Aspects of Collaboration

1
Aspects of Collaboration

• Srinivas Edala
• Andrew Snyder

2
Overview

• Introduction
• Background
• Human to Human Personal Issues
• Human to Human Group Issues
• Human to Computer Issues
• Examples
• References

3
Introduction

• What is collaboration?
• Activity that involves both interaction and
  effort to complete a common goal.
• Can involve humans in groups, humans using
  computer systems, and computers working together.
• Examples

4
Introduction

• Why is collaboration important?
• Multi-disciplinary approaches to product design
  are prevalent.
• Why is understanding collaboration important?
• To establish communication rules
• which will enable ways of seamlessly introducing
  new technology into complex environments.
• Businesses are looking for these engineering
  design tools.

5
Introduction

• Systems that network people together include
• email
• operating systems
• world wide web
• Collaboration environments involve
• people from multi-disciplines
• using tools
• sometimes at great distances

6
Background

• Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research in
  1970s was a point system
• try ____, see if it works
• Theory eventually developed from there
• Collaboration field is going the same way as HCI
  did, except that it is still in point system
• no good theory is around yet

7
Human to Human Personal Issues

• Individual vs. group situational awareness
• Novice vs. expert issues
• Imputed knowledge
• Shared knowledge
• Cognitive workload (or overhead)

8
Human to Human Group Issues

• Behavior as a group
• Are N1 heads better?
• Unshared information
• Seasoned vs. ad hoc groups
• Task type

9
Human to Computer - Issues

• Salience
• Group Support Systems (GSS)
• Distributed engineering
• Supervisory control example to follow
• Task-artifact cycle/SA example to follow

10
Supervisory control

• Supporting Informed Consent in Human-Machine
  Collaboration The Role of Conflict Type, Time
  Pressure, and Display Design
• by Wesley A. Olson and Nadine B. Sarter
• As technology changes a pilots role, they become
  the systems manager while the plane flies
  itself.
• Showed that pilots prefer informed consent over
  the data link, and improper instructions were
  difficult to detect prior to execution.

11
Task-Artifact Cycle/Situation Awareness

• Exploring the Impact of Advanced Alarms,
  Displays, and Computerized Procedures on Teams by
  Emilie M. Roth and John M. OHara
• This study examined the impact of introducing
  advanced human-system interfaces (HSI) into an
  ongoing field of practice (nuclear power plant
  control room).
• Crew structure changed because members worked
  more in parallel
• They had to consciously inform other crew members
  of their status

12
References

• Bardram, J. (1999). Designing for the dynamics of
  cooperative work activities, Proceedings of CSCW
  98 ACM, 89-98. 
• Benbasat, I. and L. H. Lim (1993). The effects
  of group, task, context, and technology variables
  on the usefulness of group support systems A
  meta-analysis of experimental studies. Small
  Group Research 24(4) 430-462.
• Clark, H. H. and C. R. Marshall (1981). Definite
  reference and mutual knowledge. Elements of a
  Discourse Understanding. B. L. W. A. J. Joshi and
  I. A. Sagg 10-63.
• Gersick, C. J. G. (1988). Time and transition in
  work teams Toward a new model of group
  development. Academy of Management Journal
  31(1) 9-41.
• Harvey, C. M. and Koubek, R. J. (submitted).
  Distributed engineering collaboration A
  comprehensive model and results, Ergonomics.
• Hill, G. W. (1982). Group versus individual
  performance Are N1 heads better than one.
  Psychological Bulletin 91(3) 517-539.
• Hirokawa, R. (1990). The role of communication
  in group decision-making efficacy. Small Group
  Research 21 190-204.
• Hollingshead, A. B., McGrath, J. E. and K. M.
  O'Connor (1993). Group task performance and
  communication technology A longitudinal study of
  computer-mediated versus face-to-face work
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• Karsenty, L. (1999). Cooperative work and shared
  visual content An empirical study of
  comprehension problems in side-by-side and remote
  help dialogues, Human Computer Interaction, 14,
  283-315.
• Mandviwalla, M. and Olfman, L, (1994), What Do
  Groups Need? A Proposed Set of Generic Groupware
  Requirements. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human
  Interaction, 1(3) 245-268.
• Nickerson, R. S. (1999). How We Know-and
  Sometimes Misjudge-What Others Know Imputing
  One's Own Knowledge to Others. Psychological
  Bulletin 125(6) 737-759.
• Olson, G. M., Olson, J. S., Carter, M. R. and M.
  Storrøsten (1992). Small group design meetings
  An analysis of collaboration. Human-Computer
  Interaction 7 347-374.