Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 1/33 Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University Irina Kireyev Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Prinz, Prof. Dr. Gerhard Lakemeyer 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 2/33 CSCW History –CSCW exists since 1980s –Main focus - synchronous collaboration Today –Outsourcing practices – different time zones –Collaborators concentrate better in an isolated mode –Need from time to time coordinate activities Solution –Asynchronous collaboration –Supporting both asynchronous and synchronous modes 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 3/33 Awareness Key issue –Providing awareness : “understanding of the activities of others, that provide a context for your own activity” In asynchronous system: –Providing change awareness: “the ability to track the changes made to a collaborative artifact by other participants overtime” Current awareness support types: –Informational –Subscription-based –Peripheral 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 4/33 Research Question Problem identified – providing negative awareness –Awareness only of events that occur –No awareness of what was supposed to occur, but did not Our solution –A mechanism to specify an expectation a mental picture of what events should take place in a workspace within certain time limits –Notification of fulfilment or non-fulfilment Objectives –Development of a concept for expectation awareness –Implementation in broadly used groupware system BSCW – Basic Support for Collaborative Work –Evaluation of practicability 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 5/33 Use Case Example 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 6/33 James Tam and Saul Greenberg –Where ? – location of a change –Who ? – author of a change –What? – content of a change –When? – time of a change –How? – actions that lead to a change –Why? – reason for the change 6 Info Elements of Change 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 7/33 Asynch. Awareness Mechanisms A. J. Bernheim-Brush, D. Bargeron, J. Grudin, A.Gupta –Informational activities shown, can be queried from the workspace e.g. highlighting, annotations and markups, playback, storing and retrieving versions –Subscription-based to receive notifications on events in a workspace –Peripheral alerts on changes when user was offline as soon as online 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 8/33 In BSCW Informational –Event icons –Object history –Event history Subscription-based –Daily workspace activity report –Direct event notification after each event –RSS news feeds Peripheral –JMonitor user and event views 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 9/33 Summary Existing tools - cognitive support for past or present events No tool –Specify expected future actions –Automatically verify –Summarized notify also when the action did not occur Six information elements for change awareness 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 10/33 Demo Creating expectation Checking status 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 11/33 Scope Definitions Asynchronous collaborative software (groupware) –sharing of objects –non simultaneous work mode Workspace –user working area –collection of objects user has access to Object (artifact) –the data structures upon which the users operate –attributes with values Participate (member) w.r.t. an object –user who has access to this object Activity (action, operation) –transformation that act on an object –parameters with values Operational semantics of an object for a participant –possible operations on the object for the participant 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 12/33 Expectation Model Mental picture of future events Components (attributes of Expectation object) –Creator –Artifact Single artifact Set of artifacts –Expected Activity Operational semantics of an object –Participants Single member Set of members –Start time –End time 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 13/33 Activity based on Artifact Document –Read –Edit –Rate –Create Note with type: Note, Pro, Con, Angry, Important, Idea Folder –all activities of single artifacts –Create with type: Document, Discussion, URL, Poll Note –Read –Create Reply Note with type: Note, Pro, Con, Angry, Important, Idea URL –Rate Poll –Vote 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 14/33 Actions (operations) –Create Member with access rights to modify –View Creator, Participants? –Edit Creator –Destroy Creator –View Result Creator, Participants? –Fulfillment Check between exp. start time and end time After each action Each time result is viewed Periodically Automatically at exp. end time 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work Expectation Model (cont.)

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 15/33 Status of expectation fulfillment w.r.t. end date –Basic Initial Fulfilled Not fulfilled –Optional states Ongoing: not fulfilled, partly fulfilled, fully fulfilled Final: not fulfilled, partly fulfilled, fully fulfilled Fulfilled after deadline 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work States

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 16/33 Optional components and actions –Send notification at end time –Show expectation to participants –Restart –Extend end date –Contact participants that fulfilled / did not fulfill 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work Expectation Model (cont.)

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 17/33 Expectation Activity Diagram 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 18/33 Level of necessity and authority –Task: duty –Expectation: looking forward to a certain action might be fulfilled or not fulfilled Intention Task: specifies sequence of instructions for a work unit Expectation: providies better awareness automatic summary of events that should have taken place currently can be only manually obtained Agreement –Task: collaborator must agree –Expectation : collaborator might not even know showing expectation is up to expectation creator Expectation versus Task 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 19/33 In workspace for sharing objects and asynch. work mode Mental picture Object in workspace –Basic components Creator, Artifact, Activity, Participants, Start time, End time –Basic actions Create, View, Edit, Destroy, View Result, Fulfillment Check –State: initial, fulfilled, not fulfilled Ongoing: –not fulfilled, partly fulfilled, fully fulfilled Final: –not fulfilled, partly fulfilled, fully fulfilled Summary 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 20/33 Python CGI extension of web server Clients are unmodified browsers 3 layers: –Request handling –Operation handling –Persistent storage Interplay between layers –Action in UI by user –http request to BSCW server by browser –Identific. of op. handler and request obj. by request handl. layer –Communic. with persistent storage and response obj. using xhtml templates by operation handl. layer –http response by request handl. layer 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work BSCW

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 21/33 X-BSCW API –Java –No changes in BSCW kernel itself => modularity –API provides access to all the necessary information ? –Standalone program => locate, download, install effort Package – our choice –Python –Connected to baseline objects –No changes to kernel itself –Part of BSCW user interface –Can be turned on/off –User level configurable: beginner, medium, advanced X-BSCW API versus Package 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 22/33 Package Structure 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 23/33 Status Indication 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 24/33 Classes –cl_exp.py Expectation class definitions –cl_action.py Mappings between actions in UI and operation handlers Operation handlers –op_editexp.py Adding or editing an expectation –op_listexp.py Allows also to delete an expectation from the list –op_expstatus.py Configuration files –bs_config.py, bs_event_details.py, bs_explog.py, bs_iconconfig.py, bs_menuconfig.py, config_html_ui.py Classes and Operation Handlers 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 25/33 Class Diagram 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 26/33 10 participants –From target group – BSCW users –Research Participants Request document in BSCW –Separately one at a time and facilitator of the test Briefing –Simple example task –Different from the test tasks 12 test tasks –Real life situation –More and more evolved with time –Covered all functionality –Included Creation of expectation according to given scenario Understanding exp. result: fulfilled, partly fulfilled, not fulfilled Fulfilling a given expectation Semi structured interview –Expressing opinion on UI, usefulness, improvements, solutions 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work Set Up

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 27/33 Set Up (cont.) 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 28/33 Difficulties during tasks –Understood the task text, solved incorrectly –Could not proceed with a task without a question –Was uncomfortable with some part of UI – made remark Our observations Answers to questions in semi structured interviews –Usefulness –Usability –Possible uses Suggestions of improvements Solutions to difficulties Results 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 29/33 Members selection at exp. creation –8 out 10: at least one member/ for all members ? –6: selected members one by one instead using a role –2: how to switch to groups/roles in selection ? –2: forgot to press on “Select Members” –1: showing expectation to involved members ? Navigation to expectation actions –4: did not like to click twice to get to result page –4: why no “Expectation” in Action menu ? –2: did not find expectation on a folder inside the folder –2: set expectation on a wrong artifact Icons –2: did not change the date at expectation end time –1 : could not distinguish between red and yellow icons No difficulties with reading expectation result Difficulties 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 30/33 Icon –Separate icons for Partly fulfilled icon Exp. set on me and by me Blinking when new relevant events or short before / after end time –On folder – icon also inside the folder Expectation creation form –exp. end time – hour is blank by default, date is enough –listing in result what is missing for fulfillment More intuitive navigation –Result page directly after icon click –In “Action menu” list of exp. and available actions for each exp. –Tool tip with exp. details notification –long with result details / short with result page link Suggestions 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 31/33 Benefits of expectations –More flexible, user controllable and non-obtrusive awareness (only one notification per expectation) –Concept and implementation for negative awareness –A reminder of a certain deadline –Showing to involved collaborators what is expected All test participants stated –Useful concept especially for large workspaces –Easy to understand –Result simple to read –Responsive –Consistent with BSCW user interface 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work Conclusions

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 32/33 Improving the user interface based on suggestions –Members selection –Navigation to expectation actions –Icon carrying more information Raising responsiveness after exp. fulfillment –Exp. fulfillment test from operation event Increasing efficiency –Not checking the entire history of events between start and end time Expectation on multiple artifacts Testing expectation in other domains: –Management of software development –Collaborative architectural design 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work Future Work

Asynchronous Collaboration Awareness: Expectation Fulfillment Notification Master Thesis 23/02/2007 WS 2006/2007 RWTH Aachen University 33/33 Thank you for your attention Are there any questions ? 1.Introduction 2.Related work 3.Demo 4.Concept description 5.Implementation description 6.Evaluation 7.Conclusions 8.Future work The End