ECSCW 2013 Adjunct Proceedings The 13th European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work 21 - 25. September 2013, Paphos, Cyprus

This volume presents the adjunct proceedings of ECSCW 2013.While the proceedings published by Springer Verlag contains the core of the technical program, namely the full papers, the adjunct proceedings includes contributions on work in progress, workshops and master classes, demos and videos, the doctoral colloquium, and keynotes, thus indicating what our field may become in the future

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

Data work: how energy advisors and clients make IoT data accountable

We present fieldwork findings from the deployment of an interactive sensing system that supports the work of energy advisors who give face-to-face advice to low-income households in the UK. We focus on how the system and the data it produced are articulated in the interactions between professional energy advisors and their clients, and how they collaboratively anticipate, rehearse, and perform data work. In addition to documenting how the system was appropriated in advisory work, we elaborate the ‘overhead cost’ of building collaborative action into connected devices and sensing systems, and the commensurate need to support discrete workflows and accountability systems to enable the methodical incorporation of the IoT into collaborative action. We contribute an elaboration of the social, collaborative methods of data work relevant to those who seek to design and study collaborative IoT systems

Measurement of Remote Response Delay in Multi-Synchronous Collaborative Editing

In this study we examine the performance consequences of simulated network delay in collaborative document editing. Related studies suggest that while delay in the distribution of an individual's work to the team is a potential influence on performance, the impact is a function of strategy and task. However, a dearth of quantitative research in the domain of document editing makes it difficult to evaluate either concern for delay or the efficacy of compensatory strategies. The present study measures performance on an artificial document editing task with a time constant and metrics for process and outcome suitable for experimental study. Results suggest that strategy in the distribution of work influences task outcome at least as much as delay in the distribution of work in progress. However, a paradoxical interaction between delay and strategy emerged, in which the more generally effective, but highly coupled strategy was also more sensitive to delay

Large scale collaborative virtual environments

[N.B. Pagination of eThesis differs from printed thesis. The content is identical.] This thesis is concerned with the theory, design, realisation and evaluation of large-scale collaborative virtual environments. These are 3D audio-graphical computer generated environments which actively support collaboration between potentially large numbers of distributed users. The approach taken in this thesis reflects both the sociology of interpersonal communication and the management of communication in distributed systems. The first part of this thesis presents and evaluates MASSIVE-1, a virtual reality tele-conferencing system which implements the spatial model of interaction of Benford and Fahlén. The evaluation of MASSIVE-1 has two components: a user-oriented evaluation of the system’s facilities and the underlying awareness model; and a network-oriented evaluation and modelling of the communication requirements of the system with varying numbers of users. This thesis proposes the “third party object” concept as an extension to the spatial model of interaction. Third party objects can be used to represent the influence of context or environment on interaction and awareness, for example, the effects of boundaries, rooms and crowds. Third party objects can also be used to introduce and manage dynamic aggregates or abstractions within the environments (for example abstract overviews of distant crowds of participants). The third party object concept is prototyped in a second system, MASSIVE-2. MASSIVE-2 is also evaluated in two stages. The first is a user-oriented reflection on the capabilities and effectiveness of the third party concept as realised in the system. The second stage of the evaluation develops a predictive model of total and per-participant network bandwidth requirements for systems of this kind. This is used to analyse a number of design decisions relating to this type of system, including the use of multicasting and the form of communication management adopted

Collaborative decision making in complex work settings: a process of managing inter dependencies

There exists disparity between the conceptualization and occurrence of Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) in everyday work activities of complex work settings. Current notions in the field of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) based on studies of decision making in groups typically portray CDM as an isolated event in which multiple personnel jointly undertake decision making. In the real world, however, decisions are made during work performance and interlaced with other processes and activities. Moreover, the complex work setting is a cooperative arrangement in which decision making is distributed. This research aims to alleviate the disparity by investigating how people in a complex working environment make decisions collaboratively. The original contribution to knowledge made by this thesis is the theory of CDM as a process of managing interdependencies. Field-studies conducted in an airport to examine the way CDM is undertaken during Air Traffic Control operations inform theory development. The study takes a qualitative approach and is guided by Grounded Theory Methodology (GTM). The findings of this research indicate that undertaking decision making in the cooperative arrangement of complex work settings requires managing the distributions and interconnections inherent in this setup. In addition, participation and contribution of personnel in decision making is found to be structured by the dependencies between their activities. These findings form the central focus of the theory leading to the depiction of CDM as a process of managing interdependencies. The theory presented in this thesis clarifies and extends existing views by explicating the differentiated process of CDM in the cooperative arrangement of a complex work setting. Based on this a new definition of CDM is formulated. In addition, a conceptual framework of ten parameters is derived to serve as a tool for analysing CDM taking place in a particular work setting. Application of this framework is demonstrated by analysing an aircraft accident report to draw insights about the occurrence of CDM in this setting

Large scale collaborative virtual environments

[N.B. Pagination of eThesis differs from printed thesis. The content is identical.] This thesis is concerned with the theory, design, realisation and evaluation of large-scale collaborative virtual environments. These are 3D audio-graphical computer generated environments which actively support collaboration between potentially large numbers of distributed users. The approach taken in this thesis reflects both the sociology of interpersonal communication and the management of communication in distributed systems. The first part of this thesis presents and evaluates MASSIVE-1, a virtual reality tele-conferencing system which implements the spatial model of interaction of Benford and Fahlén. The evaluation of MASSIVE-1 has two components: a user-oriented evaluation of the system’s facilities and the underlying awareness model; and a network-oriented evaluation and modelling of the communication requirements of the system with varying numbers of users. This thesis proposes the “third party object” concept as an extension to the spatial model of interaction. Third party objects can be used to represent the influence of context or environment on interaction and awareness, for example, the effects of boundaries, rooms and crowds. Third party objects can also be used to introduce and manage dynamic aggregates or abstractions within the environments (for example abstract overviews of distant crowds of participants). The third party object concept is prototyped in a second system, MASSIVE-2. MASSIVE-2 is also evaluated in two stages. The first is a user-oriented reflection on the capabilities and effectiveness of the third party concept as realised in the system. The second stage of the evaluation develops a predictive model of total and per-participant network bandwidth requirements for systems of this kind. This is used to analyse a number of design decisions relating to this type of system, including the use of multicasting and the form of communication management adopted

Evaluating groupware usability at the cognitive level of human action

Tese de doutoramento, Informática (Engenharia Informática), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, 2010This dissertation explores the importance of the cognitive level of human action in the evaluation and improvement of groupware usability. This research is motivated by the problem that current methods focus on the rational and social levels of human action and yet an increasing number of users relies on computers to fulfil collaborative tasks dominated by perceptual, cognitive, and motor skill. The first contribution of this research is a groupware interface model that leverages existing knowledge on cognitive-level behaviour with single-user interfaces by expanding its application to multi-user interfaces. To do this, I show that the key differences between users interacting with the computer and interacting with other users through the computer can be supported by specialised groupware information flows and input/output devices. The second contribution of this dissertation is a pair of methods for predicting groupware usability at the cognitive level of human action. The first method applies to scenarios of collaboration occurring routinely in shared workspaces. The second aims at capturing the intertwined nature of mixed-focus collaboration, encompassing shared and private workspaces. I use the methods to evaluate and compare the usability of competing designs in four scenarios of collaboration. The methods do not require user testing or functioning prototypes, so they can be integrated into the iterative process of interactive systems design. The third contribution of this research is the evaluation of an attentive electronic brainstorming tool, which implements a novel attentive device that adjusts the delivery of group awareness information according to users’ natural task switching between doing individual work and attending to the group. I present results from a laboratory experiment, which indicate that groups produced 9.6% more ideas when compared to the immediate broadcast of ideas and provide evidence suggesting that the usability improvement was due to the mitigation of information overload.Esta dissertação explora a importância do nível cognitivo da actividade humana, no qual as tarefas demoram segundos a realizar e são tipicamente repetitivas, na avaliação e melhoria da usabilidade de sistemas de trabalho cooperativo suportado por computador, também designados por groupware. Estes sistemas de computadores permitem que grupos de interesse, como amigos e colegas, possam partilhar e organizar actividades de forma flexível e económica, onde o tempo e a distância deixam de ser obstáculos à colaboração. Alguns exemplos de groupware incluem os mensageiros instantâneos, usados por centenas de milhões de pessoas no mundo inteiro, os jogos multi-utilizador, que já atingiram cerca de dezasseis milhões de jogadores, bem como uma gama cada vez mais alargada de aplicações de escritório que estão a ser disponibilizadas na Internet. Com base nesta evidência, uma assumpção desta dissertação é que os sistemas de groupware estão a ficar cada vez mais ubíquos. O problema abordado nesta investigação é que os métodos actuais de avaliação da usabilidade de groupware omitem o nível cognitivo da actividade humana, e, no entanto, as nossas características psicológicas, como a percepção, cognição, e capacidade motora, dominam a execução de tarefas de colaboração rápidas, mas normalmente muito repetitivas. Uma consequência desta situação é que faltam instrumentos aos designers e investigadores de groupware que lhes permitam fazer optimizações de usabilidade de granularidade fina. Isto acontece porque os métodos actuais de avaliação da usabilidade visam tarefas colaborativas de relativa longa duração (que demoram minutos, horas, ou mais, a completar) e, portanto, baseiam-se em abstracções para conter o grau de complexidade da avaliação. Desta forma, as optimizações tendem a abranger vários passos de colaboração de granularidade fina de uma só vez, o que causa problemas porque a usabilidade de sistemas de groupware, como na maioria dos sistemas computacionais, está inerentemente ligada aos detalhes da interface com o utilizador. Estas optimizações, mesmo que de pequena expressão individual, podem acarretar um efeito multiplicador significativo dado o crescente número de utilizadores de groupware, especialmente na Internet. Outra consequência do nível cognitivo da acção humana ser negligenciado das avaliações de usabilidade de groupware é que o design da interface com o utilizador pode estar indevidamente alinhado com as características psicológicas humanas, o que pode fazer com que as tarefas colaborativas exijam uma carga de trabalho que excede as nossas capacidades limitadas de processamento de informação. Aliás, os utilizadores que realizam trabalho em grupo estão particularmente expostos a uma sobrecarga de informação porque têm de acompanhar o que se passa no grupo para além de realizarem trabalho individual, isto é, têm de dividir a atenção entre múltiplos fluxos de informação. Esta carga de trabalho pode penalizar a usabilidade dos sistemas de groupware devido ao aumento da probabilidade dos utilizadores não serem capazes de colaborar adequadamente. Dada esta situação, a minha questão de investigação é: como fazer avaliações ao nível cognitivo da actividade humana para melhorar a usabilidade de tarefas colaborativas realizadas através de sistemas de groupware? As avaliações de usabilidade ao nível cognitivo são bastante conhecidas no contexto das aplicações mono-utilizador, ao ponto de um conjunto de conhecimentos da psicologia aplicada ter sido reunido em modelos de engenharia de desempenho humano que predizem tempos de execução numa gama variada de tarefas de interacção pessoa-máquina. Estes modelos foram já, inclusivamente, aplicados no contexto de trabalho de grupo, mas sempre com a limitação de os utilizadores estarem restringidos a papéis individualistas e de a colaboração ficar de fora dos limites do sistema ou então ser abstraída. Em contraste, nesta dissertação estou interessado em avaliar as tarefas de colaboração realizadas através do sistema de groupware. A primeira contribuição desta investigação é um modelo da interface do groupware, o qual alavanca o conhecimento existente sobre o comportamento humano com interfaces mono-utilizador, baseado em modelos de engenharia que predizem o desempenho humano, através da expansão da sua aplicação a interfaces multi-utilizador. Para fazer isto mostro que as diferenças fundamentais entre os utilizadores interagirem com o computador (para trabalharem individualmente) e interagirem com outros utilizadores através do computador (para colaborar) podem ser suportadas por fluxos de informação e dispositivos de input/output especializados. Este modelo tem como propósito ajudar o designer a organizar o espaço de soluções numa gama alargada de sistemas de groupware. A segunda contribuição desta dissertação é um par de métodos para avaliar a usabilidade de sistemas de groupware ao nível cognitivo da actividade humana. O primeiro método é aplicável a cenários críticos de colaboração que ocorram rotineiramente em espaços de trabalho partilhados e define usabilidade em termos do tempo necessário para executar tarefas colaborativas, tal como estimado pelos modelos de engenharia de desempenho humano. Na dissertação aplico este método para avaliar e comparar a usabilidade de alternativas de design em três casos de colaboração em espaços partilhados. O segundo método visa capturar a natureza complexa e entrecruzada da colaboração que abrange tanto espaços partilhados como privados, bem como capturar os objectivos frequentemente conflituosos dos utilizadores enquanto estão a trabalhar individualmente ou quando estão a interagir com o grupo. Para fazer isto, combino estimativas de tempos de execução de tarefas com contribuições dessas tarefas para a progressão do grupo em direcção a um objectivo comum, em termos de produtividade individual, oportunidades criadas para os outros, e restrições para o trabalho de outros utilizadores. Na dissertação aplico este método a um jogo colaborativo, e mostro que, se para alguma outra coisa mais, este método serve para forçar o designer de groupware a pensar sobre as contrapartidas entre uma interface que permite aos utilizadores enquanto indivíduos serem mais produtivos e outra que permite um melhor desempenho do grupo enquanto um todo. Os dois métodos de avaliação não requerem testes com utilizadores ou a construção de protótipos de groupware para produzirem resultados de usabilidade, o que atesta a sua natureza formativa, e permite a sua integração no processo iterativo de design de sistemas interactivos. A terceira contribuição desta investigação é a avaliação da usabilidade de um sistema de groupware atentivo, que implementa um novo dispositivo de gestão da atenção humana, chamado opportunity seeker , o qual tem como propósito mitigar a sobrecarga de informação em cenários de colaboração síncrona, isto é, em que todos os elementos do grupo estão a trabalhar em simultâneo. O opportunity seeker intercepta e guarda numa memória tampão a informação de estado sobre o grupo e ajusta automaticamente a entrega dessa informação a cada utilizador em função da alternância natural entre este estar a realizar trabalho individual e estar a prestar atenção ao grupo. Na dissertação mostro como este dispositivo pode ser adaptado e instalado numa ferramenta electrónica para geração de ideias, chamada ABTool, e como a fronteira entre os dois estados de atenção pode ser detectada através de actividade no teclado. Para avaliar os efeitos do opportunity seeker na usabilidade da ferramenta ABTool, realizei uma experiência de laboratório em que pedi a grupos de voluntários para submeterem ideias em paralelo o mais rapidamente possível, e recolhi evidência de que quando os grupos estiveram sob a influência do opportunity seeker o número de ideias geradas aumentou em 9.6% em comparação com a condição em que todas as ideias eram imediatamente difundidas por todos os utilizadores. Adicionalmente, levei a cabo uma análise post-hoc que mostra que o opportunity seeker reduziu o número de entregas de ideias em 44.1%, pois combinou as ideias em pequenos lotes, e que isso se traduziu em 54.7% mais tempo para os utilizadores escreverem ideias sem serem interrompidos pela recepção de ideias de outros utilizadores. Nestas condições, os utilizadores foram 18.8% mais rápidos a alternar entre a escrita de uma ideia, o que fizeram em 16.3% menos tempo, e ler novas ideias de outros utilizadores. Estes resultados evidenciam que o opportunity seeker criou condições para mitigar a sobrecarga de informação e mostram que a usabilidade de sistemas de groupware pode ser melhorada através de avaliações focadas nas limitações da capacidade de processamento de informação humana. Com este conjunto de contribuições, mostrei que o nível cognitivo da actividade humana tem um papel determinante na avaliação da usabilidade de sistemas de groupware, complementando os níveis racional e social que têm sido tradicionalmente considerados por outros métodos de avaliação.Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology(Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia), through project PTDC/EIA/67589/2006 and the Multiannual Funding Programme