Communications technologies in collaborative design

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 1997.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 76-78).by Dennis R. Shelden.M.S

Business strategy driven IT systems for engineer-to-order and make-to-order manufacturing enterprises

This thesis reports research into the specification and implementation of an Information Technology (IT) Route Map. The purpose of the Route Map is to enable rapid design and deployment of IT solutions capable of semi-automating business processes in a manufacturing enterprise. The Map helps structure transition processes involved in “identification of key business strategies and design of business processes” and “choice of enterprise systems and supporting implementation techniques”. Common limitations of current Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are observed and incorporated as Route Map implications and constraints. Scope of investigation is targeted at Small to Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) that employ Engineer-To-Order (ETO) and Make-To-Order (MTO) business processes. However, a feature of the Route Map is that it takes into account contemporary business concerns related to “globalisation”, “mergers and acquisitions” and “typical resource constraint problems of SMEs”. In the course of the research a “Business Strategy Driven IT System Concept” was conceived and examined. The main purpose of this concept is to promote the development of agile and innovative business activity in SMEs. The Road Map encourages strategy driven solutions to be (a) specified based on the use of emerging enterprise engineering theories and (b) implemented and changed using componentbased systems design and composition techniques. Part-evaluation of the applicability and capabilities of the Road Map has been carried out by conducting industrial survey and case study work. This assesses requirements of real industrial problems and solutions. The evaluation work has also been enabled by conducting a pilot implementation of the thesis concepts at the premises of a partner SME

A component-based collaboration infrastructure

Groupware applications allow geographically distributed users to collaborate on shared tasks. However, it is widely recognized that groupware applications are expensive to build due to coordination services and group dynamics, neither of which is present in single-user applications. Previous collaboration transparency systems reuse existing single-user applications as a whole for collaborative work, often at the price of inflexible coordination. Previous collaboration awareness systems, on the other hand, provide reusable coordination services and multi-user widgets, but often with two weaknesses: (1) the multi-user widgets provided are special-purpose and limited in number, while no guidelines are provided for developing multi-user interface components in general; and (2) they often fail to reach the desired level of flexibility in coordination by tightly binding shared data and coordination services. In this dissertation, we propose a component-based approach to developing group- ware applications that addresses the above two problems. To address the first prob- lem, we propose a shared component model for modeling data and graphic user inter- face(GUI) components of groupware applications. As a result, the myriad of existing single-user components can be re-purposed as shared GUI or data components. An adaptation tool is developed to assist the adaptation process. To address the second problem, we propose a coordination service framework which systematically model the interaction between user, data, and coordination protocols. Due to the clean separation of data and control and the capability to dynamically "glue" them together, the framework provides reusable services such as data distribution, persistence, and adaptable consistency control. The association between data and coordination services can be dynamically changed at runtime. An Evolvable and eXtensible Environment for Collaboration (EXEC) is built to evaluate the proposed approach. In our experiments, we demonstrate two benefits of our approach: (1) a group of common groupware features adapted from existing single- user components are plugged in to extend the functionalities of the environment itself; and (2)coordination services can be dynamically attached to and detached from these shared components at different granules to support evolving collaboration needs

An investigation into computer support for cooperative work in software engineering groups

The research of this thesis relates to Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) in the context of software engineering, and in particular software engineering education. Whilst research into group working has tended to be directed towards CSCW, very little research has been undertaken on group working within software engineering. Linked with CSCW is groupware, which is the class of tools that supports and augments groupwork. This thesis represents an attempt to contribute to the understanding of the groupware needs of software engineers, and to identify and trial groupware that supports software engineering activities. An infrastructure has been developed providing virtual environments, for use by both collocated and geographically distributed software engineering students, to support their groupwork. This infrastructure comprises of synchronous and asynchronous groupware, in the form of desktop video conferencing, and a shared information workspace. This shared workspace has been tailored from the groupware tool, Basic Support for Cooperative Work (BSCW).Within this thesis, hypotheses have been formulated as to the student use of these virtual environments. These hypotheses concentrate on the areas of: organisation and coordination of tasks, the level of cooperation that occurs within the phases of the software lifecycle, the usage of the functions within a shared workspace, and what importance is placed on the role of synchronous communication within software engineering student groupwork. Through a series of case studies it was possible to determine the outcome of these hypotheses using various data collection methods. These methods include questionnaires, focus group meetings, observations, and automatic monitoring of workspace activities. The outcomes of this thesis are that the hypotheses regarding organisation and coordination, and, the role of synchronous communication within software engineering, have been proved. Whilst the determination of the level of cooperation during the phases of the software lifecycle has not been proved, the use of functions within the shared workspace has been partly proved

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

Towards computer supported cooperative design

This thesis first reviews the literature about the nature of cooperative design activity and its technological support. It is noted that knowledge of how designers work together in real-world settings is less than complete. Moreover, after over a decade of developments in Computer Supported Cooperative Work, the state-of-the-art in collaborative technology does not fully support such activities. Two substantial case studies are presented. The first draws upon fieldwork with designers at a large, distributed engineering design company, where a pilot study of collaborative technologies was carried out, focusing on the organisational context for such interventions and the reasons behind the qualified success of the experimental technology. In the light of the lack of use of synchronous tools in particular, a second case study was carried out. This was a complementary analysis of face-to-face co-working in a series of meetings held by a small design group. The results of both pieces of fieldwork are analysed in the context of existing studies of designers in both real-world and laboratory settings. This leads to the identification of a number of important characteristics of cooperative design, some newly identified, others confirming or extending the results of existing work. They include the identification of tension between traditional engineering design culture and the underlying assumptions of new technology; the intrinsic difficulties in sharing some types of design artefacts; and the way in which design entails an interweaving of individual and group activity, with consequences for resource exploitation, distributed cognition and workspace navigation in group sessions. The findings are integrated into an organising framework for cooperative design, with emphasis on the support of coworking designers distributed across multiple sites. Current technologies are reviewed against scenarios based on the framework and recommendations are made for further work

The Design of an Effective, Economical Executive Information System For Cedarville College

The managers of a corporation have an obligation to make the best use of available organizational resources for daily operational activities of the corporation and for long-range development. This requirement for efficient management certainly obtains for higher education, as declining student populations and shrinking funding sources argue for an even greater need to manage well. One important aspect of efficient management is having sufficient information for decision making. This dissertation addresses the need for electronic tools to assist officers of a higher education institution in the management of the institution by improving access to information. College administrators need information about the status of their institution, projections of enrollment and funding, and comparative data from other institutions. This dissertation presents a systems analysis model for provision of that management data in the form of an executive information system (EIS). A review of the literature on executive information systems reveals extensive EIS activity in the commercial environment, but very little EIS activity within higher education. Recent declines in hardware pricing and the appearance of economical productivity software have made the development of an EIS more feasible within higher education. The literature review includes a discussion of information requirements for executives, historical development of executive information systems, and commercial executive information systems. The design section of the dissertation presents a framework for development of an EIS for Cedarville College. The recent installation of a campus-wide network has provided desktop computing access to administrative officers of the college, but there is not yet an appropriate software system which would utilize this network for administrative information delivery. The design framework includes a requirements analysis, a preliminary feasibility study, testing procedures, and an implementation plan for the development of an executive information system for Cedarville College. The requirements analysis performed as part of the study are based on interviews with administrators and middle-managers at Cedarville College. The identified requirements include a description of major decision making to be supported and the types of data which are typically used in support of that decision making. Following the requirements analysis, the author presents a review of five commercially-available EIS software packages. The review includes a description of each product, pricing information, and an overview of the data structures used by each product. As part of the analysis procedure, a prototype EIS was designed and implemented in three of the packages. The entire EIS design and prototype implementations were reviewed by Cedarville College participants and by four external reviewers. The systems analysis efforts performed as part of this study have resulted in an increased awareness of information requirements within the College administration and middle-management. The proposed EIS design and corresponding prototypes have demonstrated the feasibility of improving executive information support within the College. Such a design can provide an effective EIS for Cedarville College. However, development of the EIS prototypes has highlighted the importance of continued active participation by executives and systems analysts in the ongoing evolution of the executive information system. While EIS software costs can be identified and kept within a fairly small budget, personnel support issues may outweigh any software costs involved in an EIS project. Thus, delivery of an economical EIS for Cedarville College and other similar colleges remains an area for ongoing research

Someone Else\u27s War: Korea and the Post-1945 U.S. Racial Order

The Korean War (1950-1953) marked a major turning point in matters of race in the United States. One the one hand, the desegregation of the U.S. armed forces during the war inaugurated state-mandated institutional racial integration as a putative path to full and equal citizenship for racial minorities, particularly for African American soldiers and their families. On the other, the lifting of racially exclusive immigration laws signaled changing conceptions of who could become an American citizen at all, paving the way for the mass migration of Asian immigrants in the second half of the twentieth century. The dissertation reads the Korean War as the event that set these twin processes of integration and immigration in motion—processes that transformed the racial order in the post-45 period in the United States. It examines recent and contemporary works of literature by American writers of color, including novels by Ha Jin, Rolando Hinojosa, Chang-Rae Lee, and Toni Morrison, in order to work through the profound but often unthought effects of the Korean War for minority subjects in U.S. culture. Through these readings, the dissertation argues that the Korean War heralded a new mode of liberal inclusion for racial minorities in the United States

Frameworks for enhancing temporal interface behaviour through software architectural design

The work reported in this thesis is concerned with understanding aspects of temporal behaviour. A large part of the thesis is based on analytical studies of temporal properties and interface and architectural concerns. The main areas covered include: i. analysing long-term human processes and the impact of interruptions and delays ii. investigating how infrastructures can be designed to support synchronous fast pace activity iii.design of the Getting-to-Know (GtK) experimental notification server The work is motivated by the failure of many collaborative systems to effectively manage the temporal behaviour at the interface level, as they often assume that the interaction is taking place over fast, reliable local area networks. However, the Web has challenged this assumption and users are faced with frequent network-related delays. The nature of cooperative work increases the importance of timing issues. Collaborative users require both rapid feedback of their own actions and timely feedthrough of other actions. Although it may appear that software architectures are about the internals of system design and not a necessary concern for the user interface, internal details do show up at the surface in non-functional aspects, such as timing. The focus of this work is on understanding the behavioural aspects and how they are influenced by the infrastructure. The thesis has contributed to several areas of research: (a)the study of long-term work processes generated a trigger analysis technique for task decomposition in HCI (b)the analysis of architectures was later applied to investigate architectural options for mobile interfaces (c)the framework for notification servers commenced a design vocabulary in CSCW for the implementation of notification services, with the aim of improving design (d)the impedance matching framework facilitate both goal-directed feedthrough and awareness In particular, (c) and (d) have been exercised in the development of the GtK separable notification server