The term chat room, or chatroom, is primarily used to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing. The term can thus mean any technology, ranging from real-time online chat and online interaction with strangers to fully immersive graphical social environments.
New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) is a public research university in Newark, New Jersey with a graduate-degree-granting satellite campus in Jersey City. Founded in 1881 with the support of local industrialists and inventors especially Edward Weston, NJIT opened as Newark Technical School (NTS) in 1885 with 88 students. The school grew into a classic engineering college – Newark College of Engineering (NCE) – and then with the addition of a School of Architecture in 1973, into a polytechnic university that now hosts five colleges and one school. As of fall 2021 the university enrolls about 11,900 students from 83 countries, 2,500 of whom live on its main campus in Newark's University Heights district.
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.
Network society is the expression coined in 1991 related to the social, political, economic and cultural changes caused by the spread of networked, digital information and communications technologies. The intellectual origins of the idea can be traced back to the work of early social theorists such as Georg Simmel who analyzed the effect of modernization and industrial capitalism on complex patterns of affiliation, organization, production and experience.
Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is defined as any human communication that occurs through the use of two or more electronic devices. While the term has traditionally referred to those communications that occur via computer-mediated formats, it has also been applied to other forms of text-based interaction such as text messaging. Research on CMC focuses largely on the social effects of different computer-supported communication technologies. Many recent studies involve Internet-based social networking supported by social software.
The EFF Pioneer Award is an annual prize by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) for people who have made significant contributions to the empowerment of individuals in using computers. Until 1998 it was presented at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., United States. Thereafter it was presented at the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference. In 2007 it was presented at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference.
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.
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".
CoSy, short for Conferencing System. was an early computer conferencing system developed at the University of Guelph.
Connected Education - also known as Connect Ed - was a pioneering online education organization founded and administered by Paul Levinson and Tina Vozick. Operating from 1985 to 1997, Connect Ed offered the M.A. degrees in Media Studies and Creative Writing. Connect Ed also worked with Polytechnic University in Brooklyn and Pacific Oaks College in Pasadena, California.
Synchronous conferencing is the formal term used in computing, in particular in computer-mediated communication, collaboration and learning, to describe technologies informally known as online chat. It is sometimes extended to include audio/video conferencing or instant messaging systems that provide a text-based multi-user chat function. The word synchronous is used to qualify the conferencing as real-time, as distinct from a system such as e-mail, where messages are left and answered later.
The Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (ISCRAM) Community is an international community of researchers, practitioners and policy makers involved in or concerned about the design, development, deployment, use and evaluation of information systems for crisis response and management. The ISCRAM Community has been co-founded by Bartel Van de Walle, Benny Carlé, and Murray Turoff.
Rob Kling was a North American professor of Information Systems and Information science at the School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) and Adjunct Professor of Computer Science, Indiana University, United States. He directed the interdisciplinary Center for Social Informatics (CSI), at Indiana University. He is considered to have been a key founder of social analyses of computing and a leading expert on the study of social informatics.
A virtual learning environment (VLE) is a system that creates an environment designed to facilitate teachers' management of educational courses for their students, especially a system using computer hardware and software, which involves distance learning. In North America, a virtual learning environment is often referred to as a "learning management system" (LMS).
Murray Turoff was a Distinguished Professor at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) who was a key founding father of computer-mediated communication.
Starr Roxanne Hiltz is a retired Distinguished Professor of Information Science/Information Systems at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). She, along with Murray Turoff, are the authors of The Network Nation, a book that is described as "the seminal book that helped define the electronic frontier".
Real-time Delphi (RTD) is an advanced form of the Delphi method. The advanced method "is a consultative process that uses computer technology" to increase efficiency of the Delphi process.
Talkomatic was an online chat system that facilitates real-time text communication among a small group of people. Each participant in Talkomatic has their own section of the screen, broadcasting messages letter-by-letter as they are typed. This interaction is dissimilar from present-day chat systems and is based upon work done in 1973 at the University of Illinois on the PLATO system by Doug Brown and David R. Woolley. This work is part of a conservation effort aimed at preserving historically significant works and their descendants. The original Talkomatic can be seen operating as it did in the 1970s on the CYBIS system operated by cyber1.org.
Richard Dalton was a former editor of the Whole Earth Software Review. He was president of Keep/Track Corporation when he died of prostate cancer on Oct. 24 2016, age 76. For nine years he was a research affiliate of the Institute for the Future in Menlo Park, California specializing in emerging technologies and their business and social implications. He was a featured columnist for InformationWeek and Windows Magazine, and also wrote a column for Byte.com. He has recently spoken at Comdex, the Groupware Users Exchange, the InterClass European Conference and the Federal Government Group Decision Technology Conference.
