Agenda today

• 2:00-3:00: lecture

• 3:00-5:00: The tutor Irene will demonstrate an example of how to use Protocol Analysis for your project.

Lecture 10: Organizational Issues of CSCW/Groupware

Dr. Xiangyu WANG

CSCW/Groupware Organizational Issues

• Organizational issues: – Choosing Groupware systems appropriate

to task and organization– Ensuring adoption and effective use of

Groupware systems– Making necessary organizational changes

to ensure adoption and use– Understanding how organizational change

comes about, is effectively managed.

Factors affecting Groupware adoption (Orlikowski 1992)

• Cognitive Elements:– Mental models: the mental models or frames

of references that individuals have about the world, their organization, work, technology, and so on.

– Technological frames: How users change their technological frames in response to a new technology is influenced by (i) the kind and amount of product information communicated to them, and (ii) the nature and form of training they receive on the product.

Factors affecting Groupware adoption (Orlikowski 1992)

• Structural properties of organizations encompass the reward systems, policies, work practices, and norms that shape and are shaped by the everyday action of organizational members.

Factors affecting Groupware adoption (Orlikowski 1992)

• Methods of introduction– Communication– Training– Support– Time for Learning

Case Study (Orlikowski 1992)

• Notes (from Lotus Development Corporation) into one office of Alpha.

• Notes is an application development environment that can support communication, coordination, and collaboration within groups or organizations.

Case Study (Orlikowski 1992)

• Study the implementation and use of Notes to investigate whether and how the use of a collaborative tool changes the nature of work and the pattern of social interactions in the office, and with what intended and unintended consequences.

• Two organizational elements--cognitive and structural- -influenced the participants’ adoption, understanding, and early use of Notes.

Issues in Cognitive Elements

• Communication about Notes– Weakly developed technological frames of a

new and different technology are a significant problem in technology transfer because people act towards technology on the basis of the meaning it has for them.

– Poor circulation of information about Notes– Lack of a formal implementation plan or

information dissemination strategy.

Issues in Cognitive Elements

• Solutions: – Concrete demonstrations – Learn groupware collectively

Issues in Cognitive Elements

• Users of Notes in the office developed technological frames that either had weakly developed notions of Notes, or that interpreted Notes as a personal rather than a group or firm productivity tool.

• Technological frames may change over time and with changing contexts.

Issues in Structural Properties

• Reward Systems– Expectation: all or most employee hours

should be “billable,” that is, charged to clients.

Issues in Structural Properties

• Policies and Procedures– No formulated new work procedures or set

new policies around data quality, confidentiality, and access control.

– Many participants indicated that their use of Notes was inhibited by their lack of knowledge about these issues, particularly concerns about liability.

Lecture 10: Mobility in Cooperative Work

DR. Xiangyu WANG

Mobile Shared Workspaces

• Many systems in CSCW address distributed work, not so many mobile work.

• Supporting mobility is critical to enhancing cooperative work.

• The emergence of mobile devices and new forms of connectivity allows one to portray new scenarios of cooperation.

• Mobility also promotes chance encounters with people who are not in one’s usual working or social surroundings, promoting new possibilities for collaboration.

Challenges in Mobile Shared Workspace

• Functional flexibility: Collaboration among mobile people happens in a highly flexible manner. Plus, different groups require different functionality based on their domain of collaboration, their culture of collaboration.

• Technical flexibility: The above collaboration environment must be able to easily accommodate new mobile technology.

UbiCollab client

UbiCollab Collaboration Model

Ubiquitous Computing

• Ubiquitous computing (or "ubicomp") is a post-desktop model of human-computer interaction in which information processing has been thoroughly integrated into everyday objects and activities.

• At its core, the concept shares a vision of small, inexpensive, robust networked processing devices, distributed at all scales throughout everyday life and generally turned to distinctly quotidian ends.

Ubiquitous Computing

• Contemporary devices that lend some support to this concept include:– mobile phones, – digital audio players, – radio-frequency identification tags – interactive whiteboards– …

From the GMD Darmstadt web site on I-Land

• computer-augmented room elements– integrated desk/wall displays for collaboration– Inter-operation between devices

Roomware