Generalizing email messages digests

International audienceAn email digest is a message that results from the combination of other messages. Mailing list management systems implement digests to let subscribers reduce their email messages frequency. In this paper we address the issue of generalizing this digest technique for any message (i.e. not only issued from mailing lists). By generalizing we mean creating new message combinations while 1) keeping an email centric approach, and 2) generating a compact visualization to assist a user task. We implemented a preliminary prototype as a webmail and we will describe a series of digests providing users multiple visualizations in the context of a meeting planning by email

Ontology based support of small groups

Der Einsatz von Ontologien wird bereits in vielen Anwendungsbereichen als Werkzeug für die Strukturierung und die Verbesserung der Zugänglichkeit von Informationen unterschiedlichster Art genutzt. Sie ermöglichen die explizite Formulierung der Bedeutung von Konzepten und Strukturen beliebiger Domänen. Auch im Rahmen der Zusammenarbeit in und zwischen Gruppen ist der Austausch und die Verarbeitung von Informationen für den Verlauf und den Erfolg der Kooperation von erheblicher Bedeutung. Daher liegt es nahe, auch kollaborative Aktivitäten durch den Einsatz von Ontologien zu unterstützen. Aktuelle Arbeiten in diesem Themenbereich fokussieren jedoch meist auf ausgewählte Aspekte der Zusammenarbeit wie etwa der Kommunikation zwischen den Gruppenmitgliedern oder die Unterstützung durch eine konkrete Softwarekomponente. In dieser Arbeit wird dagegen von einer ganzheitlichen Betrachtung von Kooperationssituationen ausgegangen. Dabei werden die an einer Kooperation beteiligten Personen und die eingesetzten technischen Komponenten als ein gesamtes soziotechnisches System betrachtet, dessen Elemente nicht losgelöst voneinander betrachtet werden können. Das Ziel dieser Arbeit besteht einerseits darin, zu untersuchen, wie sich der Einsatz von Ontologien auf die Unterstützung der Zusammenarbeit auswirkt und andererseits, welche Möglichkeiten sich hieraus für die Gestaltung von Kooperationssystemen ableiten lassen. Einige dieser Möglichkeiten werden im praktischen Teil prototypisch implementiert, um die technische und wirtschaftliche Umsetzbarkeit zu evaluieren.The usage of ontologies is already common in many felds of application to structure diferent kinds of informations and to make them accessible; they further more make it possible to make the meaning of concepts and structures of any domains explicit. In connection with cooperation in and between groups the exchange and processing of informations about the progress and success of cooperation is of considerable meaning. Because of that it seems reasonable to suppose that collaborative activities should be supported by using ontologies. Current works in this feld often focus only on single aspects of cooperation; for example the communication between members of the group or supporting them by using particular software components. This thesis is emanated from the aspect of an integral way of viewing cooperative situations. Especially the cooperation of the involved persons and the technical components should be looked at a sociotechnical system on the whole and not the elements seperated. The aim of this thesis - on the one side - is to determine the impact of using ontologies on supported cooperative work and - on the other side - which possibilities can be derived from that for the design of cooperative systems. Some of these possibilities will be implemented in a prototyp to evaluate the technical and economic feasibility

Un nouveau modèle de correspondance pour un service de messagerie électronique avancée

The ease of use and efficiency of the email service contributed to its widespread adoption. It became an essential service and authorizing multiples and various uses (private, professional, administrative, governmental, military ...). However, all existing systems are technically reduced to the implementation of global policies, compiling in a static way a limited set of features. These approaches prevent differentiated adaptations of the system to the uses. The rigid and monolithic nature of these policies can moreover lead to unnecessary execution of expensive treatments or to the inability to simultaneously satisfy conflicting requirements. We address this problem of the evolution of e-mail in the general context of interpersonal communication of a sender to a receiver. We identify the sender's intention of communication, as a key parameter of any interpersonal communication, insofar as it allows to finely discriminate the successful communications, between all the ones that are understood. A second parameter which is orthogonal to the first, defined as the context of the sender, is important because it allows to determine the successful aspect of an interpersonal communication. The declination of these two parameters in the electronic mail led us to define the concept of electronic correspondence. This one is a generalization of the email the implementation of which provides a sufficient condition of qualification successful exchanges via this medium. A correspondence allows taking into account for each message, the intention of communication and context of its sender. Its implementation requires in certain points of the network, the enforcement of specific policies depending of an administrative domain and which take as argument the intention of communication and the current context of the sender. A second benefit provided by this concept concerns the level of customization of messaging reaching a maximum granularity, because it can be applied in a differentiated way, to each message instance. These works led to the description of a representative architecture and the definition of three extensions to existing standards (SUBMISSION, IMF and S/MIME). Our approach has been illustrated through two main use cases, compliant with recommended specifications for administration (RGS - Référentiel Général de Sécurité) and military (MMHS - Military Message Handling System) domains.Le service de courrier électronique en raison de sa simplicité d'utilisation combinée à son efficacité, a constitué l'un des principaux vecteurs de popularisation d'Internet. Il est devenu un service incontournable dont la richesse s'exprime au travers des usages variés et multiples qu'il autorise (privé, professionnel, administratif, officiel, militaire...). Cependant, toutes les réalisations existantes se réduisent techniquement à la mise en oeuvre de politiques globales, compilant de façon statique un ensemble limité de fonctionnalités. Ces approches ne permettent pas au système de s'adapter de façon différenciée aux usages. De plus, le caractère rigide et monolithique de ces politiques peut parfois conduire à l'exécution inutile de traitements coûteux ou à l'impossibilité de satisfaire simultanément des exigences contradictoires. Nous abordons cette problématique de l'évolution de la messagerie électronique dans le cadre général de la communication interpersonnelle d'un locuteur vers un interlocuteur. Nous identifions l'intention de communication du locuteur, comme un paramètre clé de toute communication interpersonnelle, dans la mesure où il permet de discriminer finement les communications réussies, parmi toutes celles qui sont comprises. Un second paramètre orthogonal au premier, défini comme le contexte du locuteur, s'avère déterminant lorsqu'il s'agit d'aborder la réalisation concrète des communications interpersonnelles réussies. La déclinaison de ces deux paramètres dans le cadre de la messagerie électronique nous conduit à concevoir la notion de correspondance. Cette dernière constitue une généralisation du courrier électronique dont la mise en oeuvre offre une condition suffisante de qualification des échanges réussis, via ce média. Une correspondance permet de prendre en compte pour chaque message, l'intention de communication et le contexte de son émetteur. Sa mise en oeuvre impose l'application en certains points du réseau, de politiques spécifiques au domaine administratif de référence, qui prennent en argument l'intention de communication et le contexte courant de l'émetteur. Un second bénéfice apporté par ce concept concerne le niveau de personnalisation du service de messagerie qui atteint une granularité de finesse maximale, du fait qu'il peut s'appliquer de façon différenciée, à chaque occurrence de message. Ces travaux ont abouti à la description d'une architecture représentative accompagnée de la définition de trois extensions de standards existants (SUBMISSION, IMF et S/MIME). Notre approche a été illustrée à travers deux cas d'usages importants, conformes à des spécifications recommandées pour les domaines administratif (RGS- référentiel général de sécurité) et militaire (MMHS - Military Message Handling System)

Integrating human communication strategies with project management for effective outcomes

Project managers' email in-boxes often contain hundreds of emails in which project related conversations are captured. The conversations are written records of team members' feedback regarding activities and their experiences performing these activities. They may also contain problems, expectations, emotions and lexical patterns (PEEL). Identifying these elements of project communication from email text and using them for the purpose of project management is a complex process. From the review of the existing literature of email analysis and project communication we identied four signicant shortcomings made up of: (i) lack of communication features, (ii) limited communication metrics, (iii) no link of email analysis to project monitoring, and (iv) limited understanding of how knowledge from email analysis can help improve functioning of a project. The study was set out to address the four shortcomings with the aim of addressing the need for a methodology that integrates knowledge from incoming email communication into project management practices. The research found that measurable characteristics of incoming communication through observations of both factual (technical) and personal (human) factors can generate signicant insight into indicators for the state of project health which in turn can be used to draw the project manager's attention to areas that worked well and areas that need consideration. In this study we developed a better understanding of various factors of incoming communi- cation in projects by in-depth analysis of email communication from ve projects with over a thousand emails. This included identication of multiple features embedded in emails, as well as coding and analysis of feature values for the purpose of identifying various measurable character- istics of incoming communication. This enabled implementation of communication metrics where \communication metrics" were linked to project \critical success factors". We demonstrate that by linking of two areas of research focus is on the observations of actors and their activities and experiences performing these activities. We were able to identify measurable characteristics of communication which could be used to provide signicant insights into indicators for the state of project health. We used this approach to generate communication reports which assisted the managers in identifying areas that worked or were critical to the project progress. Our theoretical contribution relates to the \Email Feedback Analysis" (EFA) model used for processing of project email communication in order to identify important elements of project activity useful for project managers; the insights into the e ectiveness of communication within a project as well as a metric for comparing communications across projects. Our model focuses on two types of information: information about team members (actors) activities and experiences while performing those activities in the context of communication and the same information in the context of project tasks. Our practical contributions relate to a framework and a vocabulary for the analysis of incoming communication, instructions of \how to code" incoming communication records in projects such as emails sent to project managers, \ProCommFeedback" software that can be used to simplify and expedite the process of communication analysis, and communication reports. This research aims to make a signicant contribution to conceptual understanding of the role that incoming communication plays in the context of project management as well as practical implementation of linking knowledge from incoming email communication with project success for the purpose of project management. Our approach has the potential to be highly benecial for large projects with many teams and resources (locally or globally dispersed) where project managers do not have su cient day-to-day contact with all their staff members to gauge their problems, feelings and emotions which are a strong indicator of sound project progress.Doctor of Philosoph