ICT-enhanced Collaboration: Promise and Potential

Wayne Lutters

NSF, CISE/IIS/HCCUMBC, College of Engineering & IT

The Information Age

Explosive growth of information technology in response to core business problems.

How to…

• coordinate large, diverse workforce distributed across the planet?

• handle the complexity of regional, national, global expansion?

• manage vast quantities of information?• organize, store and retrieve that information efficiently?• orchestrate increased network communication?• survive in the face of ever rising communication expectations?

1911

The Information Age

typesetting

filing cabinets

telephone

photography

hole punch

3-ring binders

index cards

typewriter

telegraph

paper clip

ball point pen

fountain pen

card catalogue

facsimile machine

books

stencilpencil

transparency

staple

radio

binder clip

adhesive tape

tabbed folder

routing sheet

mail

chalk board

cork board

Fundamentals of Collaboration• .

Fundamentals of Collaboration• Communication (state)• Information exchange (transformation)• Coordinated activity (explicit)• Awareness (implicit)

Ellis, C.A., Gibbs, S.J, Rein, G.L. (1991) "Groupware: Some Issues and Experiences", Communications of the ACM, Volume 34, Issue 1 (January 1991), 38-58.

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Face-to-FaceInteraction

SynchronousDistributedInteraction

AsynchronousDistributedInteraction

AsynchronousInteraction

Petroski, Henry. (1996). Invention by Design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

So, what’s really different now in 2007?• .

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GDSS rooms Collaborative editors

Smart rooms

Desktop conferencing Media spaces

Instant messaging Awareness tools

E-mail Org. memory systems

Cooperative hypertext (wiki)Calendaring / scheduling

Message boards Workflow systems

Physical and Digital Design for Fluid Collaboration (Edwards, et al., Georgia Tech), 2007

Designing and Evaluating Ambient-Tangible Displays for Collaboration (Dourish, UC-Irvine), 2007

Pyramid Nimios, in their inactive and active states.

CSCW

SociologyPsychology

ComputerScience

IndustrialEngineering

HumanPerception

SocialPsychology

CognitiveAnthropology

CognitivePsychology

Software Engineering

HumanFactors

ArtificialIntelligence

GraphicDesign

Ergonomics

InformationScience

Computer Supported Cooperative Work

Computer Supported Cooperative Work

Grudin, Jonathan. (1994) "Groupware and social dynamics: eight challenges for developers", Communications of the ACM, Volume 37, Issue 1 (January 1994), 92-105.

Socio-Technical Systems• Understanding that collaborative systems emerge from

– social systems (individual, group, organization, culture)– technical systems (application, architecture, infrastructure)– dynamic interplay between them, situated in a particular context

• Context of interaction is critical.

• Socio-technical design circle.

Sample CSCW Research Themes• Communication through artifacts• Coordination / concurrency control• Exception handling• WYSIWIS• Shared context / common ground• Awareness• Group dynamics• Roles and norm formation• Privacy• Official processes, conventions, and routine work-arounds• Immersion, “place-ness”

Sample CSCW Design Insights• Disparity in work and benefit• Critical mass• Disruption of social processes (culture/norms)• Exception handling (work arounds)• Unobtrusive accessibility (seamless integration)• Difficulty of evaluation • Failure of intuition in design• Adoption process (need to manage)

Grudin, Jonathan. (1994) "Groupware and social dynamics: eight challenges for developers", Communications of the ACM, Volume 37, Issue 1 (January 1994), 92-105.

Corporate Calendaring

System

Sample CSCW Design Insights• Social activity is fluid, nuanced, and highly contextual.

– Provide as much freedom in the system as technically possible, rely instead on fostering social control mechanisms.

Ackerman, M.S. The Intellectual Challenge of CSCW: The Gap Between Social Requirements and Technical Feasibility. Human-Computer Interaction, 2000, 15(2&3), 179-204.

• Members of organizations have differing/multiple goals.– Acknowledge conflict in coordination.

• Exceptions are routine in all work.– Do not force rigid, rationalized models on work practice.

Sample CSCW Design Insights• Negotiating and renegotiating norms of use.

– Design in backchannel communication functions.

Ackerman, M.S. The Intellectual Challenge of CSCW: The Gap Between Social Requirements and Technical Feasibility. Human-Computer Interaction, 2000, 15(2&3), 179-204.

• Co-evolution, users adapt to system and adapt system to needs.– Provide flexibility for future appropriate and modification.

• Balance conflicting needs for awareness and privacy.– Do not assume universal defaults, leave user configurable.

• Value in making intermediary work visible to others.– Make consequences visible to users, informed trade-off.

• Organizational incentives are critical.– System must align with motivations for users.

Collaborative Virtual Environments

Communications Research Group @ Nottingham (UK): http://www.crg.cs.nott.ac.uk/

So, what about…?