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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