This paper introduces the Privacy Grounding Model that describes how people develop and use mechanisms to establish a shared understanding of their intentions to interact with others. The main design implication of this model is the need for lightweight interactive mechanisms by which individuals can collaboratively ground needs for interaction. To illustrate how the model supports the design of grounding mechanisms, we present examples and discuss a case study that informs about their use during several weeks.
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    Journal Article
    ICT and Integrated Care: Some Dilemmas of Standardising Inter-Organisational Communication
    (Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 14, No. 1, 2005) Winthereik, Brit Ross; Vikkelsø, Signe
    There is a growing interest in the issues of how to organise healthcare work along individual patient cases rather than along the demarcation lines of healthcare organisations. Health information systems, such as electronic patient records, are seen as important change agents, since they are asserted to help the coordination of care across organisations through fast and accurate exchange of clinical data. The paper explores how a semi-standardised discharge letter is employed to communicate about the patient between two organisational settings, the hospital and the general practitioner. It is shown that the discharge letter plays a double role as informational tool and accounting device. And it is argued that further standardisation of the discharge letter content – in order to facilitate electronic exchange – is likely to strengthen the letter’s role as a tool for organisational accountability and weaken it as a clinical tool. The paper concludes that this finding adds to the theoretical understanding of how computers support cooperative work, and that understanding how healthcare professionals present themselves as accountable and trustworthy should be of major concern when designing healthcare ICTs.
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    Identifying Seekers and Suppliers in Social Media Communities to Support Crisis Coordination
    (Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 23, No. 4-6, 2014) Purohit, Hemant; Hampton, Andrew; Bhatt, Shreyansh; Shalin, Valerie L.; Sheth, Amit P.; Flach, John M.
    Effective crisis management has long relied on both the formal and informal response communities. Social media platforms such as Twitter increase the participation of the informal response community in crisis response. Yet, challenges remain in realizing the formal and informal response communities as a cooperative work system. We demonstrate a supportive technology that recognizes the existing capabilities of the informal response community to identify needs ( seeker behavior ) and provide resources ( supplier behavior ), using their own terminology. To facilitate awareness and the articulation of work in the formal response community, we present a technology that can bridge the differences in terminology and understanding of the task between the formal and informal response communities. This technology includes our previous work using domain-independent features of conversation to identify indications of coordination within the informal response community. In addition, it includes a domain-dependent analysis of message content (drawing from the ontology of the formal response community and patterns of language usage concerning the transfer of property) to annotate social media messages. The resulting repository of annotated messages is accessible through our social media analysis tool, Twitris. It allows recipients in the formal response community to sort on resource needs and availability along various dimensions including geography and time. Thus, computation indexes the original social media content and enables complex querying to identify contents, players, and locations. Evaluation of the computed annotations for seeker-supplier behavior with human judgment shows fair to moderate agreement. In addition to the potential benefits to the formal emergency response community regarding awareness of the observations and activities of the informal response community, the analysis serves as a point of reference for evaluating more computationally intensive efforts and characterizing the patterns of language behavior during a crisis.
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    On The Roles of APIs in the Coordination of Collaborative Software Development
    (Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 18, 40072) Souza, Cleidson R. B.; Redmiles, David F.
    The principle of information hiding has been very influential in software engineering since its inception in 1972. This principle prescribes that software modules hide implementation details from other modules in order to reduce their dependencies. This separation also decreases the dependency among software developers implementing these modules, thus simplifying the required coordination. A common instantiation of this principle widely used in the industry is in the form of application programming interfaces (APIs). While previous studies report on the general use and benefits of APIs, they have glossed over the detailed ways in which APIs facilitate the coordination of work. In order to unveil these mechanisms, we performed a qualitative study on how practitioners use APIs in their daily work. Using ethnographic data from two different software development teams, we identified three roles played by APIs in the coordination of software development projects. These roles are described using three metaphors: APIs as contracts, APIs as boundaries, and APIs as communication mechanisms. As contracts, APIs allow software developers to work in parallel and independently. As a communication mechanism, APIs facilitate communication among software developers by giving them something specific to talk about. At the same time, APIs establish the boundaries between developers, and, accordingly, what should be talked about. This paper also reports on problems the studied teams face when using APIs to coordinate their work. Based on these results, we draw theoretical implications for collaborative software engineering.
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    Participatory Design at a Radio Station
    (Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 7, 36039) Kensing, Finn; Simonsen, Jesper; Bødker, Keld
    We address design of computer support for work and its coordination at the Danish Broadcasting Corporation. We propose design solutions based upon participatory design techniques and ethnographically inspired analysis within a full scale design project. The project exemplifies an ambitious, yet realistic, design practice, that provides a sound basis for organisational decision making and for technical and organizational development and implementation. We focus on cooperative aspects within and among the editorial units, and between editorial units and the editorial board. We discuss technical and organisational aspects of the design, seen in light of recent CSCW concepts, including coordination and computational coordination mechanisms, technologies of accountability, and workflow from within and without.
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    Journal Article
    Practices of Stigmergy in the Building Process
    (Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 23, No. 1, 2014) Christensen, Lars Rune
    Actors coordinate their cooperative efforts by acting on the evidence of work previously accomplished. Based on a field study this article introduces the concept of stigmergy to the analysis of coordinative practices in the building process. It distinguishes between practices of stigmergy, articulation work and awareness practices. Stigmergy is understood as coordination achieved by acting directly on the evidence of work previously accomplished by others. The article provides descriptions of stigmergy in the building process i.e. in design as well as construction work. It seeks to (1) introduce the concept of stigmergy to CSCW, (2) to delimit this concept in regard to other concepts of coordination such as articulation work and awareness and (3) to provide descriptions of practices of stigmergy in the building process and, in this capacity, to help explain how complex large-scale cooperative work is coordinated.
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    Reviewing Practices in Collaborative Writing
    (Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 10, No. 2, 37043) Kim, Hee-Cheol (Ezra); Eklundh, Kerstin Severinson
    This paper presents an interview study in which 11 academics as interviewees participated for the purpose of revealing common collaborative writing practices, with particular focus on reviewing documents. First, we present the findings obtained concerning the issues of co-operating strategies underlying the reviewing process, how people revise their documents and comment on them, what they use the previous revision history for, and to what extent current technology is used in the reviewing process. Second, we also discuss aspects of the design of collaborative writing tools.
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    Journal Article
    SimLanguage
    (Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 3, No. 1, 1994) King, John Leslie
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    Small-Scale Classification Schemes: A Field Study of Requirements Engineering
    (Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 13, No. 1, 38047) Hertzum, Morten
    Small-scale classification schemes are used extensively in the coordination of cooperative work. This study investigates the creation and use of a classification scheme for handling the system requirements during the redevelopment of a nation-wide information system. This requirements classification inherited a lot of its structure from the existing system and rendered requirements that transcended the framework laid out by the existing system almost invisible. As a result, the requirements classification became a defining element of the requirements-engineering process, though its main effects remained largely implicit. The requirements classification contributed to constraining the requirements-engineering process by supporting the software engineers in maintaining some level of control over the process. This way, the requirements classification provided the software engineers with an important means of discretely balancing the contractual aspect of requirements engineering against facilitating the users in an open-ended search for their system requirements. The requirements classification is analysed in terms of the complementary concepts of boundary objects and coordination mechanisms. While coordination mechanisms focus on how classification schemes enable cooperation among people pursuing a common goal, boundary objects embrace the implicit consequences of classification schemes in situations involving conflicting goals. Moreover, the requirements specification focused on functional requirements and provided little information about why these requirements were considered relevant. This stands in contrast to the discussions at the project meetings where the software engineers made frequent use of both abstract goal descriptions and concrete examples to make sense of the requirements. This difference between the written requirements specification and the oral discussions at the meetings may help explain software engineers' general preference for people, rather than documents, as their information sources.
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    Supporting Effortless Coordination: 25 Years of Awareness Research
    (Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 22, 2013) Gross, Tom
    Significant progress has been made in awareness research in Computer-Supported Cooperative Work over the last 25 years. This survey addresses awareness and effortless coordination—that is, how a mutual understanding in distributed teams can be gained and maintained, while still keeping the team members’ coordination efforts to a minimum. I characterise the origins of awareness and its ethnographically-informed and the technology-oriented roots, and discuss the notion of awareness. I review technical solutions for awareness support—both in applications as seen by users, and in base technology as seen by developers. Design tensions in awareness research and solutions are identified. A discussion contrasts awareness as seen from a users’ activity and effort perspective versus awareness as seen from a systems’ support and automation perspective.
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    Technology Effects in Distributed Team Coordination—High-Interdependency Tasks in Offshore Oil Production
    (Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 19, No. 2, 2010) Bayerl, Petra Saskia; Lauche, Kristina
    For highly interdependent yet location-specific tasks, distributed teams need to closely coordinate activities and processes. This field study in the upstream oil and gas industry focused on challenges in the coordination of highly interdependent tasks if teams work remotely on an ongoing basis. Based on 78 semi-structured interviews and observations over a period of 12 months, we identified coordination requirements for primary team activities, as well as effects of changing media capabilities to overcome difficulties of ongoing distribution. Implications for media requirements in the support of ongoing distributed teams are discussed.