Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) and Computer Mediated Communication (CMC)

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Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)and
Computer Mediated Communication (CMC)
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CSCW and CMC

• CMC
• Any form of computer-mediated communication
• Email, chat, MOOs and MUDs
• CSCW
• Goal-oriented activity
• Defined domain of activity
• (Usually) defined group
• Organizational context

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Types of CSCW systems

• Meeting support
• Shared drawing, collaborative writing
• Awareness
• Workflow
• Organizational memory
• Toolkits
• Computer supported collaborative learning
• Other computer mediated communication (email
  etc.)

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CSCW Issues

• Designers Designing effective systems
• Organizations
• Choosing systems appropriate to task org
• Choosing tasks appropriate to CSCW technology
• Ensuring adoption and effective use of systems
• Making needed organizational changes to ensure
  adoption and use
• More generally, understanding how organizational
  change comes about, is effectively managed

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CSCW Research

• Technologists
• Systems design
• Social scientists
• What social science can contribute to designing
  systems that work well and will be used
• What soc sci can contribute to organizational
  understanding and action -- how do work, social
  relations change with collaborative tech?
• What CSCW reveals about collaboration
• Collaboration between them
• Crossing the divide between social and technical

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Issues in CSCW Research

• Understanding cooperative work
• Offline and implications for online
• How do we manage interactions offline?
• Supported existing effective work AND social
  practices
• Helping in transition to, use of new technology
• Online
• Implications for design
• Implications for organizational practices,
  policies
• Understanding collaborative activity online
• Designing groupware
• Technical issues
• Social, organizational issues

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Concerns of CSCW/CMC Users

• Trust
• Credit, intellectual ownership
• The workload of making information available to
  others
• Reward systems/incentives
• Privacy
• Accountability
• Being held responsible for ones actions
  outcomes, rewards, penalties
• Needing to account for ones actions
  explanation, justification

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Dimensions of Collaborative Work

• Co-located vs. remote
• Synchronous vs. asynchronous
• Degree/type of interdependence of work
• Serial, parallel dependence interdependence
• Nature of the task
• Tools required (e.g. drawing, visualization)

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Participants

• Shared goals
• Power relations
• Similarity
• Culture, experience, age, sex, profession,
  education
• Degree of closeness, acquaintance
• Work history, experience working together
• Informal interaction
• Perceived trustworthiness
• Capability
• Training, qualifications prior experience
  together
• Reliability
• Deception, competition

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Technology

• Sociotechnical systems
• Fit with practices, understandings
• Process vs. practice
• Adaptability, flexibility
• Medium richness
• Support for informal interaction, social
  negotiation, emerging norms back channels
• Ability to handle exceptions
• Awareness
• Control over visibility of communications
  exchanges/info
• Reliability!
• Durability (may be preferred or not how easy to
  convert if dont like it?)

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Orlikowski I Factors affecting IT adoption

• Cognitive
• Mental models, tech frames
• Structural
• Rewards, incentives
• Policies
• Data confidentiality, quality, access control
• Firm culture, work norms, practices
• Methods of introduction
• Training, support, time for learning
• New tech frames

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Orlikowski II emergent, not planned, change

• I Shift to electronic capture, documentation,
  searching of call records
• II Org changes assocd with redistribution of
  work from individual to shared responsibility
• III Org changes emerging proactive
  collaboration
• IV Expanding global support, creative
  interdeptl cross-functional linkages
• V Org changes controlling access to and
  distributing extracts of knowledge from database

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Some factors that affect adoption and use of
technology in orgs

• Individual
• Cognitions
• cognitive style
• Inclination to trust
• Group
• Shared goals
• Dynamics, norms, practices
• Familiarity, social cohesion
• social capital
• Organizational
• Structural incentives, policies, norms,
  practices
• Training, methods of introduction

• Task
• Interdependence visibility
• Technological
• Fit with task, organization, practices
• Ease, flexibility
• Societal
• Role of, acceptance of tech