A Cognitive Three-Process Model of Computer-Mediated Group Interaction

Current theories imply text-based computer networks are socially barren, but computer-mediated interaction (CMI) research contradicts this. A cognitive perspective suggests individuals in groups construct cognitions regarding the task (purpose), other people (relationships), and the group (identity), and these drive the interaction. Three core psychological process follow: resolving task information, relating to others and representing the group. This gives three types of influence: informational, personal and normative, and three group purposes: task resolution, interpersonal relationships and group unity. Group unity occurs when group members represent a common identity. The traditional communication threads of message content and sender context therefore require a third - behavioural position. Many-to-many exchange of member positions allows the group position to be transmitted to the group. A picture emerges of three parallel processes overlapping in behaviour, although CMI allows them to be isolated and investigated. This model extends most theories of computer-mediated group interaction. It implies there is no best type of group interaction support, because there is no best process. The groupware challenge is to offer the flexibility to support all three processes in combination.     

浅论基于角色的访问控制技术(RBAC)在计算机支持的协同工作(CSCW)中的应用

随着信息化进程的深入,通信技术与计算机及其网络技术相融合,人类对工作的群体性、分布性,交互性和协同性的客观要求也越来越强.在CSCW系统环境中采用RBAC模型,方便了授权管理,而且协同工作中的一项任务可以由若干个用户完成,有助于动态负载平衡的实现.     

Enhancing CSCW with Advanced Decision Making Tools for an Agile Manufacturing System Design Application

Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) can provide an efficient decision-making environment for multi-disciplinary teams faced with the challenge of evaluating agile manufacturing systems. In this paper, the development and evaluation of CSCW prototypes to aid the systematic evaluation of agile manufacturing systems are described. An industrial case study involving the evaluation of alternative design configurations of a cellular manufacturing system (CMS) for agile manufacturing was used for testing with twelve multi-disciplinary teams. The results obtained suggest that engineering design teams can obtain productivity improvements through the use of CSCW tools. The results indicate that CSCW systems can assist decision-makers in reaching consensus especially when advanced decision making tools are incorporated into the problem-solving framework. In this study, we also found that an enhanced CSCW with a neural network module for preference aggregation outperformed a basic CSCW in: (1) decision quality, (2) users' satisfaction and agreement, (3) consensus. These results also have far reaching implications for distributed product development teams that face the problem of reaching consensus on a range of alternative designs with stringent pressures to reduce development time.     

Desktop multimedia conferencing: IBMs person to person in organizational context

A trend in cooperative systems is the emergence of multimedia systems that aim to support synchronous cooperation in a manner which unifies both remote and co‐located users. These systems combine information‐sharing facilities provided in real time with video‐ and audiocommunication services. This review of IBM's desktop multimedia conferencing system Person to Person (P2P) presents the characteristics of its utilities. Further, it discusses some organizational impacts and implementation issues within an organizational context.     

Computer‐mediated communication requirements for group support

This article presents an overview of the historical evolution of computer‐mediated communication (CMC) systems within the context of designing for group support. A number of examples of design features to support specific group tasks are illustrated. The result of this is the synthesis of a number of observations on the assumptions and goals for the design of CMC systems. An emphasis is placed on the advantages offered groups by asynchronous support of the communication process, self‐tailoring of communication structures by users and groups, and the integration into the communication system of other computer resources and information systems. The systems that have been developed recently at New Jersey Institute of Technology (EIES2, TEIES, and Personal TEIES) are used to illustrate the translation of design objectives into specific features and functions.     

EBT: A tool for electronic brainstorming researchers

EBT is a stand‐alone electronic brainstorming tool designed specifically for researchers. It can be used for face‐to‐face as well as dispersed groups, and will work in a typical college computer lab LAN environment. Its features include anonymous and nonanonymous idea‐generation modes, the ability to run multiple simultaneous sessions, and the option of generating a session logfile which indicates the originator and time of each idea generated during a session. EBT is available to researchers on the Internet via anonymous ftp.     

Towards cscw: Metalevel environments for enhanced group and organization effectiveness

The article deals with Computer‐Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) and its valuable contributions to organizing cooperation and joint work among partners in many contexts. In the field of CSCW, complex issues such as coordination and negotiation can be identified as being characteristic, fundamental and important research topics that have to be elaborated on urgently. Better support in coordination and in negotiation, and a stronger use of knowledge about people involved, roles, positions, values, strategies, and activities seem to be important topics. It is the view of this article that such aims can only be achieved if there is a close coupling of CSCW components with a powerful underlying corporate information system. In order to achieve these aims, enterprise information systems and group support are to be combined as a strategic way into the informational future of the enterprise. In this context, a good conceptual model and proper implementation of an Enterprise Data Model (EDM) are a fundamental prerequisite for full group support in an organizational environment. The EDM can be considered as a basic support repository for general planning processes. The article introduces an architectual concept for Computer‐Supported Collaborative Systems (CSCS) consisting of a three‐level system architecture of a basic object level, user and coordination object level, and a specific goal‐oriented object level. The approach in this article is based on experiences from the application field of distributed software development.