E-COLLABORATION. THE NEW ECHONOMIC WORLD

In this paper we will present what e-collaboration means and how can this concept revolutionize the XXI-th century economy. Our analysis leads to a conclusion that the future of business will be based on technological backgrounds. Breaking time and space frontiers will be the key of success in a hard competitive business environment. In our opinion this goals will be achieved by the implementation of groupware. However, our study shows that this field still needs a lot of normalization as concept of e-collaboration still has no standard approaches and many theoreticians still confuse collaboration with the classical “three c” terms.economy

A Collaborative System Architecture for Developing Digital Electronic Games

Educational electronic games have been gaining lots of space inside classrooms because of their contribution to the learning and motivation of the students. However, the development process of a game is complex and, normally, involves many people with different profiles, making it impossible for the teachers to develop games according to their pedagogical needs. Even though the existence of technical barriers, the teacher’s involvement in this process is fundamental, since they are the ones that have the expertise on the pedagogical components of the process. Through a collaborative process, it is possible to merge all needed elements for the development of educational electronic games, since it allows mutual help among the participants. Furthermore providing individual learning to each collaborator, through the exchange of ideas and experience gain throughout the project development. This article has the objective of creating a community for collaborative development, that includes the pedagogical features on the development of educational electronic games. For this we will present a collaborative system model, based on the roots of the 3C collaboration model: communication, coordination and cooperation

An Architectural Model for Component Groupware

This paper proposes an architectural model to facilitate the design of component-based groupware systems. This architectural model has been defined based on (1) three pre-defined component types, (2) a refinement strategy that relies on these component types, (3) the identification of layers of collaboration concerns, and (4) rules for the coupling and distribution of the components that implement these concerns. Our architectural model is beneficial for controlling the complexity of the development process, since it gives concrete guidance on the concerns to be considered and decomposition disciplines to be applied in each development step. The paper illustrates the application of this architectural model with an example of an electronic voting system

Collaborative problem solving and program development model

A model to enhance collaborative problem solving and program development is presented. The collaborative model is a detailed cognitive model that takes into consideration the cognitive and social activities that occur during collaborative problem solving and program development. The cognitive activities required for collaborative problem solving and program development are identified and integrated into a six-stage model. An extensive literature review in the associated fields is presented to show the need for the model described in this dissertation. In addition, a comprehensive study of tools to support collaboration during problem solving and program development was also performed as well as a critique of these tools. A detailed statistical experiment to study the effect of this model on subjects, collaboratively solving a software problem was designed and executed. The experiment included testing the collaborative problem solving and program development model with and without assistance from groupware tools. The subject teams each constructed a software design and this design was evaluated based on, research hypotheses. This experiment produced results indicating the positive effect the Collaborative Model has on problem understanding and the quality of solution planning during collaborative problem solving and program development efforts

CSCW and Enterprise 2.0 - Towards an Integrated Perspective

In CSCW we are researching support for collaboration in work groups for several decades now. Web 2.0 and Social Software entered this field from another starting point recently, and quickly expanding towards support for collaboration in enterprises (Enterprise 2.0). However, the interaction between both fields is minimal. In this paper I am trying to contribute to bridging the gap by identifying the core contributions of the two fields, and how they can be integrated or used to the benefit of both fields

A machine-machine collaboration formalism based on web services for groupware tailorability

International audienceIn this paper, we propose a machine-machine collaboration formalism to support groupware tailorability. Our work is based on the 3C functional model by Ellis that decomposes collaboration between users into communication, coordination and cooperation phases. Through our research, we realized that Web services are powerful distributed components offering the desired tools in order to adapt a groupware system to the real needs of users. Therefore, we use this technology to define a collaboration protocol between machines over the network for implementing tailorability in CSCW systems. A groupware architecture is presented based on the proposed formalism. We argue that a protocol between machines over the internet should be defined in order to exchange common services in real time collaboration

Collaborative Working Environments : Group Needs Approach to Designing Systems for Supporting Spatially Distributed Groups

Collaboration in spatially distributed groups requires technological support for mediating collaborative activities and members’ interactions over time and distance. Technology provides multiple tools for supporting individual, social and task requirements of collaborative groups. Nevertheless, many aspects of computer-mediated interactions are not sufficiently explained and creating an effective computer-supported environment for collaborative groups as a combination of these tools remains a challenge. Meeting this challenge requires taking into consideration different aspects of collaborative interactions from both social and technological perspectives. This thesis discusses the social and technical aspects of collaboration in spatially distributed groups and introduces a design approach for collaborative working environments. Firstly, it presents a comprehensive overview of research on collaborative groups, summarizing three interrelated elements under the umbrella of the group needs approach: individual, task and group maintenance needs. Secondly, it proposes a design approach for collaborative working environments on the basis of group needs and thus presents an alternative for designing computer-supported environment for collaborative groups. This research considers two main types of systems for supporting collaborative groups – groupware and social software – and discusses functionalities originating from these systems. It introduces the Quality Function Deployment method and utilizes its House of Quality concept in order to develop and initially evaluate the First-Stage Prototype – the prototypical implementation of the collaborative working environment combining these two main types. The presented framework is used as a benchmarking tool on the basis of which selected existing platforms for supporting collaboration are evaluated. This research contributes to the area of the Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and discusses actual trends in development of collaborative systems related to the application of new social tools for purposes of computer-supported collaboration.Kollaborative Arbeitsumgebungen – der Gruppenbedürfnisansatz zur Entwicklung von Systemen für die Unterstützung räumlich verteilter Gruppen Die Zusammenarbeit in räumlich verteilten Gruppen erfordert technologische Unterstützung um Interaktionen innerhalb der Gruppen über Zeit und Distanz zu ermöglichen. Dabei bieten heutige Technologien verschiedene Tools zur Unterstützung von individuellen, sozialen und aufgabenorientierten Anforderungen der Gruppen. Allerdings sind viele Aspekte von computervermittelten Interaktionen nicht ausreichend erforscht und die Gestaltung von effektiven computerunterstützten Umgebungen für zusammenarbeitende Gruppen als eine Kombination dieser Tools bleibt eine Herausforderung. Die Erfüllung dieser Anforderungen erfordert die Berücksichtigung unterschiedlicher Aspekte der Gruppeninteraktionen sowohl aus sozialer als auch aus technologischer Perspektive. Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht die sozialen und technischen Aspekte der Zusammenarbeit in räumlich verteilten Gruppen und präsentiert einen Entwicklungsansatz für Systeme zur Unterstützung der Zusammenarbeit. Zum einen gibt sie einen umfassenden Überblick über den aktuellen Forschungsstand zum Thema kooperative Gruppen und fasst dabei die drei verbundenen Elemente individuelle Bedürfnisse, Aufgabenbedürfnisse und Bedürfnisse zur Aufrechterhaltung der Gruppen unter dem Dach des Gruppenbedürfnisansatzes zusammen. Zum anderen präsentiert die Arbeit ein Entwicklungskonzept für kooperative Arbeitsumgebungen auf Grundlage dieses Ansatzes und somit eine Alternative für die Gestaltung von computerunterstützten Umgebungen für kollaborative Gruppen. Für diese Forschungsarbeit werden im Wesentlichen zwei Arten von Systemen sowie deren Funktionalitäten zur Unterstützung von kollaborativen Gruppen diskutiert – Groupware und Social Software. Um eine prototypische Implementierung einer kollaborativen Arbeitsumgebung zu entwickeln und eine erste Evaluation durchzuführen, wird die Quality Function Deployment Methode und das damit verbundene House of Quality Konzept verwendet. Die Forschungsergebnisse leisten einen Beitrag auf dem Gebiet der computerunterstützten Gruppenarbeit (Computer-Supported Cooperative Work) und diskutieren aktuelle Trends im Bereich der Entwicklung kollaborativer Arbeitsumgebungen, die sich mit der Integration von neuen sozialen Tools zum Zweck computerunterstützter Zusammenarbeit beschäftigen