New Work Modes for Collaborative Writing   Hala Skaf-Molli Claudia Ignat, Chrabel Rahhal and Pascal Molli Nancy Université ECOO Team, LORIA INRIA-Lorraine skaf@loria.fr www.loria.fr/~skaf

Collaborative Writing Collaborative writing is the process of two or more people working together to create a complex document People can be distrbuted in time (synchrone, asynchrone, multi-synchrone) , in place They can share writing text, XML, image,multi-media document Examples of collaborative writing projects: Open software development (Sourceforge, Savannah…) Sourceforge 140000 projets, 1500000 users !! Encyclopédies collaboratives (Wikipedia, Citizendium) Wikipedia 1700000 articles produced in few years collaboratifs books (Wikinomics)

Advantages CW [Noel2004] Gathering skills quickly Sharing work different viewpoints and skills Sharing work Reducing task completion time Reducing errors Mutual Learning Learn while collaborate The major benefits of collaborative writing include :

Problems What is synchronous? What is asynchronous ? Not enough discriminative for some collaborative tool Some tools belong to several categories Out of the matrix Some tools do not fit in the CSCW matrix

Synchronous? Asynchronous? What is synchronous? For [Noel2004]: concurrent access For [Ellis1991]: real-time interaction What is asynchronous ? For [Ellis1991]: not real-time interaction For [Baecker2000]: ’’communication and problem solving among groups of individuals who contribute at different times and typically also are geographically dispersed’’ For you  This confusing definition of synchronous and asynchronous resuts in another pb

Not Eenough Ddiscriminative Version control systems VCS: Insulated work : asynchronous But people can work insulated at the same time: synchronous GoogleDocs Multi-users at the same time : synchronous Insulated work : asynchronous !! VCS and GoogleDocs are synchronous and asynchronous. Some tools belong to several categories GoogleDocs : Copy-Modify-Merge paradigm (as in VCS): copy the document from the server, edit the document, save it back..

CSCW Matrix different time asynchronous Same time synchronous VCS, GoogleDocs VCS, GoogleDocs CSCW matrix is used to classify tools … VCS, GoogleDocs VCS, GoogleDocs

Out of the matrix No classification for some tools SAMS: Multi-synchronous editor SAMS do not fit in the matrix

Objectives Propose a new model to classify CSCW tools… Propose new classification criteria

SRI Model Each participant has a copy of the shared data Each participant can modify his copy Sending, rece

SRI Model Operation is: Locally executed (S) ending to other sites What ? When ? To whom ? (R ) eception by other sites What ? When ? (I) ntegration by other sites. new page content as in Wiki, Patch containing all modifications as in VCS When: Immediatlty : real-time editors User triggered : VCS Presereve privacy Work offline Do not bother others with draft modification

SRI Matrix VCS U I tool S R I Pros Cons S/U Isulation Offline mode GoogleDocs S/U Online Reactive writing No preplanning No sending precondition No insulation No offline Low responsiveness VCS U (if up-todate) U I Isulation Offline mode No same-time Blind modification, Risk of redundancy

SRI Matrix tool S R I Pros Cons U/I SAMS Work modes transition Blind Modification in UUI mode

New Work Modes IIU U tool S R I Pros Cons U UIU U insulation Blind modifications Preserve privacy UIU an improvement of UUI of CVS, deferring integration instead of deferring reception IIU I U No blind modifications insulation No privacy Immediat results IIU eliminates Blind modifications: send and receive immediately (another paper submited to group2007)

Conclusion New classification criteria for collaborative interactions Three phases for processing a message exchanged during a collaboration: sending, reception and integration New work modes which improve awareness