Challenges for Cooperative Work on the Web: An Analytical Approach

Abstract

This paper investigates some of the issues which willdetermine the viability of the World Wide Web as aninfrastructure for cooperative work. In fact, takinga weak definition of collaboration, the Web is alreadya very successful collaborative environment. Inaddition, it is already being used as the basis forexperimental and commercial groupware. The paper takesthis as a starting point and uses analytic methodsdeveloped in the field of Computer SupportedCooperative Work to investigate the reasons for theWeb's present success, its strengths and weaknesses asa platform for CSCW, and prospects for future development.