Design and Use of a Group Editor Clarence A. Ellis, Simon J. Gibbs and Gail L. Rein 1990

Grove (GRoup Outline Viewing Editor) A simple outline-only editor for small groups, either distributed or local Based on the work on Listmaker Tool, Cognoter and various asynchronous outline editors(MIT CES and Bellcore Quilt) Works as a tightly-coupled synchronous editor Almost WYSWIS, slight difference in cursor position and permissions only

More on GROVE All current users have an identical view of the text of the outline and see all changes in real time(vs. Cognoter) Users can create three types views, public(visible by all) private(only visible locally) and shared(by invitation only) Text indicates by color and number the status of an element All text begins as world readable/writable to encourage group work, must be locked explicitly

Experience in using GROVE (during all sessions, collaborators had access to voice communications as well as GROVE) Positive –Increase access to personal reference material, as workers were in offices –Encouraged workers to divide and conquer –Less off topic discussion

Negative GROVE Experience Less focus amoung group, requires more concentration to communicate when distributed, but face-to-face meetings feel shorter Vocal discussions are more difficult in distributed sessions(partly technological). Accidental deletion occures enough that Undo necessary

Commentary on GROVE testing Collisions are less frequent than imagined, even without consciously reading all comments Parallel tasks are taken on during work(such as moving a subtree). Tool works far better during early stages of a project(most ideas are short and fit well with the outline)

Current Work Commercial programs such as Microsoft NetMeeting, Lotus Notes and Netscape Cooltalk Research test program Upper Atmosphere Research Collaboratory (UARC)

Current findings Both synchronous and asynchronous communication(ie. participate in one group while another progresses and then contributing to the second) Information Overload, methods to preven unnecessary information and preserve screen space Robust and fault tolerant(both to bandwidth and client failure)

More current findings Programs seem to fall into two groups, the general CSCW(NetMeeting, Notes…) with only basic tools: video and audio communication, file and whiteboard sharing(NetMeeting) or limited to group scheduling and communication(Notes) Highly specialized: UARC, more tools but tailored to one field of work