Shared Information Space Research Articles

Sharing and Stealing

The purpose of copyright is to encourage the creation and mass dissemination of a wide variety of works. Until recently, most means of mass dissemination required a significant capital investment. The lion's share of the economic proceeds of copyrights were therefore channeled to publishers and distributors, and the law was designed to facilitate that. Digital distribution invites us to reconsider all of the assumptions underlying that model. We are still in the early history of the networked digital environment, but already we've seen experiments with both direct and consumer-to-consumer distribution of works of authorship. One remarkable example of the difference consumer-to-consumer dissemination can make is seen in the astonishing information space that has grown up on the world wide web. The Internet has transformed information and the way we interact with it by creating an easily accessible, dynamic, shared information space. Its success derives from the fact that information sharing on the Web is almost frictionless; individuals are free to post information they learned from others without having to secure their permissions. This paper proposes that we look for some of the answers to the vexing problem of unauthorized exchange of music files on the Internet in the wisdom intellectual property law has accumulated about the protection and distribution of factual information. In particular, it analyzes the digital information resource that has developed on the Internet, and suggests that what we should be trying to achieve is an online musical smorgasbord of comparable breadth and variety. It proposes that we adopt a legal architecture that encourages but does not compel copyright owners to make their works available for widespread sharing over digital networks, and that we incorporate into that architecture a payment mechanism, based on a blanket or collective license, designed to compensate creators and to bypass unnecessary intermediaries.

Data propagation as an enabling technology for collaboration and cooperative information systems

Collaboration in cooperative information systems, as occurring in concurrent design and engineering, exploits common work and information spaces. In this paper we present the Transaction-Oriented Group and Coordination Service for Data-Centric Applications (TOGA) and the DataPropagator CHAMPAGNE that together realize a shared information space that is controlled by a basic collaboration service. Our approach enables both, firstly, the evolution of a set of separate applications to form a cooperative information system, i.e. it provides a technique towards component-oriented system engineering. Secondly, it can be exploited as a basic service within collaboration frameworks to effectively manage common work and information spaces.

Peripheral social awareness information in collaborative work

AbstractPeople working in physical proximity have access to information about one another. Much of this information is unavailable when people collaborate remotely using groupware. Being aware of other members of a team in a collaborative environment involves knowing both what people are doing and what is happening to the shared information space or artifact. Increasing the amount of information about the group in a computer‐mediated system may increase the group's ability to complete the task. This article reports on a study that examined group performance on a task that was computer mediated with and without awareness information. In particular, the study examined how an awareness tool impacts the quality of the work effort and the communications between group members in the completion of a collaborative authoring task. The study found that the use of an awareness tool decreased the quality of the work effort. The number of communications also decreased when the tool was used. Although the results contradict some of the theoretical predictions, an examination of the data suggests theoretical support for a more complex interaction. There was evidence that the awareness tool may have reduced the users' need to communicate and this reduction in communications may have caused the reduction in the quality of the work effort. There is also data to suggest that the existence of the awareness tool may have negatively influenced the effort of some participants, and it was that effort reduction that caused the reduction in the quality of the product.

Distributed Cognition in Shared Information Spaces

This study examined higher order perception, cognition, and individual-cultural differences as a basis for the rapid use of knowledge in complex problems requiring distributed team members. Previous research suggests that when complex problem-solving teams acquire perceptually anchored knowledge and engage in perceptual contrasts and comparisons, team members may spontaneously access knowledge given similarly situated problems. Our premise is that perceptual anchors may provide the basis for formulating shared mental models, which can be used to assess situations and resolve differences in individual, unique knowledge. However, distributed cognition settings may diminish the development of these models despite the advantages of perceptual anchors. Because distributed cognition often incurs through shared information spaces, this study utilized chatrooms to enact a distributed environment. Initial analyses partially support previous research (McNeese, 2000) that has examined the role of cognitive processes in facilitating knowledge acquisition and transfer. Individual problem solvers show positive transfer but distributed team members do not. Gender and ethnicity may also impact acquisition and transfer results. Results suggest the need for intelligent interfaces/collaborative technologies to improve effectiveness and efficiency in appropriating perceptual differentiation in distributed cognition.

A customizable shared information space to support concurrent design

Sharing data is an important aspect in distributed design environments and should be supported by an underlying system. Any synchronous access to data is conflict prone. Applying concurrency control and two phase commit are one option to be considered. But design processes also demand for cooperation between the designers. Negotiation about actions on the product under design and the early exchange of preliminary results are crucial issues. Controlled data access by itself does not fulfil all the needs for cooperation. We will present a new approach that relies on a concept and system model which integrates concurrent activities by a joint information space offering flexible protocols for cooperation on the shared objects. We will describe the customizability of the protocols to effectively support different cooperative scenarios.

Dermatlas:An Online Collaborative Education Tool

The World Wide Web was envisioned and designed as a shared information space for collaborative projects across geographical and institutional borders. However, in the area of medical education, the potential for collaboration has not yet been fully realized. One example of a successful collaborative educational project on the World Wide Web is the Dermatlas at Dermatlas.com or Dermatlas.org. It started as a static pediatric dermatology website and blossomed into an interactive multidisciplinary destination for physicians, fellows, residents, medical students, other health care professionals, parents and patients. We would like to describe the development, use, and growth of this rapidly expanding online resource.

Creating Shared Information Spaces to Support Collaborative Design Work

The provision of computer support for collaborative work is a central concern for Information Systems (IS) research and practice. In this paper we present the details of an information flow study undertaken in the household division of a large European design and manufacturing company (Delta). The goal of the study was to elicit user requirements for a computer system to facilitate the collaborative work of new product design teams. These requirements form the basis for the design and development of a Web-based LIRE (Living Repository) prototype system, the functionalities, features, and rationale of which are discussed. We also present the results of the evaluation of LIRE by the users at Delta and our observations on enhancing the sophistication and usefulness of this class of system. A production version based on the prototype but using commercially available software is currently in use by the New Product Development group at Delta.

Tailoring Groupware: The Cooperative Hypermedia Approach

Tailoring groupware has to deal with adapting properties of a shared information space as well as with adapting properties of the cooperation support to the group's needs. In this paper, an approach for tailoring both aspects of groupware in an integrated fashion is proposed. This approach uses cooperative hypermedia as a unifying representation of shared information structures, functionality, and the coordination medium of a shared application. It enables cooperative definition of shared information structures, shared process models and their access models not only before collaboration starts, but also on the fly, when emergent processes evolve. The proposed approach addresses tailoring at all stages of the development and use of a groupware application. A prototype system called CHIPS is presented and different possibilities of tailoring in CHIPS are discussed. Examples of CHIPS demonstrate that the cooperative hypermedia approach to tailoring groupware can support the adaptation to different evolving tasks and processes performed by changing teams.

Cognitive Evaluation of Human-Human and Human-Machine Cooperation Modes in Air Traffic Control

An experiment is described that aimed at evaluating a principle of dynamic task allocation (DTA) of conflict resolution between aircraft in air-traffic control on a large scale simulator. It included three cognitive agents: the radar controller (RC), in charge of conflict detection and resolution; the planning controller (PC), in charge of entry-exit coordination and of workload regulation; and a conflict resolution computer system (SAINTEX), able to manage only simple conflicts. Within this three-agent paradigm, three conditions were compared: (a) a control condition (without computer assistance); (b) an explicit condition (PC and RC in charge of the allocation); and (c) an assisted explicit condition (SAINTEX proposed allocations which could be changed by PC). Comparisons were made on the basis of a detailed cognitive analysis of verbal protocols. The more the assistance, the more anticipative the mode of operation in controllers and the easier the human-human cooperation (HHC). These positive effects of the computer support are interpreted in terms of decreased workload and increased shared information space. In addition, the more the controllers felt responsible for task allocation, the more they criticized the machine operation.

CorbaWeb: A generic object navigator

The World Wide Web and Distributed Object-Oriented Systems (e.g. CORBA) provide future infrastructures for distributed client/server computing. This paper presents our work to provide the integration of CORBA objects into the Web: first, to describe Web services using object-oriented technologies and second to access any Information System developed with CORBA from the Web. We present a new Shared Information Space model with the following issues: Object Orientation Design, Distributed and Heterogeneous Environment, Users' Point of View, Object Invocation and Navigation. Navigation over SIS is supported by CorbaWeb, a Generic Object Navigator, composed of metascripts allowing the access, the representation and the invocation of any CORBA object from the Web. These operations are achieved by scripts written in CorbaScript, an interpreted scripting language which can dynamically invoke any CORBA objects.

Increased competence as a process of surviving in shared information spaces

Connections between people and groups are growing more frequent and more intense. Cultural events, changes in laws, activities of organizations, and new ideas elsewhere affect one's own decisions and activities more and more. This development has strong implications for the way people can increase their competence and how they can affect what happens to their own community or geographical area. In this paper consequences are considered for a special type of tool, the so-called “problem language,” that appears to be intimately entwined with many other tools in operations research, cybernetics, and systems research. The language appears most adequate in situations where boundaries can be found such that external events have minimal impact on what happens inside those boundaries. The change in connectivity makes finding such boundaries less and less probable. This suggests looking for another language, to structure the processes necessary when one intends to overcome difficulties that cannot be represented and solved as problems. A “language of access” is proposed, derived partly from studies in areas where it has never been possible to find boundaries as indicated. Within the framework of this language one can derive “methods of externalization” that imply speeding up flows of information in a “shared workspace” or “shared information space.” Their implementation is greatly facilitated—or even made possible at all—by recent developments in information technology.

Computer-Mediated Scholarly Collaboration

Human "knowledge work" is increasingly shaped by the introduction of the computer into the workplace and, more recently, by the merging of computers with telecommunications. The impact of this communication revolution is explored by examining the case of an online educational research workshop in which a computer conferencing system facilitated scholarly collaboration among 20 researchers, located in three countries, over a period of two and one-half months. This article examines factors related to the use of a shared information space, such as design issues, the effect of communications technology on group interaction, issues in supporting distributed groups, and the implications of computer communications for scholarly collaboration.