Collaborative software

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Collaborative software or groupware is application software designed to help people working on a common task to attain their goals. One of the earliest definitions of groupware is "intentional group processes plus software to support them." [1]

Contents

Regarding available interaction, collaborative software may be divided into real-time collaborative editing platforms that allow multiple users to engage in live, simultaneous, and reversible editing of a single file (usually a document); and version control (also known as revision control and source control) platforms, which allow users to make parallel edits to a file, while preserving every saved edit by users as multiple files that are variants of the original file. [ citation needed ]

Collaborative software is a broad concept that overlaps considerably with computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW). According to Carstensen and Schmidt (1999), [2] groupware is part of CSCW. The authors claim that CSCW, and thereby groupware, addresses "how collaborative activities and their coordination can be supported by means of computer systems."

The use of collaborative software in the work space creates a collaborative working environment (CWE).

Collaborative software relates to the notion of collaborative work systems, which are conceived as any form of human organization that emerges any time that collaboration takes place, whether it is formal or informal, intentional or unintentional. [3] Whereas the groupware or collaborative software pertains to the technological elements of computer-supported cooperative work, collaborative work systems become a useful analytical tool to understand the behavioral and organizational variables that are associated to the broader concept of CSCW. [4] [5]

History

Douglas Engelbart first envisioned collaborative computing in 1951 and documented his vision in 1962, [6] with working prototypes in full operational use by his research team by the mid-1960s. [7] He held the first public demonstration of his work in 1968 in what is now referred to as "The Mother of All Demos". [8] The following year, Engelbart's lab was hooked into the ARPANET, the first computer network, enabling them to extend services to a broader userbase.

Online collaborative gaming software began between early networked computer users. In 1975, Will Crowther created Colossal Cave Adventure on a DEC PDP-10 computer. As internet connections grew, so did the numbers of users and multi-user games. In 1978 Roy Trubshaw, a student at University of Essex in the United Kingdom, created the game MUD (Multi-User Dungeon).

The US Government began using truly collaborative applications in the early 1990s. [9] One of the first robust applications was the Navy's Common Operational Modeling, Planning and Simulation Strategy (COMPASS). [10] The COMPASS system allowed up to 6 users to create point-to-point connections with one another; the collaborative session only remained while at least one user stayed active, and would have to be recreated if all six logged out. MITRE improved on that model by hosting the collaborative session on a server into which each user logged. Called the Collaborative Virtual Workstation (CVW), it allowed the session to be set up in a virtual file cabinet and virtual rooms, and left as a persistent session that could be joined later. [11]

In 1996, Pavel Curtis, who had built MUDs at PARC, created PlaceWare, a server that simulated a one-to-many auditorium, with side chat between "seat-mates", and the ability to invite a limited number of audience members to speak. In 1997, engineers at GTE used the PlaceWare engine in a commercial version of MITRE's CVW, calling it InfoWorkSpace (IWS). In 1998, IWS was chosen as the military standard for the standardized Air Operations Center. [12] The IWS product was sold to General Dynamics and then later to Ezenia. [13]

Groupware

Collaborative software was originally designated as groupware and this term can be traced as far back as the late 1980s, when Richman and Slovak (1987) [14] wrote: "Like an electronic sinew that binds teams together, the new groupware aims to place the computer squarely in the middle of communications among managers, technicians, and anyone else who interacts in groups, revolutionizing the way they work."

In 1978, Peter and Trudy Johnson-Lenz coined the term groupware; their initial 1978 definition of groupware was, "intentional group processes plus software to support them." Later in their article they went on to explain groupware as "computer-mediated culture... an embodiment of social organization in hyperspace." Groupware integrates co-evolving human and tool systems, yet is simply a single system. [15]

In the early 1990s the first commercial groupware products were delivered, and big companies such as Boeing and IBM started using electronic meeting systems for key internal projects. Lotus Notes appeared as a major example of that product category, allowing remote group collaboration when the internet was still in its infancy. Kirkpatrick and Losee (1992) [16] wrote then: "If GROUPWARE really makes a difference in productivity long term, the very definition of an office may change. You will be able to work efficiently as a member of a group wherever you have your computer. As computers become smaller and more powerful, that will mean anywhere." In 1999, Achacoso created and introduced the first wireless groupware. [17] [18] [19]

Design and implementation

The complexity of groupware development is still an issue. One reason is the socio-technical dimension of groupware. Groupware designers do not only have to address technical issues (as in traditional software development) but also consider the organizational aspects [20] and the social group processes that should be supported with the groupware application. Some examples for issues in groupware development are:

One approach for addressing these issues is the use of design patterns for groupware design. [24] The patterns identify recurring groupware design issues and discuss design choices in a way that all stakeholders can participate in the groupware development process.

Levels of collaboration

Groupware can be divided into three categories depending on the level of collaboration: [25] [26]

  1. Communication can be thought of as unstructured interchange of information. A phone call and an instant messaging discussion are examples.
  2. Conferencing (or collaboration level, as it is called in academic papers) refers to interactive work toward a shared goal. Brainstorming and voting are examples.
  3. Coordination refers to complex interdependent work toward a shared goal. A good metaphor is to think about a sports team; everyone has to contribute the right play at the right time as well as adjust their play to the unfolding situation - but everyone is doing something different - in order for the team to win. It is complex interdependent work toward a shared goal.

Collaborative management (coordination) tools

Collaborative management tools facilitate and manage group activities. Examples include:

Collaborative software and human interaction

The design intent of collaborative software (groupware) is to transform the way documents and rich media are shared in order to enable more effective team collaboration.

Collaboration, with respect to information technology, seems to have several definitions. Some are defensible but others are so broad they lose any meaningful application. Understanding the differences in human interactions is necessary to ensure the appropriate technologies are employed to meet interaction needs.

There are three primary ways in which humans interact: conversations, transactions, and collaborations.

Conversational interaction is an exchange of information between two or more participants where the primary purpose of the interaction is discovery or relationship building. There is no central entity around which the interaction revolves but is a free exchange of information with no defined constraints, generally focused on personal experiences. [28] Communication technology such as telephones, instant messaging, and e-mail are generally sufficient for conversational interactions.

Transactional interaction involves the exchange of transaction entities where a major function of the transaction entity is to alter the relationship between participants.

In collaborative interaction, the main function of the participants' relationship is to alter a collaboration entity (i.e., the converse of transactional). When teams collaborate on projects it is collaborative project management.

See also

Type of applications

Related Research Articles

Social software, also known as social apps or social platform includes communications and interactive tools that are often based on the Internet. Communication tools typically handle capturing, storing and presenting communication, usually written but increasingly including audio and video as well. Interactive tools handle mediated interactions between a pair or group of users. They focus on establishing and maintaining a connection among users, facilitating the mechanics of conversation and talk. Social software generally refers to software that makes collaborative behaviour, the organisation and moulding of communities, self-expression, social interaction and feedback possible for individuals. Another element of the existing definition of social software is that it allows for the structured mediation of opinion between people, in a centralized or self-regulating manner. The most improved area for social software is that Web 2.0 applications can all promote co-operation between people and the creation of online communities more than ever before. The opportunities offered by social software are instant connections and opportunities to learn.An additional defining feature of social software is that apart from interaction and collaboration, it aggregates the collective behaviour of its users, allowing not only crowds to learn from an individual but individuals to learn from the crowds as well. Hence, the interactions enabled by social software can be one-to-one, one-to-many, or many-to-many.

Computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) is the study of how people utilize technology collaboratively, often towards a shared goal. CSCW addresses how computer systems can support collaborative activity and coordination. More specifically, the field of CSCW seeks to analyze and draw connections between currently understood human psychological and social behaviors and available collaborative tools, or groupware. Often the goal of CSCW is to help promote and utilize technology in a collaborative way, and help create new tools to succeed in that goal. These parallels allow CSCW research to inform future design patterns or assist in the development of entirely new tools.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Collaboration tool</span> Tool that helps people to collaborate

A collaboration tool helps people to collaborate. The purpose of a collaboration tool is to support a group of two or more individuals to accomplish a common goal or objective. Collaboration tools can be either of a non-technological nature such as paper, flipcharts, post-it notes or whiteboards. They can also include software tools and applications such as collaborative software.

An electronic meeting system (EMS) is a type of computer software that facilitates creative problem solving and decision-making of groups within or across organizations. The term was coined by Alan R. Dennis et al. in 1988. The term is synonymous with group support systems (GSS) and essentially synonymous with group decision support systems (GDSS). Electronic meeting systems form a class of applications for computer supported cooperative work.

SRI International's Augmentation Research Center (ARC) was founded in the 1960s by electrical engineer Douglas Engelbart to develop and experiment with new tools and techniques for collaboration and information processing.

Social computing is an area of computer science that is concerned with the intersection of social behavior and computational systems. It is based on creating or recreating social conventions and social contexts through the use of software and technology. Thus, blogs, email, instant messaging, social network services, wikis, social bookmarking and other instances of what is often called social software illustrate ideas from social computing.

NLS, or the "oN-Line System", was a revolutionary computer collaboration system developed in the 1960s. It was designed by Douglas Engelbart and implemented by researchers at the Augmentation Research Center (ARC) at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). It was the first computer system to employ the practical use of hypertext links, the mouse, raster-scan video monitors, information organized by relevance, screen windowing, presentation programs, and other modern computing concepts. It was funded by ARPA, NASA, and the US Air Force.

Computer-supported collaboration research focuses on technology that affects groups, organizations, communities and societies, e.g., voice mail and text chat. It grew from cooperative work study of supporting people's work activities and working relationships. As net technology increasingly supported a wide range of recreational and social activities, consumer markets expanded the user base, enabling more and more people to connect online to create what researchers have called a computer supported cooperative work, which includes "all contexts in which technology is used to mediate human activities such as communication, coordination, cooperation, competition, entertainment, games, art, and music".

MoSoSo is a class of mobile applications which scope is to support social interaction among interconnected mobile users. The basic idea of a MoSoSo is to overlay a location and time element to the idea of digital networking. It enables users to find one another, in a particular vicinity and time, for social or business networking.

A collaborative working environment (CWE) supports people, such as e-professionals, in their individual and cooperative work. Research in CWE involves focusing on organizational, technical, and social issues.

SharedX is a set of extensions to the X Window System that was developed at HP in the mid to late 1980s. It enables X servers to "share" individual X windows or an entire desktop, thus allowing users at multiple workstations to use standard applications to collaborate in real-time in an X Window System network environment, similar to desktop sharing, but for only a single window.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Grudin</span> American computer scientist

Jonathan Grudin was a researcher at Microsoft from 1998 to 2022 and is affiliate professor at the University of Washington Information School working in the fields of human-computer interaction and computer-supported cooperative work. Grudin is a pioneer of the field of computer-supported cooperative work and one of its most prolific contributors. His collaboration distance to other researchers of human-computer interactions has been described by the "Grudin number". Grudin is also well known for the "Grudin Paradox" or "Grudin Problem", which states basically with respect to the design of collaborative software for organizational settings, "What may be in the managers' best interests may not be in the interests of individual contributors, and therefore not used." He was awarded the inaugural CSCW Lasting Impact Award in 2014 on the basis of this work. He has also written about the publication culture and history of human-computer interactions. His book From Tool to Partner, The Evolution of Human-Computer Interaction was published in 2017.

Group information management (GIM) is an extension of personal information management (PIM) "as it functions in more public spheres" as a result of peoples' efforts to share and co-manage information, and has been a topic of study for researchers in PIM, human–computer interaction (HCI), and computer supported cooperative work (CSCW). People acquire, organize, maintain, retrieve and use information items to support individual needs, but these PIM activities are often embedded in group or organizational contexts and performed with sharing in mind. The act of sharing moves personal information into spheres of group activity and also creates tensions that shape what and how the information is shared. The practice and the study of GIM focuses on this interaction between personal information and group contexts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GroupLens Research</span> Computer science research lab

GroupLens Research is a human–computer interaction research lab in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities specializing in recommender systems and online communities. GroupLens also works with mobile and ubiquitous technologies, digital libraries, and local geographic information systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DiamondTouch</span> Multiple person interface device

The DiamondTouch table is a multi-touch, interactive PC interface product from Circle Twelve Inc. It is a human interface device that has the capability of allowing multiple people to interact simultaneously while identifying which person is touching where. The technology was originally developed at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL) in 2001 and later licensed to Circle Twelve Inc in 2008. The DiamondTouch table is used to facilitate face-to-face collaboration, brainstorming, and decision-making, and users include construction management company Parsons Brinckerhoff, the Methodist Hospital, and the US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).

Collaborative information seeking (CIS) is a field of research that involves studying situations, motivations, and methods for people working in collaborative groups for information seeking projects, as well as building systems for supporting such activities. Such projects often involve information searching or information retrieval (IR), information gathering, and information sharing. Beyond that, CIS can extend to collaborative information synthesis and collaborative sense-making.

Collaborative decision-making (CDM) software is a software application or module that helps to coordinate and disseminate data and reach consensus among work groups.

Victoria Bellotti is a Senior CI researcher in the Member Experience Team at Netflix. Previously, she was a user experience manager for growth at Lyft and a research fellow at the Palo Alto Research Center. She is known for her work in the area of personal information management and task management, but from 2010 to 2018 she began researching context-aware peer-to-peer transaction partner matching and motivations for using peer-to-peer marketplaces which led to her joining Lyft. Victoria also serves as an adjunct professor in the Jack Baskin School of Engineering at University of California Santa Cruz, on the editorial board of the Personal and Ubiquitous Computing and as an associate editor for the International Journal of HCI. She is a researcher in the Human–computer interaction community. In 2013 she was awarded membership of the ACM SIGCHI Academy for her contributions to the field and professional community of human computer interaction.

Carl Gutwin is a Canadian computer scientist, professor and the director of the Human–computer interaction (HCI) Lab at the University of Saskatchewan. He is also a co-theme leader in the SurfNet research network and was a past holder of a Canada Research Chair in Next-Generation Groupware. Gutwin is known for his contributions in HCI ranging from the technical aspects of systems architectures, to the design and implementation of interaction techniques, and to social theory as applied to design. Gutwin was papers co-chair at CHI 2011 and was a conference co-chair of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) 2010.

Saul Greenberg is a computer scientist, a Faculty Professor and Professor Emeritus at the University of Calgary. He was awarded ACM Fellowship in 2012 for contributions to computer supported cooperative work and ubiquitous computing.

References

  1. ↑ Johnson-Lenz, Peter; Johnson-Lenz, Trudy (March 1991). "Post-mechanistic groupware primitives: rhythms, boundaries and containers". International Journal of Man-Machine Studies. 34 (3): 395–417. doi:10.1016/0020-7373(91)90027-5.
  2. ↑ Carstensen, P.H.; Schmidt, K. (1999). "Computer supported cooperative work: new challenges to systems design" . Retrieved 2023-01-30.
  3. ↑ Beyerlein, M; Freedman, S.; McGee, G.; Moran, L. (2002). Beyond Teams: Building the Collaborative Organization. The Collaborative Work Systems series, Wiley.
  4. ↑ Wilson, P. (1991). Computer Supported Cooperative Work: An Introduction. Kluwer Academic Pub. ISBN   978-0792314462
  5. ↑ Aparicio, M and Costa, C. (2012) Collaborative systems: characteristics and features. In Proceedings of the 30th ACM international conference on Design of communication (SIGDOC '12). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 141-146. doi : 10.1145/2379057.2379087
  6. ↑ Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework Archived 2011-05-04 at the Wayback Machine , Douglas C. Engelbart, 1962
  7. ↑ A Research Center for Augmenting Human Intellect, Douglas C. Engelbart and William K. English, 1968.
  8. ↑ "1968 Demo Overview and Links to Video". Dougengelbart.org. Retrieved 2014-06-25.
  9. ↑ Bullen, Christine V.; Bennett, John L. (1990). "Learning from user experience with groupware". Proceedings of the 1990 ACM conference on Computer-supported cooperative work - CSCW '90. Portal.acm.org. pp. 291–302. doi:10.1145/99332.99362. ISBN   0897914023. S2CID   5295874 . Retrieved 2014-06-25.
  10. ↑ Heritage of Delivering Successful Warfighting Solutions
  11. ↑ Collaborative virtual environments for analysis and decision support, Mark Mayburry
  12. ↑ "(Press Release) InfoWorkSpace saves lives in Iraq - Ezenia!, Inc". Ezenia.com. Retrieved 2014-06-25.
  13. ↑ "(Press Release) InfoWorkSpace - Ezenia!, Inc". Ezenia.com. Archived from the original on 2014-05-27. Retrieved 2014-06-25.
  14. ↑ Richman, Louis S; Slovak, Julianne (June 8, 1987). "SOFTWARE CATCHES THE TEAM SPIRIT New computer programs may soon change the way groups of people work together -- and start delivering the long-awaited payoff from office automation.fouttoune". Money.cnn.com.
  15. ↑ Johnson-Lenz, Peter (30 April 1990). "Rhythms, Boundaries, and Containers". Awakening Technology. Archived from the original on 9 September 2011. Retrieved 27 July 2011.
  16. ↑ Kirkpatrick, D.; Losee, S. (March 23, 1992). "HERE COMES THE PAYOFF FROM PCs New network software lets brainstormers around a table all talk at once on their keyboards. The result: measurable productivity gains from desktop computing". CNN .
  17. ↑ "First Wireless Groupware Hits Palmtops: GroupServe Launches its Wireless-Accessible Discussion Service". merysis. December 7, 1999.
  18. ↑ Richardson, Jake (January 31, 2000). "GroupServe gets $1M, new executive director". American City Business Journals .
  19. ↑ "GroupServe markets "in-time communications" to wireless business customers". RCR Wireless News. 1999-11-30. Retrieved 2019-11-11.
  20. ↑ D'Atri A., De Marco M., Casalino N. (2008). “Interdisciplinary Aspects of Information Systems Studies”, pp. 1-416, Physica-Verlag, Springer, Germany, Doi 10.1007/978-3-7908-2010-2 ISBN   978-3-7908-2009-6.
  21. ↑ A Case Study in Technology Transfer of Collaboration Tools
  22. ↑ Collaborating securely - Can it be done?
  23. ↑ Ellis, Clarence A.; Gibbs, Simon J.; Rein, Gail (1991). "Groupware: some issues and experiences" (PDF). Communications of the ACM. 34: 39–58. doi:10.1145/99977.99987. S2CID   13597491. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-10-09.
  24. ↑ Till Schümmer and Stephan Lukosch. 2007. Patterns for Computer-Mediated Interaction (Wiley Software Patterns Series). John Wiley & Sons. ISBN   978-0-470-02561-1
  25. ↑ "Groupware - Communication, Collaboration and Coordination". Lotus Development Corporation. 1995. Archived from the original on July 13, 2011.
  26. ↑ Casalino N., Draoli M. (2009), “Governance and Organizational Aspects of an Experimental Groupware in the Italian Public Administration to Support Multi-Institutional Partnerships”, in Information Systems: People, Organizations, Institutions, and Trchnologies, D’Atri A., Saccà D. (Eds.), Physica-Verlag, Springer, Heidelberg, Germany, pp. 81-89, ISBN   978-3-7908-2147-5, doi 10.1007/978-3-7908-2148-2_11
  27. ↑ Chaffey, Dave (1998). Groupware, Workflow, and Intranets: Reengineering the Enterprise with Collaborative Software. Boston: Digital Press.
  28. ↑ Dunbar, R. I.; Marriott, A.; Duncan, N. D. (1997). "Human conversational behavior" (PDF). Human Nature: An Interdisciplinary Biosocial Perspective. 8 (3): 231–246. doi:10.1007/BF02912493. PMID   26196965. S2CID   1151885. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 November 2014. Retrieved 3 December 2014.
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