Knowledge Management for Public Administrations: Technical Realizations of an Enterprise Attention Management System

The improvement of governments’ efficiency has gained great importance and validity especially in the current times of economic downturn. E-Government constitutes the most contemporary techno-managerial proposition in the track of possible interventions. The paper addresses, more specifically, empowerments necessitated by Public Administration (PA) organizations. Anchored on the needs of three real-life cases, the paper describes the conception and the realization of an IT artefact together with its methodological appeals aiming at improving information access and delivery and thus PAs’ decision making capacity. Our proposition constitutes a novel approach for managing users’ attention in knowledge intensive organizations which goes beyond informing a user about changes in relevant information towards proactively supporting the user to react on changes. The approach is based on an expressive attention model, which is realized by combining ECA (Event-Condition-Action) rules with ontologies. The technical realizations described in the paper constitute the underlying infrastructure of an Enterprise Attention Management System

Collaborative searching for video using the Físchlár system and a DiamondTouch table

Fischlar DT is one of a family of systems which support interactive searching and browsing through an archive of digital video information. Previous Fischlar systems have used a conventional screen, keyboard and mouse interface, but Fischlar-DT operates with using a horizontal, multiuser, touch sensitive tabletop known as a DiamondTouch. We present the Fischlar-DT system partly from a systems perspective, but mostly in terms of how its design and functionality supports collaborative searching. The contribution of the paper is thus the introduction of Fischlar-DT and a description of how design concerns for supporting collaborative search can be realised on a tabletop interface

SAGA reloaded: towards a generic platform for developing cooperative applications

Groupware specification and development has always been a complex task, requiring special attention to issues such as notification of cooperative actions and ensuring consistency of shared data. Some years ago SAGA was developed as a framework to build groupware applications based on a set of core web services that provide the most common cooperative functionalities. Despite its potential, the last few years brought some technological developments that placed new challenges. This paper presents a new generation of the SAGA platform that adds to the original framework features that emerged recently, namely the regulation of social interaction, incorporation of new communication technologies, connectors to several external services and interaction environments, and the addition of contextual information

USAge of Groupware in Software Engineering Education at the Cscw Laboratory of University Duisburg-essen: Possibilities and Limitations

This paper analyzes the application level in CSCW laboratory there are Electronic meeting rooms, Video Conferencing, Desktop Conference (Passenger), and BSCW system which conducting in The University Duisburg – Essen Germany. This analysis included short analysis and discussion about possibilities and limitation of each experiment followed by outlook how this lab can be further developed.Multi-user to Multipoint Videoconferences is introduced to cover all of devices join to the conferences. A computer network, PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network), ISDN Phone, Wireless Infrastructures (accessed by laptop, smart phone, PDA) and videoconferences systems is proposed to be integrate

Proceedings of the ECSCW'95 Workshop on the Role of Version Control in CSCW Applications

The workshop entitled "The Role of Version Control in Computer Supported Cooperative Work Applications" was held on September 10, 1995 in Stockholm, Sweden in conjunction with the ECSCW'95 conference. Version control, the ability to manage relationships between successive instances of artifacts, organize those instances into meaningful structures, and support navigation and other operations on those structures, is an important problem in CSCW applications. It has long been recognized as a critical issue for inherently cooperative tasks such as software engineering, technical documentation, and authoring. The primary challenge for versioning in these areas is to support opportunistic, open-ended design processes requiring the preservation of historical perspectives in the design process, the reuse of previous designs, and the exploitation of alternative designs. The primary goal of this workshop was to bring together a diverse group of individuals interested in examining the role of versioning in Computer Supported Cooperative Work. Participation was encouraged from members of the research community currently investigating the versioning process in CSCW as well as application designers and developers who are familiar with the real-world requirements for versioning in CSCW. Both groups were represented at the workshop resulting in an exchange of ideas and information that helped to familiarize developers with the most recent research results in the area, and to provide researchers with an updated view of the needs and challenges faced by application developers. In preparing for this workshop, the organizers were able to build upon the results of their previous one entitled "The Workshop on Versioning in Hypertext" held in conjunction with the ECHT'94 conference. The following section of this report contains a summary in which the workshop organizers report the major results of the workshop. The summary is followed by a section that contains the position papers that were accepted to the workshop. The position papers provide more detailed information describing recent research efforts of the workshop participants as well as current challenges that are being encountered in the development of CSCW applications. A list of workshop participants is provided at the end of the report. The organizers would like to thank all of the participants for their contributions which were, of course, vital to the success of the workshop. We would also like to thank the ECSCW'95 conference organizers for providing a forum in which this workshop was possible

Supporting awareness in heterogeneous collaboration environments

Rapid technological advancements have made it possible for humans to collaborate as never before. However demands of group work necessitate distributed collaboration in very heterogeneous environments. Heterogeneity as in various applications, platforms, hardware and communication infrastructure. User mobility, lack of availability and cost often make imposing a common collaboration environment infeasible. Awareness is essential for successful collaboration. Awareness is a key design criterion in groupware but often collaboration occurs with applications not designed to support useful awareness. This dissertation deals with the issue of effective group awareness support in heterogeneous environments.;Awareness propagation is effective if the appropriate amount of information, relevant to the user\u27s sphere of activity is delivered in a timely, unobtrusive fashion. Thus issues such as information overload, and distraction have to be addressed. Furthermore ability to establish the appropriate balance between awareness and privacy is essential. Enhanced forms of awareness such as intersubjectivity and historical awareness are often invaluable. Heterogeneous environments significantly impact the above quality factors impeding effective awareness propagation. Users are unable to tailor the quality of awareness received.;Heterogeneity issues that affect awareness quality are identified. An awareness framework is proposed that binds various sources of awareness information. However for effective awareness support, physical integration must be augmented by information integration. As a solution, an awareness model is proposed. Specification of the awareness model and framework\u27s architecture and features is the key contribution. The proposed model has been validated through simulations of realistic collaboration involving human participation. Scenarios created, have tested the model\u27s usefulness in enhancing the quality of group work by propagating effective awareness among users. To accomplish the same, an Awareness Simulator application has been created. In the validation process, efforts made to create an experimental methodology revealed some techniques related to awareness evaluation in CSCW, which are proposed. Various issues required to successfully engineer such awareness frameworks are identified and their impact on requirements such as security and performance, discussed. With various standards and technologies that can be harnessed to create awareness frameworks, there is great promise that barriers in heterogeneous collaboration environments can be overcome

Improving Design of Systems Supporting Creativity-intensive Processes – A Cross-industry Focus Group Evaluation

Organizations depend on the creative potential of their members to continuously develop innovative solutions. Groups commonly approach creative processes using collaborative IT. However, current design of information systems does not cater to the business processes representing the context in which groups operate. Creativity-intensive processes are a conceptualization of business processes that involve creativity. Voigt, Bergener, and Becker (2013) developed an explanatory design theory for information systems supporting creativity-intensive processes. The core component of the design theory is an information system architecture for creativity-intensive process support systems (CPSS). This paper evaluates the utility of the CPSS architecture to comprehensively support creativity-intensive processes. Three exploratory cross-industry focus groups, in which the architecture instantiation CreativeFlow was demonstrated, suggest that the features of CreativeFlow and the underlying architectural concepts are useful in supporting practitioners’ processes, especially for the support of creative group processes. However, three modifications to the CPSS architecture emerge: increased freedom for choosing individuals responsible for group tasks, differentiated authorization for creating and assigning creative group tasks, and advanced communication support for initiation of standard workflows. The evaluation further contributes recommendations for tool features and four research issues to advance system design of tools supporting creativity in business processes. The study provides insights for future information system evaluations in Design Science Research on Information Systems