Mobile support in CSCW applications and groupware development frameworks

Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) is an established subset of the field of Human Computer Interaction that deals with the how people use computing technology to enhance group interaction and collaboration. Mobile CSCW has emerged as a result of the progression from personal desktop computing to the mobile device platforms that are ubiquitous today. CSCW aims to not only connect people and facilitate communication through using computers; it aims to provide conceptual models coupled with technology to manage, mediate, and assist collaborative processes. Mobile CSCW research looks to fulfil these aims through the adoption of mobile technology and consideration for the mobile user. Facilitating collaboration using mobile devices brings new challenges. Some of these challenges are inherent to the nature of the device hardware, while others focus on the understanding of how to engineer software to maximize effectiveness for the end-users. This paper reviews seminal and state-of-the-art cooperative software applications and development frameworks, and their support for mobile devices

Towards a generic platform for developing CSCL applications using Grid infrastructure

The goal of this paper is to explore the possibility of using CSCL component-based software under a Grid infrastructure. The merge of these technologies represents an attractive, but probably quite laborious enterprise if we consider not only the benefits but also the barriers that we have to overcome. This work presents an attempt toward this direction by developing a generic platform of CSCL components and discussing the advantages that we could obtain if we adapted it to the Grid. We then propose a means that could make this adjustment possible due to the high degree of genericity that our library component is endowed with by being based on the generic programming paradigm. Finally, an application of our library is proposed both for validating the adequacy of the platform which it is based on and for indicating the possibilities gained by using it under the Grid.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Process Support for Cooperative Work on the World Wide Web

The World Wide Web is becoming a dominating factor in information technology. Consequently, computer supported cooperative work on the Web has recently drawn a lot of attention. “Process Support for Cooperative Work” (PSCW) is a Web based system supporting both structured and unstructured forms of cooperation. It is a combination of the “Basic Support for Cooperative Work” (BSCW) shared workspace system and the Merlin Process Support Environment. The current PSCW prototype offers a loose connection, in effect extending BSCW with a gateway to Merlin. With this prototype we have successfully addressed the technical issues involved; further integration of functionality should not pose any real problems. We focus on the technical side of the PSCW system, which gives a good insight into the issues that have to be addressed generally in the construction of Web based groupware

Updating freeTribe to Support Efficient Synchronous Awareness in the Web Context

Abstract: The research field of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work has been reflected fundamentally in theoretical contributions. This contributions have constitute the base to carry out several intents to facilitate the work of the collaborative systems developers, however, current tool-kits, APIs or class libraries only eliminate partially the gap between the technical aspects that impose the information technology and the stressed social character of the process of collaboration in the World Wide Web. In this paper is presented the framework freeTribe, which involve the domain of the distributed groupwares leaning on the Cooperative Model of the methodology AMENITIES, in the middleware platform ICE and in RIA technologies; freeTribe has been designed as a software framework, to maximize its reusability and adaptability with a minimal programming effort. Support for synchronous group tasks in the Web context is increasingly recognized as a desideratum for collaborative systems and several tools have emerged recently that help groups of people with the same goals to work together, but many issues for these collaborative systems remain under studied. We identified synchronous awareness as one of these issues in collaborative systems, and updated freeTribe with four well-accepted kinds of awareness (group awareness, workspace awareness, contextual awareness, and peripheral awareness) by the community focusing our interest in its synchronous mechanism for efficient interaction in Web contexts.Keywords: computer-supported cooperative work, groupware, synchronous awareness.

Computer-Supported Collaborative Production

This paper proposes the concept of collaborative production as a focus of concern within the general area of collaborative work. We position the concept with respect to McGrath's framework for small group dynamics and the more familiar collaboration processes of awareness, coordination, and communication (McGrath 1991). After reviewing research issues and computer-based support for these interacting aspects of collaboration, we turn to a discussion of implications for how to design improved support for collaborative production. We illustrate both the challenges of collaborative production and our design implications with a collaborative map-updating scenario drawn from the work domain of geographical information systems

CSCW Systems on PvC Environments

CSCW is a well-suited discipline for appropriate communicating ideas inside a group and even in an inter-group cooperation. Though basic technology for communication annoy people with too many computer-related tasks to deliver at-the-time elaborated notes in the meanwhile of a group activity. An emerging trend that promises to bring a solution on this matter is that of ubiquitous, or pervasive computing. PvC is about computation becoming part of the environment with the ambition to accomplish accessing information anytime no matter the distance of user's location. This is not only related to largely distributed systems and applications, but about highly dynamic and mobile sets – clusters of participants, interacting with each other and storing data on mobile devices, as well as in remote facilities. PvC systems certainly come to facilitate CSCW making every kind of such systems to look as the simplest groupware option and providing a new and particular kind of such systems, what might be called as PvCE-SCW. This paper reports on current efforts on this type of systems describing their requirements and challenges with the intent to provide a summary of successful accomplishments on this matter.Eje: Ingeniería de SoftwareRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

CSCW Systems on PvC Environments

CSCW is a well-suited discipline for appropriate communicating ideas inside a group and even in an inter-group cooperation. Though basic technology for communication annoy people with too many computer-related tasks to deliver at-the-time elaborated notes in the meanwhile of a group activity. An emerging trend that promises to bring a solution on this matter is that of ubiquitous, or pervasive computing. PvC is about computation becoming part of the environment with the ambition to accomplish accessing information anytime no matter the distance of user's location. This is not only related to largely distributed systems and applications, but about highly dynamic and mobile sets – clusters of participants, interacting with each other and storing data on mobile devices, as well as in remote facilities. PvC systems certainly come to facilitate CSCW making every kind of such systems to look as the simplest groupware option and providing a new and particular kind of such systems, what might be called as PvCE-SCW. This paper reports on current efforts on this type of systems describing their requirements and challenges with the intent to provide a summary of successful accomplishments on this matter.Eje: Ingeniería de SoftwareRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI