Issues in CSCW and Groupware:

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Issues in CSCW and Groupware

• Anders Mørch
• TOOL 5100, 02.02.06

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Outline

• What is CSCW and groupware and their relation to
  CSCL
• Historical development
• Basic problems addressed
• Research areas and concepts
• Components of groupware

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What is CSCW?

• CSCW Computer Supported Cooperative Work
• Introduced by Irene Greif and Paul Cashman in
  1984, meaning
• A set of concerns about supporting multiple
  individuals working together with computer
  systems
• Can be divided into two main areas, associated
  with 1) CS and 2) CW, respectively

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Illustrating the situation

• HCI is the precursor of CSCW and was concerned
  about supporting the work of individuals using a
  computer system

CSCW
HCI (Human Computer Interaction)
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Relationships between HCI, CSCW, and CSCL
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What is groupware?

• Associated with the CS part of CSCW
• Defined by Ellis et al. In following way
• computer-based systems that support groups of
  people engaged in a common task (or goal) and
  that provide an interface to a shared
  environment
• This creates a need for concepts to describe the
  various aspects of groupware

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Aspects of groupware

• Common task / goal
• Interface to a shared environment
• In addition, because there are more than one
  users
• Division of labor, explicit role assignment
• Awareness of the others who are interacting with
  the shared environment (often not directly
  visible)

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Shared environments

• At least three ways to design them
• Extending a single user environment to a multi
  user environment (technology approach)
• Identifying a collaborative situation that is
  currently unsupported by groupware technology
  (empirical approach)
• Basing the design on theories developed for
  related activities or application domains (theory
  based approach)

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Examples for discussion

• Do you know of groupware or other systems that
  have been developed according to the above
  approaches
• aa
• bb
• cc
• Etc.

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Early examples

• Ellis et al identifies the following type of
  groupware (1991)
• Message systems (e.g. email)
• Multi-user editors
• Group decision support systems (e.g. discussion
  forums)
• Computer conferencing systems
• Intelligent information sharing systems
• Workflow coordination systems

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What is group work?

• Related to the CW part of CSCW
• Grudin says the following
• Small group usually consisting of 2-3 people who
  works together to reach a common goal
• There are also larger groups, but they are less
  efficient when supported by technology
• Why do you think groupware works best in small
  groups?

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Historical development (Grudin, 1994)
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Basic concepts in CSCW

• Ellis et al. identify the following three terms
  are basic for CSCW research and design
• Communication
• Coordination
• Collaboration (sometimes divided into 2)
• Cooperation
• Collaboration

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Supporting communication

• Groupware fall into two categories depending on
  the type of interaction mode it provides
• Synchronous communication (real time)
• Asynchronous communication (indirect)

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Synchronous communcation

• Advantages
• Provides support for awareness of others
  (approaching F2F)
• Appropriate for certain type of situations
• Disadvantages
• Complexity of supporting this form of
  communcation can outweigh its advantages
• Work that require high amount of individual
  concentration (time consuming work) is not well
  supported (e.g. write a report with a shared
  editor)

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Asynchronous communcation

• Advantages
• More time for individual reflection before making
  next move in interaction with other
• Division of labor is easier to decide on
• Disadvantages
• Less social interaction
• Less motivation to work together over an extend
  period dof time

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Time/place matrix
From Ellis et al, 1991
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Extended matrix for CSCL

• One of the approaches to CSCL we address in this
  course is to use groupware for educational
  purposes
• What additional dimensions would be necessary or
  recommended to add to the time/place matrix in
  order to be able to better account for the
  factors that emerge when groupware is put in an
  educational context?

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Extended matrix for CSCW
From Grudin, 1994