Computer Supported Collaborative Work

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ComputerSupportedCollaborativeWork

• Henrry Rodríguez

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Introduction

• CSCW focus on the design of computer system to
  support co-operative activities
• The term was coined by Grief and Cashman who in
  1984 organised a workshop among researcher in
  Office Information System, Hypertext, Computer
  Mediated Communication. Support ensembles of
  people in their work activities.

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The need for CSCW

• Change in the nature of work
• Emerging new forms of the organisation of work
• More active participation and flexibility among
  the work force (i.e.management)
• Much closer knowledge with the work process

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The need for CSCW (cont.)

• TaylorismgtFordismgt Post-Fordism
• Workers need to become
• more skilled
• more aware of the whole process of production
• More capable of taking part in planning design,
  quality control and error retrieval

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The need for CSCW (cont.)

• Change in computing
• Cost of hardware and processing capacity were the
  main constraints
• Program development
• Fulfilling the needs of users
• Network. Internet, High bandwidth network
  services
• Wireless communication

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CSCW and Groupware

• Groupware refers to the technology used by people
  while working together.
• System that support groups of people engaged in a
  common task or goals and that provide an
  interface to a shared environment.
• CSCW focus on groupware
• CSCW is the study of the tools and techniques of
  groupware as well as the psychological, social,
  and organisational effects.

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Examples of CSCW systems

• Email
• Shared database/hypertext
• Videoconferencing
• Chat systems
• Real-time shared application
• Aspects collaborative writing
• Drawing
• Games

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Corestones of group activity

• Communication
• Support for ongoing and direct communication
  among people
• Text, voice, video, and Face to face
  communication
• Collaboration
• The act of joint co-operation in solving a
  problem or undertaking a task - e.g. finding a
  place and a time to meet, decision making.
• Support for sharing info such as awareness of
  others activities
• Co-ordination
• Orchestra the communication and the collaboration
  
• Adjusting individual contributions to fit into
  the overall task
• Includes distributing tasks to team members, and
  reviewing their performance

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Computer mediated communication

• distributing information
• increasing organizational efficiency
• creating electronic democracy
• challenging traditional hierarchies.

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Computer mediated communication (cont.)

• networking ---gt promote long-distance
  collaboration
• Branching
• Emotions, Flaming, free rider
• Distance learning
• Virtual communities

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Time-space matrix
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Same place same time

• Meeting face-to-face. Brainstorming, voting, and
  ranking.
• Managers spent about half of their time in
  meetings
• Difficult to keep a fixed focus and decision
  making
• E-whiteboard, WYSIWIS, Meeting rooms (1981
  Arizona)

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Same place different times

• Usually it needs a shared space
• Co-ordination tools
• Project scheduling

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Different places same time

• Distance
• Video conferencing
• Desktop conferencing
• Replication on others screen
• Chat, IRC, ICQ, CuSeeMe, Instant messager,
  Shared-Editor session, Lectures

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Different places different times

• Electronically file transfer
• Durable messages
• WWW in CSCW
• E-groups, BSCW, Newsgroups
• E-mail

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Awareness

• Who is/was who
• Who does/did what
• What is done
• Are you there? From E-mail to F2F
• Couple/Uncouple awareness.

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Other issues

• Departure/adding users to the team
• Anonymity
• Distinct roles
• Users who need each other to complete a task
• Security