CSCW in Practice: an Introduction and Case Studies

Dan, is this book going to provide a substantial, coherent and timely contribution to CSCW or is it just going to be a ragbag of papers from several meetings stuck together? The latter, of course, Colston. However, . . . . . . and the "However" was rather long and technical, but not substantially different in overall content from that of this pref­ ace. Most of the papers contained in this book were initially presented at meetings organized by the UK's Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) Special Interest Group in 1991, but the book is not a proceedings, whatever the above quo­ tation suggests. Readers will immediately notice that, unlike typical proceedings, all the references are placed together at the end of the book and that there is a substantial index: the hall­ mark of all proper, technical books of quality. If you choose to delve further than this preface, you will find that each chapter is cross-referenced, thus you also gain a coherent structure across chapters - an advantage traditionally associated with high quali­ ty single-author books. Furthermore, turning apparent disadvantage to advantage, while single-author books must inevitably present the idiosyncratic perspective of their author, in this book, and appropriately for a young area such as CSCW, you will be presented with the views of a dozen CSCW experts who all have considerable, hard-won experience, gained over many years.

1 Technological Support for Cooperation.- 1.1 Information Exchange.- 1.1.1 Speech Act Systems.- 1.1.2 Office Procedure Systems.- 1.1.3 Semi-structured Message Systems.- 1.2 Information Sharing.- 1.2.1 Textual Conferencing Facilities.- 1.2.2 Multi-user Hypertext.- 1.2.3 Real-Time Conferencing Systems.- 1.2.4 Desktop Conferencing.- 1.2.5 Multimedia Conferencing.- 1.3 Electronic Meeting Systems.- 1.4 Summary.- 2 User Interfaces for CSCW Systems.- 2.1 Introduction.- 2.2 The “Personal” Model of Computing.- 2.2.1 Mine, All Mine — But Do I Want It?.- 2.2.2 Throwing Information Over the Wall.- 2.2.3 It’s Yours; You Look After It.- 2.3 Applications versus Appropriate Systems.- 2.3.1 Software as Product.- 2.4 CSCW: Imposition of Common Methods of Working or Facilitation of Cooperative Working?.- 2.4.1 Access to Shared Information: Each to His Own.- 2.4.2 Cooperation: My Way.- 2.4.3 Piling Complexity upon Complexity.- 2.4.4 Groups Change As Well As Individuals.- 2.5 Implications for CSCW Interfaces.- 3 Groupware Interfaces.- 3.1 Some Standard Interface Design Guidelines.- 3.2 Designing for Groups.- 3.3 Groupware Interface Issues.- 3.3.1 Be Consistent.- 3.3.2 Provide Feedback.- 3.3.3 Use the User’s Model.- 3.3.4 User-Centred Control.- 3.3.5 Use Metaphors.- 3.4 Additional Design Issues for Groupware Interfaces.- 3.4.1 Focus.- 3.4.2 Concurrency.- 3.5 Conclusion.- 4 CSCW For Real: Reflections on Experience.- 4.1 BLEND: The Pioneering Spirit.- 4.2 European Collaboration.- 4.3 Diplomacy.- 4.4 Some Reflections.- 4.5 Conclusion.- 5 Adding a Little Structure to Collaborative Writing.- 5.1 CSCW and Premature Commitment.- 5.2 The Process of Collaborative Writing.- 5.3 Strategies for Collaborative Writing.- 5.3.1 Parallel.- 5.3.2 Sequential.- 5.3.3 Reciprocal.- 5.4 Adding Structure to Collaborative Writing.- 5.4.1 Scheduling.- 5.4.2 Coordination.- 5.4.3 Constraints.- 5.4.4 Intentions.- 5.5 A Case Study in Collaborative Writing.- 5.5.1 Guidelines.- 5.6 Conclusion.- 6 Small-Scale Collaborative Writing Using Electronic Mail.- 6.1 Electronic Mail.- 6.2 Authoring and Editing.- 6.2.1 Small Groups.- 6.2.2 Larger Groups.- 6.2.3 Comparing Writing Technologies.- 6.3 Small Group Case Study.- 6.3.1 The Case Study.- 6.3.2 Learning from the Example.- 6.3.3 CSCW Authoring System Requirements.- 6.4 Conclusion.- 7 HICOM as a CSCW Environment.- 7.1 Research, Collaboration and Professional Practice.- 7.2 Computer Support for the HCI Community.- 7.3 Basic HICOM Concept and Technology.- 7.4 What HICOM Provides with Existing Technology.- 7.5 What HICOM Has Taught Us about CSCW.- 8 Using Process Technology to Support Cooperative Work: Prospects and Design Issues.- 8.1 Introduction.- 8.2 Office Automation.- 8.3 PSS: Process Support System.- 8.3.1 Background and Overview.- 8.3.2 Process Modelling in PML: A Hospital Example.- 8.3.3 A Process Model of Medical Office Work.- 8.3.4 Work in a PSS: The Electronic Medical Office.- 8.3.5 PSS and the Problem of Change.- 8.4 Current Directions: The IOPT Project.- 8.4.1 Tool Integration.- 8.4.2 Designing PSSs.- 8.4.3 Language-Action Based Process Modelling.- 8.4.4 Field Studies of Process Technology and Cooperative Work.- 8.5 Conclusion.- 9 Computer Supported Teamwork.- 9.1 Introduction.- 9.1.1 The User Interface and Support for the Task.- 9.1.2 The User Interface and Cooperative Work.- 9.1.3 Scope of this Chapter.- 9.2 The Automated Office Metaphor.- 9.3 Role Controller.- 9.4 The Book Emulator.- 9.4.1 Navigation.- 9.4.2 Type of Information and its Production.- 9.4.3 Information Capture.- 9.4.4 Information from the Keyboard.- 9.4.5 Free-Hand Sketching, Highlighter and Multi-State Hot-Spots.- 9.4.6 Schematic Drawing.- 9.4.7 DrawingBoard.- 9.4.8 Shared Captured Information.- 9.4.9 Computer Conferencing.- 9.4.10 Teamwork Support.- 9.5 Instruments for Teamwork.- 9.5.1 White-board.- 9.5.2 Limited Discussion Meetings.- 9.5.3 Limited Discussion Meetings with Drawings.- 9.5.4 Meeting with a Computational Participant.- 9.6 Discussion.- 9.6.1 Problem Areas.- 9.7 Conclusions.- 10 The Pod: A Purpose-built Environment to Support Group Working.- 10.1 Introduction.- 10.1.1 Business Trends.- 10.2 Organizational Modelling.- 10.2.1 Pyramidal Models of Organizations.- 10.2.2 External Information.- 10.2.3 Senior Managerial Information Processing Needs.- 10.3 The Pod.- 10.3.1 The Pod’s Design Concepts.- 10.3.2 Evaluating the Pod.- 10.4 Conclusion.- 11 Usability Trialling for CSCW Technology: Lessons from a Structured Messaging Task.- 11.1 Structured Messaging.- 11.2 Cooperative Tasks Supported by COSMOS II.- 11.3 Evaluating COSMOS II.- 11.3.1 Trial Design.- 11.3.2 Trial Group.- 11.3.3 Pre-Trial Monitoring Period.- 11.3.4 User Support and Training for COSMOS II Trial Period.- 11.3.5 COSMOS II Trial Period.- 11.4 Technical Implementation.- 11.4.1 Speed of Operation.- 11.4.2 Reliability.- 11.4.3 Functionality.- 11.5 Trial Results.- 11.5.1 Questionnaire Findings.- 11.5.2 Interview Findings.- 11.6 Discussion of Trial Results.- 11.7 Lessons Learned from the COSMOS II Trial.- 11.7.1 From Demonstrators to Real Working Systems.- 11.7.2 Task Domain.- 11.7.3 Configurability of Structured Messaging Systems.- 11.7.4 Compatibility and Accessibility of Structured Messaging Systems.- 11.7.5 Management of Expectations.- 11.7.6 Risk Management.- 11.8 Recommendations.- 11.9 Conclusions.- References.- Name Index.