CSCW
Facilitating group work
CSCW
Computer Supported Cooperative Work
Study of how people work together as a
group and how technology affects this
Support the social processes of work, often
among geographically separated people
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Examples
Scientists collaborating on a technical issue
Authors editing a document together
Programmers debugging a system concurrently
Workers collaborating over a shared video
conferencing application
Buyers and sellers meeting in eBay
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Research Focus
Often divided into two main areas
Systems - Groupware
Designing software to facilitate collaboration
Social component
Study of human and group dynamics in such
situations
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Taxonomy
Time
Same
Different
Same
Place
Different
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Taxonomy
Time
Synchronous
Co-located
Place
Remote
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Face-to-face
Asynchronous
Post-it note
E-meeting room
Argument. tool
Phone call
Letter
Email,
newsgroup, CoWeb
Video window,
wall
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A more-fleshed out taxonomy
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Styles of Systems
1. Computer-mediated communication
aids
2. Meeting and decision support systems
3. Shared applications and tools
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Computer-mediated
Communication Aids
Examples
Email, Chats, MUDs, virtual worlds, desktop
videoconferencing
Example: CUSee-Me
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Meeting and Decision
Support Systems
Examples
Corporate decision-support conference room
Provides ways of rationalizing decisions, voting,
presenting cases, etc.
• “Delphi” method: magic?
Concurrency control is important
Shared computer classroom/cluster
Group discussion/design aid tools
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Shared Applications and
Tools
Examples
Shared editors, design tools, etc.
Want to avoid “locking” and allow multiple people
to concurrently work on document
Requires some form of contention resolution
How do you show what others are doing?
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Example
Teamrooms - Univ. of Calgary, Saul
Greenberg
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Using the CoWeb
QuickTime™ and a
QuickDraw decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
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Features to support collaboration:
Recent Changes and Attachments
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Handling contention in CoWeb
No locking
On the Web, how do you know if someone walks away?
But if person A edits, then person B starts and saves
edit before A saves, how do you deal with it?
Old way: A “wins,” but B’s is available in history for retrieval
Current way:
Each edit time is recorded
If incoming edit time is earlier than last save, then note collision.
Provide user with both versions for resolution.
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Security
We save
everything,
But it’s mostly
social pressure
that keeps it
working
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Social Issues
People bring in different perspectives and
views to a collaboration environment
Goal of CSCW systems is often to
establish some common ground and to
facilitate understanding and interaction
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Turn Taking
There are many subtle social conventions
about turn taking in an interaction
Personal space, closeness
Eye contact
Gestures
Body language
Conversation cues
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Geography, Position
In group dynamics, the physical layout of
individuals matters a lot
“Power positions”
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Evaluation
Evaluating the usability and utility of
CSCW tools is quite challenging
Need more participants
Logistically difficult
Apples - oranges
Often use field studies and ethnographic
evaluations to assist
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Evaluation Effort at Calgary
http://www.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/grouplab/pa
pers/2001/01HeurisiticsMechanics.EHCI/talk/EHCI_2.ht
ml
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When the CoWeb fails...
The CoWeb has been successful in many
settings
(See papers at
http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/csl/Papers)
But not in Math and Engineering...
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Engineering and Math:
Anecdotes
On a mandatory assignment involving a math
class studying results from Engineering
students’ simulations, 40% of math students
accepted a zero rather than collaborate with
engineers.
We provided an Equation Editor in the CoWeb
for an Engineering and a Math course to
facilitate talking about equations. Not a single
student even tried the Editor.
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Competition
Student quotes on “Why didn’t you
participate in CoWeb?”
“1) didn't want to get railed 2) with the
curve it is better when your peers do
badly”
“since it is a curved class most people
don’t want others to do well”
(Note: Students claimed that the course grades were
“curved” even when there was none!)
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Learned helplessness
Student quotes:
“I haven't posted about questions because I am
confident that my answers are wrong.”
“I thought I was the only one having problem
understanding what was asked in the exam.”
“Who am I to post answers?”
“The overall environment for [this class] isn't a very
help-oriented environment.”
Bottom line: For Collaboration to work in
Engineering,
must be explicit focus to make it work.
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