Human Computer Interaction Week 14 Groupware and CSCW

Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) CSCW is a computer-assisted coordinated activity such as communication and problem solving carried out by a group of collaborating individuals. CSCW focuses on the design and evaluation of new technologies to support the social processes of work, often among distant partners.

Groupware Groupware is the multi-user software supporting CSCW systems. Groupware is the information technology used to help people work together more effectively. Groupware entails computer based systems that support groups of people engaged in a common task (or goal) and that provide an interface to a shared environment.

Three Key Aspects of Group Interaction Communication: face to face, electronic mail, telephone. Collaboration: people share information, granularity of sharing. Coordination: provision of multiple access to shared subjects, control of activities.

Cooperative task examples Focused partnerships Lecture or demo Conferences Structured Work Processes Electronic Commerce Meeting and Decision Support Teledemocracy

The Time-space Matrix (Ellis et al., 1991) Same Time Different Times Same Place Face to face (Classrooms, meeting rooms) Asynchronous Interaction (Project Scheduling, Message System) Different Place Synchronous Distributed (Shared Editors, Video Windows) Asynchronous Distributed (Email, listservs, conferences)

Groupware Failure Five Factors (Grudin, 1990) People who do additional work are not the ones who perceives a direct benefit from the use of the application. Activity that violates social taboos, threatens existing political structures or demotivates users who are crucial to its success. Do not allow a wide range of exception handling and improvisation that characterizes group activity. Fail to learn from experience. Poor intuition for multi-user applications.

The Electronic Mail System: An evaluation of the five factors Who benefits: a balance benefits between senders and receivers. The sender has to do the typing for the convenience of the receiver. Compatibility with social practice. The conversational format of email allows us to apply existing social conventions. Exception handling. The asynchronous, informal nature of email makes it flexible. Difficulty of evaluation. The overall costs and benefits of email are difficult to access. Poor intuition for groupware. Our intuition concerning email may be improving as its use spreads.

Asynchronous Distributed: Email Different Place Different Time (1) can be too loosely structured, sometimes overwhelming, transient. tools (filtering, archiving, mailing lists, discussion groups). typically text-only but increasingly includes other structured objects (graphics, sounds, animations, web pointers, video).

Asynchronous Distributed: Email Different Place Different Time (2) voice mail. Lotus Notes integrates electronic mail, newsgroups, telephone-call tracking, status reporting, text-database searching, document sharing, meeting scheduling, other cooperation tools). making e-mail universal requires increased simplification, improved training, easier filtering. lower-cost hardware and network services.

Asynchronous Distributed: Newsgroup Different Place Different Time (1) focused electronic discussions by group of people USENET newsgroups each group dedicated (more or less) to one topic like ordered posting on bulletin board users read as many previous notes and related comments as they wish open to all listserv individual must subscribe to receive e-mail notices may be moderated by a leader users can get flooded with listserv e-mails server machine keeps searchable archive or past notes and subscriber list

Asynchronous Distributed: Newsgroup Different Place Different Time (2) online conference in addition to listserv tools, may also include additional facilities such as voting, online directories of users, online directories of documents online magazines and newsletters network communities can be controversial hackers hate groups para-military groups

Synchronous Distributed: Different Place Same Time (1) Synchronous distributed applications group editing shared screens for customer assistance give demonstrations simultaneously at multiple sites allow sharing of information for various applications interactive games CHAT, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), and TALK

Synchronous Distributed: Different Place Same Time (2) videoconferencing slow response times for entering and leaving session distracting background audio difficulty in determining who is speaking inadequate lighting difficulty in making eye contact changed social status small image size potential invasion of privacy need for convenient turn taking need for document sharing

Synchronous Distributed: Different Place Same Time (3) issues of ownership and control private and public workspaces identity of participants location of actions care with updating

Face To Face: Same Place Same Time Innovative approaches to work and learning include: Shared display from lecturer workstation Audience response units Text-submission workstations Brainstorming, voting, and ranking File sharing Shared workspace Group activities

Applying CSCW to Education Virtual Classroom is an environment to facilitate collaborative learning for distance education students. Constant communication with other learners is obvious. Virtual Classroom is expected to exceed the traditional classroom in its ability to ‘connect’ students and course materials.

Further Reading Shneiderman, B. 1998, Designing the User Interface, Chapter 14, pp. 477-502.