Since my temperament draws me to groupware, I have read about and taught it, and tried many groupware programs. This has been interesting, but the only groupware that has really affected my work is electronic mail on wide-area networks. My “invisible college,” my colleagues, are not the people in the offices down the corridor, they are people on the Internet, many of whom I have never seen or spoken with.
December 1991 - Vol. 34 No. 12
Features
Computing in a less-developed country
Almost all of the nations of Latin America are so-called less-developed countries (LDCs). But unlike many such countries elsewhere, quite a few have recently attempted to install more democratic, or at least less authoritarian, governments that are permitting greater freedom of expression and information and encouraging market-oriented economic developments. The latter include decreasing protectionism and moves toward the privatization of state enterprises such as telecommunications companies. Given the land area, natural resources, and populations involved, these developments are potentially of enormous international importance. The information technologies (IT) could be used to accelerate and reinforce these political and economic changes.
Collaboration is a sign of maturation. A child is nurtured at home before venturing into the world. An idea is first developed then introduced to a larger community. We work on a software module in isolation before integrating it.
Toward an open shared workspace: computer and video fusion approach of TeamWorkStation
Groupware is intended to create a shared workspace that supports dynamic collaboration in a work group over space and time constraints. To gain the collective benefits of groupware use, the groupware must be accepted by a majority of workgroup members as a common tool. Groupware must overcome the hurdle of critical mass.
Putting innovation to work: adoption strategies for multimedia communication systems
Multimedia communication systems promise better support for widely distributed workgroups. Their benefits for complex communication—problem-solving, negotiating, planning, and design —seem obvious, introducing appealing new technologies into the marketplace, however, can require years of Investment [13, 22]. In particular, finding productive uses for new systems takes time. Adoption strategies are needed to guide and accelerate the process.
Designing for cooperation: cooperating in design
This article will discuss how to design computer applications that enhance the quality of work and products, and will relate the discussion to current themes in the field of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). Cooperation is a key element of computer use and work practice, yet here a specific “CSCW approach is not taken.” Instead the focus is cooperation as an important aspect of work that should be integrated into most computer support efforts in order to develop successful computer support, however, other aspects such as power, conflict and control must also be considered.
Electronic social fields in bureaucracies
Advanced computer tools designed to facilitate collaboration in a common task or across functions have had a remarkably disappointing record of diffusion and adoption [16]. Technologies that are unresponsive to users needs will not find their markets. Groupware such as electronic mail, conferencing, and on-line editing, however, has an apparently natural affinity to the team and project work of salaried professional employees.
Update on National Science Foundation funding of the “Collaboratory”
NSF-funded collaboratories are experimental and empirical research environments in which domain scientist work with computer, communications, behavioral and social scientists to design systems, participate in collaborative science, and conduct experiments to evaluate and improve the systems. These research projects are concerned with distributed and collaborative research that requires intense reliance on wide-area networks and the Internet, to bring together instruments, laboratories and researchers.
Collaborative computing: collaboration first, computing second
These articles on Collaborative Computing will seem out of place to a number of readers from the computer science community. Interesting articles perhaps, but what do they have to do with computers? Where is the science—that is, where is the mathematics, or the code? What have these issues to do with everyday practice?
The column, “Benchmarks for LAN Performance Evaluation,” by Larry Press (Aug. 1988, pp. 1014-1017) presented a technique for quickly benchmarking the performance of LANs in an office environment. This piqued our interest since office automation is growing in importance. As a result, an empirical analysis of the Press benchmark programs was conducted. The results indicated that these benchmarking programs were appropriate for the benchmarking of LANs in an office environment.
This issue of Communications focuses on social and organizational influences governing collaborative uses of computers and communications. Here we review some of those influences from the perspectives of the risks involved.
