Groupware: Software for Collaborative Computing

1993

Computer networks have provided a foundation for interpersonal computing, and new tools are emerging, the centerpiece of which is called "groupware." Groupware technology is reviewed, and the theoretical framework that will underlie interpersonal collaborative computing is discussed. Groupware can consist of hardware, software, services, and support. It utilizes networking, communications, concurrent processing, and windowing environments. It creates a shared work space for dynamic collaboration in a work group over space and time constraints. The collaboration that it provides also opens many problems that must be addressed in the implementation of groupware in organizations. (Contains 7 references.) (SLD)

2004

Groupware aimed at coordinating the actions of people is faced with a dilemma. In order to support a group at work, the groupware must be configured into applications that accurately reflect how the group works. Yet, organizations are constantly changing both their structure and the way they work, leaving the groupware application inaccurate, or at least out of date. Implementers of groupware applications are finding that the cost of implementation comes not from the hardware or the software, but the effort needed to capture and codify their organizational processes, and then to maintain the applications to keep them up to date. This paper explores how the implementation of groupware is a collaborative activity. Methods to define processes, such as BPR, are group activities. A powerful way to solve this is to develop the groupware applications collaboratively. In a sense, this is groupware to help in the development of groupware. Four key capabilities are described that are needed t...

Journal of Systems and Software, 2013

The advances in network and collaboration technologies enable the creation of powerful environments for Collaborative Programming. One such environment is COLLECE, a groupware system to support collaborative edition, compilation and execution of programs in a synchronous distributed fashion, which includes advanced tools for communication, coordination and workspace awareness. The article analyses firstly some usability and design issues, discussing strengths and weaknesses of the system as a basis for the development of groupware tools to support Collaborative Programming. Then, the focus is on a number of experimental activities carried out. COLLECE was used to conduct a set of experimental activities about work productivity and program quality when comparing the activity of pair and solo programmers, and to analyse potential associations between ways of working and collaborating, and specific characteristics of the programs produced.

Proceedings of the 8th ACM SIGOPS European workshop on Support for composing distributed applications - EW 8, 1998

The term "groupware" is used to describe a wide range of application types, from e-mail systems through shared text editors to videoconferencing systems, all of which aim to support the co-operation of multiple users . Building such systems is difficult. All but the most trivial groupware system are complex distributed multi-user systems. For example, a system might integrate a spreadsheet, a CAD package and a multi-media conferencing application, enforcing a variation of strict turn taking on the part of the participants . It is important therefore to find a way to support the construction of groupware, so simplifying the design and programming tasks. This support should be generic and comprehensive: it should support, in every important respect, the construction of a very broad spectrum of groupware systems, rather than some subset. We hypothesise that useful groupware support should be based on an integrated approach that focuses first on the commonality across the range of groupware systems, rather than targeting specific support issues for one or other class of system.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2003

There has been a recent explosion of interest in groupware and computersupported cooperative work, both in research and in commercial systems. This is evidenced by the large number of workshops and conferences and has been recognised in the UK by the DTI/EPSRC CSCW programme. This tutorial aims to give the attendee an introduction to the process and problems of building groupware systems. The implementation parts will consider issues for both synchronous and asynchronous groupware and example of prototypes will be discussed.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2008

The rise of the global marketplace and the advancing of the World Wide Web have given impetus to rapid advances in groupware. Hundreds of products now exist in the groupware marketplace, and more appear monthly. To ease the cognitive load of understanding what groupware technologies are, what capabilities they afford, and what can be done with them, we analyzed hundreds of computer-based collaboration-support products and distilled their attributes into two complementary schemas -a classification scheme and a comparison scheme. The classification scheme provides a way to organize the many products from the rapidly expanding groupware arena into a small set of relatively stable categories. The comparison scheme provides the means to compare and differentiate collaboration technologies within and across categories. Taken together, the classification and comparison schemas provide a basis for making sense of collaboration technologies and their potential benefits to the collaboration community.

2003

This paper compares popular client and server architectures used for groupware. It presents a client framework and evaluates native, installed clients, Java-based applications, and web-based architectures. It also presents a server framework and evaluates databases, thin servers, application servers, and a custom collaborative server. Lessons learned are provided for each architecture.

Computer-supported cooperative work is the study of how people work together using computer technology. Typical applications of CSCW include email, awareness and notification systems, videoconferencing, chat systems, multi-player games, and real time shared applications (such as collaborative writing or drawing) and key technology is to implement CSCW system is Groupware.

ACM SIGMIS Database, 1999

Early experiences with Web-based groupware point to new collaboration opportunities within and between organizations. We report the results of a study of more than 100 organizations that have used Web-based groupware to understand better how they are using it and what advantages and disadvantages they have experienced. We then use these data to develop a framework for analyzing and assessing