Computer Supported Cooperative Work Systems Research Articles

The Role of Social Computing Technologies in Grassroots Movement Building

Social movement organizing is becoming increasingly dependent on communication technologies. How can Computer-Supported Cooperative Work systems support grassroots organizations in facilitating collective action through democratic participation? In this article, we study Science for the People-Atlanta, a social movement organization dedicated to building a grassroots movement around science activism. We used action research, both participating in the organization and studying it. We use the Freirean model of participatory communication theory to unpack the movement-building process of SftP-Atlanta. The Freirean model provides a three-step, iterative process for sustainable movement building: forming a collective identity, moving toward collective action, and engaging in reflexive dialog. We analyze both the perceived strengths and weaknesses of their sociotechnical practices in supporting the organization as they iteratively go through the phases of the Freirean model. Finally, we identify inclusivity , privacy/security , and social translucence as three values desirable for sociotechnical practices of grassroots organizing.

UMI3D

UMI3D is a recent model which allows the generic description of 3D environments through a network. These generic environments can run outside of any device, on a server or on a separate computer. A unique dedicated application that we have named UMI3D client allows a VR, AR or MR device to interact with all the existing UMI3D environments. Moreover, the client-server architecture allows these environments to be collaborative. In this paper, we introduce a toolbox which allows the creation and running of UMI3D collaborative environments using Unity 3D. It contains tools to address the main concerns of computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) systems in UMI3D environments. After introducing the contribution of this toolbox to the design of 3D CSCW systems, we present a user evaluation of an environment designed with this toolbox. Finally, we discuss the limits of the UMI3D model and the improvements that could be made to this model.

A comprehensive framework for modeling requirements of CSCW systems

AbstractAs in any other system, an accurate requirements specification is essential to developing a collaborative system, which has special kinds of requirements that are hard to specify by means of current Requirements Engineering techniques. The Collaborative Systems Requirement Modeling Framework (CSRMF) was developed to address this problem; the original Collaborative Systems Requirement Modeling Language was extended and modeled to properly deal with collaboration and awareness requirements. The developed CSRMF framework consists of 3 components: an Requirements Engineering modeling language able to represent collaboration among users as well as awareness needs, a set of design guidelines that drive Computer Supported Cooperative Work system specification by means of 5 different types of diagrams, and a supporting computer‐aided software engineering tool to specify and validate Computer Supported Cooperative Work system requirements. CSRMF provides Requirements Engineers with a complete solution to the specification of awareness‐demanding collaborative systems, as they can now take advantage of a language and a set of guidelines supported by a tool to guide them in specifying system requirements.

A Modular Approach of Computer Support Cooperative Work System

A modular approach of computer supported cooperative work system is proposed which based on the hierarchical structure characteristics of distributed cooperative system and the advanced component technology. The key of this approach is regarded the module as core to organize and manage cooperative objects and used the CORBA specifications as an interactive platform to achieve the object communication. The browser/server computing model is used in this approach to deal with remote heterogeneous cooperation problem and the mechanism of cooperation is separated so as to facilitate the application of a distributed cooperation environment for quick implementation. The goal is to provide an open framework for computer supported cooperative work system developers, which can support the implementation of distributed cooperative work to improve system development time. The modular approach of computer supported cooperative work system and its implementation has been achieved in the prototype system MCSCDS.

Research on a multi-agent based group awareness model

Based on the research background of group awareness theory and the research achievement of agent technology, this paper applies multi-agent technology in Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) environment and describes the group awareness in CSCW system with the multi-agent based group awareness model. It builds up the multi-agent based group awareness model and discusses its key problems with emphasis on how to achieve the collaboration awareness in the CSCW system through the cooperation and interaction among the three types of agents – management agent, interactive agent and function agent. These agents exchange information or invoke others in the CSCW system and the final of that is proved to be more accurate and flexible in describing the dynamic process and regularities of tasks, roles and actions in real life.

A CSCW-Enabling Integrated Access Control Model and its Application

Nowadays open and distributed Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) systems are faced with security challenges due to large numbers of cooperative users, and a mass of valued data resources need to be protected against unauthorized usage, disseminations and share. To this end, role-based collaboration framework and access control approaches have been a focus in recent years, but there lack of a holistic and comprehensive model and visual modeling. We proposed and formalized a CSCW-enabling access control model integrating generic centralized authorization and distributed authority delegation, called IACM (Integrated Access Control Model) for CSCW, based on the cooperative roles and their owned activities. And then, the visual modeling was represented with static and dynamic characteristics, with a goal to narrow the gap of the formalized model and application level. Finally, an application in the collaboration system for equipments manufacture designing was implemented to improve security of the role-based centralized authorization management by using the authorization constraint rules, and to enhance the collaborative capability based on the user-side delegation mechanism, effectively guaranteeing CSCW system security and authorization management efficiency.

A CSCW-Enabling Integrated Access Control Model and its Application

Nowadays open and distributed Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) systems are faced with security challenges due to large numbers of cooperative users, and a mass of valued data resources need to be protected against unauthorized usage, disseminations and share. To this end, role-based collaboration framework and access control approaches have been a focus in recent years, but there lack of a holistic and comprehensive model and visual modeling. We proposed and formalized a CSCW-enabling access control model integrating generic centralized authorization and distributed authority delegation, called IACM (Integrated Access Control Model) for CSCW, based on the cooperative roles and their owned activities. And then, the visual modeling was represented with static and dynamic characteristics, with a goal to narrow the gap of the formalized model and application level. Finally, an application in the collaboration system for equipments manufacture designing was implemented to improve security of the role-based centralized authorization management by using the authorization constraint rules, and to enhance the collaborative capability based on the user-side delegation mechanism, effectively guaranteeing CSCW system security and authorization management efficiency.

A Classification Method for CSCW Systems

Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) is a research field where the role played by individuals as members of groups is fundamental. The human being is not considered as an individual entity, but it is considered as a being embedded into the society, where he works and interacts. From the beginning, many CSCW systems have arisen. Some taxonomies appeared in order to find a way to classify all these tools, but they have become more and more complicated, therefore nowadays such classifications cannot sort them correctly. In this paper we present a taxonomy according to these changes, so that CSCW systems can be classified in a more flexible way.

Definition and use of Computation Independent Models in an MDA-based groupware development process

Groupware systems allow users to be part of a shared environment in order to carry out groupwork. Members of a group belong to organizations in which each one fulfils general and specific enterprise objectives. This paper presents a proposal, from the perspective of the CSCW (Computer-Supported Cooperative Work) systems, for modelling enterprise organization and developing groupware applications. This research work focuses on two specific models for the proposal: a conceptual domain model formalized through a domain ontology, and a system model built using a UML-based notation. The second stems from the first and each provides a Computation Independent View (CIV) with different objectives. Respectively, they allow a common vocabulary for knowledge sharing to be established, and organization functional requirements to be specified, particularly those concerning communication, coordination and collaboration. Furthermore, these models are part of a concrete MDA-based development process of groupware applications that is also introduced.

Emergent CSCW systems: The resolution and bandwidth of workplaces

In any collaborative work settings, people naturally develop physical tools and associated work processes that support the management of the interdependencies in information, materials, and social needs. Field studies of management of operating rooms pointed out that collaborative work is supported by an infrastructure that is composed of mostly non-computerized, physical components. The supporting infrastructure is jointly maintained and exploited, with constantly evolving patterns of usage, in response to complexity of coordination needs and the uncertain environment. To represent status and plans, users seem to invent structures based both on idiosyncratic preferences and on negotiated symbols. The fluidity and ease of restructuring workplaces to support collaborative work may be explained in part by the high resolution and bandwidth of workplaces: a large number of ways in which workers could structure their work and a high capacity to convey rich information and meanings quickly to collaborators. We argue that to support health care workers, designers of computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) systems should learn how the physical and perceptual properties of workplaces are exploited, and that CSCW systems should be designed to allow maximum freedom of restructuring and reconfiguring as part of workplaces to enhance bandwidth and resolution of representation and communication.

Role-based collaboration and its kernel mechanisms

Computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) systems are computer-based tools that support the collaborative activities of human users. They should not only support virtual face-to-face collaborative environments but also improve face-to-face collaboration by providing more mechanisms to overcome the drawbacks of usual face-to-face collaboration. Introducing roles into CSCW systems is important in achieving this. This paper's contributions include establishing the requirements for a role-based collaboration, presenting the concept, requirements, and principles of role-based collaboration, proposing a model E-CARGO for role-based collaboration, and describing the kernel mechanisms and their implementation to facilitate the development of role-based collaborative systems for industrial applications

Modelling Situated Actions in Collaborative Hypertext Databases

The need to model users' dynamic behaviour in Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) systems arises in many contexts. This study developed a probabilistic model of the usage of an awareness-maintaining mechanism in a collaborative hypertext database system. Longitudinal time series data of user-database interaction were studied. The study found that the recurring patterns in the occurrences of the awareness-seeking event were related to several contextual aspects of the CSCW system studied. The context-behaviour relationship is captured by a Poisson regression model. The analytical method can be applied to the study of situated actions in other CSCW systems.

Role mechanisms in collaborative systems

Computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) systems are computer-based tools that support collaborative activities. They should meet the requirements of normal collaborative efforts among people. They should not only support virtual face-to-face collaboration among people at a distance, but also improve face-to-face collaboration by providing more mechanisms to overcome the drawbacks of face-to-face collaboration among people. Therefore, introducing roles into CSCW systems is extremely important. By roles, one can avoid users of CSCW systems being overwhelmed by too much irrelevant information. One of the major problems in current CSCW systems is determining how to define and specify roles clearly and rigorously while maintaining the flexibility for collaboration. Many traditional CSCW systems based on roles have lost their flexibility after introducing roles because they can only provide static role mechanisms based on intuitive role concepts. There are no flexible mechanisms for role tuning, changing and transitions because there is not a special mechanism to express a role. This paper reviews the applications of roles in traditional collaborative systems, clarifies the general meanings of roles, discusses the functions of roles in collaboration, and suggests a role mechanism and a group of principles to support collaboration based on roles. This paper concludes that roles need more comprehensive research and will be applied widely in different areas.

User-Centered Awareness in Computer-Supported Cooperative Work-Systems: Structured Embedding of Findings from Social Sciences

An increasing number of computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) software systems try to provide users with awareness information-information about the presence, activities, and availability of members of a community. However, most of these software systems are designed from a feature-oriented, rather than a human-oriented, point of view. In this article, a structured embedding of findings in social sciences is proposed. It reveals the variety of approaches in technology-driven CSCW developments featuring awareness, as well as the variety of empirical evidence in small-group research with respect to awareness. The authors have been looking at different aspects of awareness: the terminology used in both disciplines, the concepts that have been developed, and the different constructs that have evolved from empirical research. Finally, operational instances of awareness have been revisited. From these findings it can be concluded that awareness addresses different constellations of group settings, different types of individual behavior, and different contexts of use. These findings can be used by CSCW software system developers for postevaluation-that is, to identify empirical evidence for awareness features already implemented and to identify those already implemented features still lacking empirical evidence. The findings should also encourage social scientists to empirically investigate the usage of existing and envisioned software features in CSCW settings. Overall, the results should help to achieve a shift from technology-driven development toward human-centered design of collaborative communities, due to the envisioned integration of understandings and concepts.

Designing with ethnography: An integrative approach to CSCW design

This paper presents a part of wider research endeavor within the field of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) to leverage the use of ethnography for systems design. It investigates the role of ethnography in the development of CSCW systems and its relevance to real world problems, particularly, to uncover the social organisation of work practices. The usage of ethnography to inform CSCW design constitutes many challenges to systems design. The most significant of these design challenges is the inevitable need for well-established methods for applying the ethnography within CSCW to inform systems design. We have developed an integrative approach based on ethnography and meta-modelling for use in the context of CSCW research and practice. We have also applied this approach to the analysis of cooperative work in the academic domain of investigation.

AN AUTOMATA-BASED APPROACH TO CSCW VERIFICATION

Software development for computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) is a notoriously difficult task, involving often concurrent processes which are bound up with rigid timing constraints. To cope effectively with this difficulty, we propose in this paper the use of abstract finite-state models. The utility of these models is illustrated by encoding a CSCW system that we have built into finite-state automata, specifying in them a number of desired properties with temporal logic, and verifying these properties with model checking. By incorporating timing constraints into this process, we also gain insight into the usability of our system in real cooperative scenarios.

Infrastructure Management as Cooperative Work: Implications for Systems Design

This study looks at the data communications network management organization (NMO) within a large financial institution and applies concepts from Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) and other domains to develop techniques for describing work within this and other similar organizations. Network management is one form of infrastructure management, which is comprised of two kinds of work: real-time supervisory control work and design work. While many studies of group work focus on the activities of small groups of people engaged in either real-time supervisory control or design work, examinations of organizations where both kinds of work occur are relatively rare. The focus is on the work patterns and data forms that are found within the NMO. Some of the implications of the analysis in regard to the design of CSCW systems are presented and discussed.

A CORBA-Based Computer Support Cooperative Work for Dynamic Alliances

There exist two problems in the research and application of computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) systems for dynamic alliances. One is that there are different structures (software and hardware) in CSCW systems. The other is that CSCW systems are not supported by an external environment. This paper presents a CORBA (common object request broker architecture) based CSCW system for the alliance centre of the dynamic alliance. This system can not only provide an external environment which can provide resource searching, group decision support, multi-part communication and other services for alliancing enterprises, but also implement application communication by solving problems resulting from the different structures of CSCW systems. An application model developed by Jaguar CTS (Jaguar component transaction server) is described.

원격지정을 위한 RTP 페이로드 형식

CSCW 시스템은 효율적인 공동작업의 인지를 위해 원격지정(telepoinging), 스냅샷(snap shot), 문서/프로젝트의 작업상황파악 등과 같은 기능들을 제공한다. 이 중 원격지정은 지역 시스템의 공유윈도우에서 원격지정자(telepointer)를 통해 발생한 이벤트를 원격지 시스템의 공유윈도우에 동기적으로 표현하는 기법이다. 이 기법에 대한 응용사례는 여러 문헌에서 찾아볼 수 있으나 이에 대한 기능 요구사항이나 프로토콜에 관한 연구는 미흡한 실정이다. 본 논문은 RTP(Real-Time Transport Protocol) 기반의 원격지정을 위한 기능요구사항과 페이로드 형식을 정의한다. 제안된 RTP 기반 텔리포인팅의 성능평가를 위해 화이트 보드를 구현하고 이를 Microsoft Netmeeting의 화이트 보드와 비교하였다. 성능평가 결과, CPU 사용량과 네트워크 사용량에서 제안된 원격지정방식이 더 높은 성능을 보였다. For the efficient collaboration awareness, the CSCW (Computer-Supported Cooperative Work) systems provide functions such as telepointing, snap-shot, and document/project tracking. Among these, telepointing allows an event occurrence on the shared window of a local computing system to be presented in remote computing systems. Although telepointing has been mentioned in the literature, few research papers deal with the functional requirements and protocols for telepointing. This parer describes the functional requirements and payload format for RTP (Real-Time Transport Protocol)-based telepointing. In order to evaluate the performance of the proposed RTP-barred telepointing, we have implemented a whiteboard and compared it with that of the Microsoft Netmeeting. The evaluation results show that the proposed telepointing performs better in terms of CPU usage and the amount of network traffic.

Designing Work: Situating Design Objects in Cultural Context

This paper compares the design of systems for computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) in Japan and in Scandinavia with particular attention to the influence of culture on both the design process and on what is designed. The paper suggests that CSCW systems, like all technologies, can be read as texts which give form to the conversations that made them and which, by deduction, can reveal certain ideas, values and norms of the participants in that conversation These technological texts contain some elements which are distinctive to their culture of origin, without necessarily being unique to that context. The paper further offers a plausible explanation for certain CSCW design choices, basing its argument in the discourse of designers themselves. It employs the notion of technological frame (Bijker and Law, 1992) to explain how Japanese CSCW designers invoke Japanese culture in general and certain aspects in particular as resources upon which to found technical decisions, illustrating the translation of these cultural arguments in CSCW systems. It also explores how a group of Scandinavian designers draw on the vocabulary of democratic ideals and participation to support their production and, especially, their particular design practices. Simply put, this paper seeks to clarify the relationship between what designers do and how they do it, and between what they do and what they say.