1. Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)
Thinking about groups, collaboration, and communication

2. CSCW Computer Supported Cooperative Work HCI connotations CSCW
individual use
psychology

3. CSCW
Study of how people work together as a group and how technology affects this
Support the social processes of work, often among geographically separated people

4. Examples
The “system” becomes the medium, the moderator, rather than “just” a tool
There are now many collaborations, like:
Scientists collaborating on a technical issue
Authors editing a document together
Programmers debugging a system concurrently
Workers collaborating over a shared video conferencing application
Buyers and sellers meeting on eBay

5. The second “C”
Group work not always cooperative or collaborative

6. CSC “anything” Not just about “work” anymore
Support the social processes of a group of people communicating or collaborating

7. Examples
Awareness of people in your family, community, physical space...
Mobile communication
Online discussions, blogs
Sharing photos, stories, experiences
Recommender systems
Playing games

8. Groupware Software specifically designed
to support group working or playing
with cooperative requirements in mind
NOT just tools for communication
Groupware can be classified by
when and where the participants are working
the function it performs for cooperative work
Specific and difficult problems with groupware implementation

9. The Time/Space Matrix
Classify groupware by:
when the participants are working, at the same time or not
where the participants are working, at the same place or not
Common names for axes: time: synchronous/asynchronous place: co-located/remote
different time
same time
same place
different place

10. Applied to “traditional” technology
same time
different time
face-to-face conversation, whiteboard
same place
post-it note
different place
phone call
letter

11. Applied to computer technology
Time
Synchronous
Asynchronous
Face-to-face
E-meeting room
Post-it note
Argument. tool
Co-located
Place
Phone call
Video window,wall
Letter
Remote

12. A More-fleshed Out Taxonomy
A typical space/time matrix (after Baecker, Grudin, Buxton, & Greenberg, 1995, p.742)

13. Styles of Systems Computer-mediated communication
Meeting and decision support systems
Shared applications and tools

14. Computer-mediated Communication (CMC) Aids
Examples
, Chats, virtual worlds
Desktop videoconferencing -- Examples:
CUSee-Me
MS NetMeeting
SGI InPerson

15. CMC applications Support a wide range of communication needs
Allow large number of people to quickly and easily communicate
Can be combined with other activities and systems
Lead to many new social conventions and issues

16. Social implications
Less rich channels – fewer details, higher likelihood of misunderstanding
More anonymous
More autonomy, more ability to control message
Can be less intrusive
I’ll IM you before I stop by your office

17. Food for thought… Why aren’t videophones more popular?
How and when do you use Instant Messaging? How does this differ from ?
What communication technology do you still want?

18. Meeting and Decision Support Systems
Examples
Corporate decision-support conference room
Provides ways of rationalizing decisions, voting, presenting cases, etc.
Concurrency control is important
Shared computer classroom/cluster
Group discussion/design aid tools

19. Shared Applications and Tools
Shared editors, design tools, etc.
Want to avoid “locking” and allow multiple people to concurrently work on document
Requires some form of contention resolution
How do you show what others are doing?

20. Social Issues
People bring in different perspectives and views to a collaboration environment
Goal of CSCW systems is often to establish some common ground and to facilitate understanding and interaction

21. Turn Taking
There are many subtle social conventions about turn taking in an interaction
Personal space, closeness
Eye contact
Gestures
Body language
Conversation cues

22. Geography, Position
In group dynamics, the physical layout of individuals matters a lot
“Power positions”

23. Awareness What is happening? Who is there e.g. IM buddy list
What has happened … and why?

24. Groupware implementation
Often more complicated
feedback and network delays
architectures for groupware
feedthrough and network traffic
toolkits, robustness and scaling

25. Feedback and network delays
screen
feedback
user types
local
machine
client
remote
server
application 1 2 3 4 5 7 9 8 6
network
At least 2 network messages + four context switches
With protocols 4 or more network messages

26. Types of architecture
centralised – single copy of application and data
client-server – simplest case
master-slave special case of client-server
server merged with one client
replicated – copy on each workstation
also called peer-peer
+ local feedback
race conditions

27. Feedthrough & traffic Need to inform all other clients of changes
Few networks support broadcast messages, so … n participants  n–1 network messages!
Solution: increase granularity
reduce frequency of feedback
but … poor feedthrough  loss of shared context
Trade-off: timeliness vs. network traffic

28. Evaluation
Evaluating the usability and utility of CSCW tools is quite challenging
Need more participants
Logistically difficult
Apples - oranges
Often use field studies and ethnographic evaluations to assist
Groupware and Social Dynamics: Eight Challenges for Developers
By Jonathan Grudin (now at Microsoft)

29. Groupware Challenges (Grudin)
Who does work vs. who gets benefit
Critical mass
prisoner’s dilemma

30. More Grudin challenges
Social, political, and motivational factors
No “standard procedures”

31. More Grudin challenges
Infrequent features
Groupware intuition

32. More Grudin challenges
Managing acceptance
Evaluation is longer, more complicated, less precise

33. Recommendations Add group features to existing apps
Benefit all group members
Start with niches were application is highly needed
Consider evaluation and adoption early
Expect and plan for development and evaluation to take longer

34. Example
TeamSpace: a meeting capture and access system