Understanding Collaborations in Virtual World

Virtual worlds (VW) have paved a new and important channel for workplace collaborations. However, analysts have noted that several organizations that made a strong entrance into using VW as a nouveau channel for communication and collaboration are stepping back due to limited user response. Motivated by this fact, we propose a trust-theoretic ‘virtual world collaboration model’ for collaborations in virtual worlds. The model, grounded in literature on ‘technology adoption’ and ‘trust’, theoretically examines the role of trust in motivating users for using this rich virtual communication medium for collaborations. Results establish the important roles of perceived social presence and perceived structural assurance for fostering user trust in VW. Further, results also indicate that user trust is significantly related to both extrinsic and intrinsic motivations, which in turn influence the behavioural intention to use the VW. Implications for research and practice are discussed

Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Collaborative Querying Environment

Abstract. Collaborative querying seeks to help users formulate queries by sharing expert knowledge or other users ’ search experiences. In previous work, a collaborative query environment (CQE) was developed for a digital library. The system operates by clustering and recommending related queries to users using a hybrid query similarity identification approach. Users can explore the query clusters using a graph-based visualization system known as the Query Graph Visualizer (QGV). The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the CQE with goal of informing the usefulness and usability of such a system. Our results show that compared with traditional information retrieval systems, collaborative querying can lead to faster information seeking when users perform unspecified tasks.

The Effect of Similarity Measures on the Quality of Query Clusters

Abstract. Query clustering is a process that can be used to discover common interests of online information seekers and to exploit their collective search experience for the benefit of others. Harnessing such search experiences facilitates collaborative querying that in turn may help users of digital libraries and other information systems to better meet their information needs. Since similarity is fundamental to the definition of a cluster, measures of similarity between two queries is essential to the query clustering procedure. In this paper, we examine the effectiveness of different similarity measures. A set of experiments was carried out to study the impact of different similarity measures on the quality of query clusters. The results show that different similarity measures outperform each other in different query cluster quality criteria. Implications for these findings are discussed

Design and implementation issues for groupware

Groupware systems can be classified under four distinct classes, namely, messaging, conferencing, decision-making and co-authoring systems [Rodden, 1991]. In this project we have developed/configured four systems for the four classes of groupware for study. They are: MEmail:-a heterogeneous multimedia electronic message system; MacGroupie;- a Macintosh-based desktop conferencing system; GroupSystem V :- a GUI-based GDSS; CommIT :- a PC-based shared whiteboard/group editor. This project aims to explore the design and implementation issues related to these four different classes of groupware.RP 5/9

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ReLOAMS: Towards a community authored, reusable learnin