COMET: Collaboration In Mobile Environments by Twisting

Wien, Austria, 7 - 11 September 2009 Supplementary Proceedings of the 11th European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work Demos, Videos, Posters Demos Cooperative Software Development with [TIS] – Time Intelligence Solutions J. Gärtner, D. Punzengruber & G. Edler 4 APOSDLE: Contextualized Collaborative Knowledge Work Support S. Lindstaedt, R. de Hoog & M. Aehnelt 7 KnowSe: Fostering User Interaction Context Awareness A. Rath, D. Devaurs & S. Lindstaedt 9 ITSME: the next generation workstation G. De Michelis & M. Loregian 11 IdeaPitch – A tool for spatial notes N. Jeners &W. Prinz 13 Peerclipse: Tool Awareness in Local Communities S. Draxler, H. Sander, P. Jain, A, Jung & G. Stevens 15 Videos Community Mirrors – Using public shared displays to move information “out of the box” M. Koch, F. Ott & A. Richter 17 Posters Why do you want to be a member of this online community? – Reasons for joining an e-mentoring community. Diana Schimke, Michael Heilemann and Heidrun Stoeger 19 Standardized Cancer Pathways: Layers of Sorting out Patients Suspected with Cancer Naja Holten Møller 21 Head Tracking and Gesture Recognition in Museum Guide Robots for Multiparty Settings Yoshinori Kobayashi, Takashi Shibata, Yosuke Hoshi, Yoshinori Kuno, Mai Okada, Keiichi Yamazaki and Akiko Yamazaki 23 Towards a model-driven development method for collaborative modeling tools Jesús Gallardo Casero, Crescencio Bravo Santos, Miguel Ángel Redondo Duque and Fernando Gallego Gómez 25 Collaboration using Avatars vs. Text Chat – An Experimental Comparison Andreas Schmeil and Martin J. Eppler 27 COMET: Collaboration in Mobile Environments by Twisting Nitesh Goyal 29 Towards a groupware environment for collaborative programming learning Crescencio Bravo, Fernando Gallego, Jesus Gallardo and Francisco Jurado 31 For a participative knowledge management Thomas Martine 33 Co-constructing IT and Healthcare Tariq Andersen, Jørgen Bansler, Pernille Bjorn, Erling Havn, Mie Jensen, Finn Kensing, Jonas Moll, Troels Mønsted and Kjeld Schmidt 35 Pointing Accuracy in Collaborative Virtual Environments Nelson Wong and Carl Gutwin 37 Mobile Social Media for Groups Airi Lampinen, Vilma Lehtinen, Kai Huotari, Vesa Luusua, Martti Mäntylä, Risto Sarvas, Lassi Seppälä and Jani Turunen 39 Kassi: Everyday Favors in Social Media. Matching Resources by Means of Campussourcing Emmi Suhonen, Esko Nuutila, Seppo Törmä, Antti Virolainen, Juho Makkonen, Ville Sundberg and Julia Wiikeri 41 How can we support engineering processes by marking-up emails Craig Loftus, Christopher McMahon and Ben Hicks 43 How can information systems support collaboration between health-workers involved in shared care across organizational boundaries? Vigdis Heimly and Ole Andreas Alsos 46 Towards a commitment network on the Grid Shared Desktop Germana Nobrega, Fernando Cruz, Carolina Santana and Jovanini Timo 48 3 Cooperative Software Development with [TIS] – Time Intelligence Solutions Johannes Gärtner, Dieter Punzengruber, Gerald Edler XIMES GmbH, Austria gaertner@ximes.com, punzengruber@ximes.com, edler@ximes.com Abstract. Analyzing historical data and forecasting future personnel demand as well as patterns of work is highly complex and situation dependant and calls for ongoing adaption, e.g. due to changes in environment or behavior. [TIS] eases such software development by providing adaptable building blocks within a framework that deals with general software issues (data management, security, translation, …). Furthermore it provides an infrastructure that facilitates cooperative software development as well as sharing and reuse of building blocks. Application domain and existing technology Service related industries like Call Centers, Retail facilities, Airports etc. only work when customer demand is met timely by staff to delivers the service. Staff planners as well as Consultants typically analyze (“mine”) large amounts of historic “time stamped” transaction data to find pattern, foresee future demand lines and to optimize staff attendance, working times and consequently service levels. Time stamped data carries a multitude of information but also calculation problems: It comes in different structures that change over time, it is erroneous (e.g. missing data) and has to be validated and corrected and it comes in large volumes. Spreadsheets are one way to address these issues. However, there are several shortcomings e.g. handling large data volumes, dealing with time, reusability and scenario management. Database solutions lack the flexibility that is needed and Business Intelligence systems lack computational depth. 4 [TIS] – Time Intelligence Solutions [TIS] was specially developed to handle issues of time stamped data. It currently provides more than 100 highly specialized calculation functions called “operations” to deal with many aspects of time related data calculations (e.g. import, summation over time, sorting or visualizations). Users control operations with parameters and Programmers can easily add operations for public or private use. Chains of operations are grouped into “data nodes”, refer to other data nodes for input and deliver result tables and visualizations for output. An example data node to analyze Blood Pressure data is shown in Figure 1. Figure 1. Screenshot of [TIS]. A template data node that compares and visualizes blood pressure time series is copied into a new solution. A set of data nodes typically forms a “solution”, a sometimes complex network of data nodes, which addresses a particular problem field. Data nodes as well as solutions can be transformed into “Templates” to be easily copied, combined and reused. A wiki based knowledge base classifies typical problems of time based calculations and helps to select operations and templates to solve problems. The [TIS] framework provides storage, import export of whole solutions, security, support for translation, etc. Debugging is supported strongly. [TIS] facilitates joint development and sharing of templates as well as the underlying knowledge. Critical research questions are: How to organize and support users in finding existing know-how stored in templates? What are – ideally automatic – ways of describing and organizing collections of templates? How to support revisions of solutions developed by end users that are used by others? What are options for organizing support structures? 5 References 1. XIMES-SUPPORT-WIKI http://wiki.ximes.com/wiki/TIME_INTELLIGENCE_SOLUTIONS 2. Das [TIS] Workbook, XIMES GmbH, Wien, http://www.ximes.com/downloads/workbook_tis_de.pdf 6 APOSDLE: Contextualized Collaborative Knowledge Work Support Stefanie N. Lindstaedt Know-Center and Graz University of Technology, Austria slind@know-center.at Robert de Hoog University of Twente, The Netherlands r.dehoog@utwente.nl Mario Aehnelt Fraunhofer IGD Rostock, Germany mario.aehnelt@igd-r.fraunhofer.de Abstract. This contribution shortly introduces the collaborative APOSDLE environment for integrated knowledge work and learning. It proposes a video presentation and the presentation of the third APOSDLE prototype. APOSDLE In a world of rapid change and continuous technological innovation the economy relies heavily on the ability of their knowledge workers to manage and apply new knowledge effectively within their work processes. In order to realize the productivity gain needed, the focus in learning has to be shifted away from the acquisition to the application of knowledge. APOSDLE (Advanced Process-Oriented Self-Directed Learning Environment, www.aposdle.org) is an integrated project funded by the European Commission under FP6 IST initiative. The goal of the project is to enhance knowledge worker productivity by supporting informal learning activities (1) during work task 7 execution and tightly contextualized to the work context, (2) within the work environment, and (3) utilizing knowledge artifacts and people available within the organizational memory for learning. The APOSDLE environment is a collaborative environment which provides computational support for knowledge work and work-integrated learning. It enables the individual knowledge worker to tap into the collective intelligence of her organization and provides mechanisms to feed new knowledge back into the system without much effort. APOSDLE combines semantic approaches with ‘scruffy’ methods (such as associative retrieval, statistical methods and heuristics) which provide good results in the presence of uncertainty and the absence of finegranular models. It implements hybrid approaches to user context detection, user profile management, context-based recommendation and awareness building, expert identification, etc. APOSDLE features include, but are not limited to: ! Suggest Artifacts: contextualized recommendation of knowledge artifacts (text as well as video) based on the current work task of the user and her prior knowledge (skills) ! Suggest People: contextualized recommendation of people within the organization which have similar or more advanced skills than the user ! Collaboration Wizard: scripted support for collaboration between a knowledge seeker and a knowledgeable person, the collaboration results can be shared easily within the organization ! Learning Paths: contextualized recommendation of learning activities and resources (including people) ordered according to learning prerequisites, these learning paths can also be manually created and shared ! Shared collections: share artifacts, insights, and links to people Acknowledgments APOSDLE has been partially funded under grant 027023 in the IST work program of the European Community. The Know-Center is funded within the Austrian COMET Program - Competence Centers for Excellent Technologies - under the auspices of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology, the Austrian Federal Ministry of Economy, Family and Youth and by the State of Styria. COMET is managed by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency FFG. 8 KnowSe: Fostering User Interaction Context Awareness Andreas S. Rath, Didier Devaurs, and Stefanie N. Lindstaedt Know-Center GmbH and Knowledge Management Institute, Graz University of Technology, Inffeldgasse 21a 8010 Graz, Austria (arath, ddevaurs, slind)@know-center.at The CSCW area has recognized the concept of awareness as a critical issue to focus on (Schmidt et al., 2002) since “users who work together require adequate information about their environment” (Gross and Prinz, 2003). The environment of an individual encompasses her connections with other people, as well as with digital resources and actions (tasks or processes). If connections are not clear or hidden to the individual or to the group, the cost is a lack of awareness in the organization (McArthur and Bruza, 2003), which not only leads to inefficient cooperation but can even prevent it from being started. Unveiling the relations between persons, topics, tasks and processes to computer workers facilitates cooperative work by increasing the awareness of the personal social networks and the role of an individual in the organization, a project, or a group. These connections can be created and modeled manually but a better approach is to develop semi-automatic or even automatic tools to create and share them (McArthur and Bruza, 2003). Based on emails, McArthur and Bruza (2003) have computed such kind of connections, and suggest using more global corpora as well as taking into account dynamic ones. We propose an automatic approach (Rath et al., 2009) for (i) detecting the interaction context of a single user (i.e. the connections between her tasks, her used digital resources and her social network) and (ii) combining the individual contexts for global awareness. Starting from low-level events captured on the user’s desktop about the user’s interactions with resources and applications, we utilize rule-based, information extraction and machine learning approaches to automatically derive connections, i.e. relations between our context model’s entities. For specifying the types of connections and entities we use an ontology-based context model. By following this semantic technology-based approach we benefit from a 9 well-defined model and specification of the connections; we then gain two advantages for increasing awareness: (i) representing the relations between the user and her close environment (individual view) and (ii) merging multiple individual context models into a global one (organizational view). KnowSe (Knowledge Services) is a service-oriented framework that includes this automatic user interaction context detection as well as the following services for supporting the user’s personal and collaborative work: • Information Need Discovery: These needs can emerge from an active information request (e.g., a search on a web page) or from a change in the user context (e.g., the switch from one task to another). • Proactive Context-Aware Information Retrieval: Here we focus on utilizing concepts and relations recently added to the individual and organizational context model as a starting point for identifying relevant resources (e.g., people, documents, links, presentations, or folders) via spreading activation on the graph-based representation of the global context model. Furthermore we work on ranking search results (which include resources from personal and organizational knowledge spaces) based on resource usage and interconnectivity. We support user initiated search as well as proactive search. • Individual and Organizational Context Visualization: For the user to explore her environment from her individual and from the organizational perspective we have developed specific visualization techniques for displaying connections between resources, applications and user actions (graph views), and the usage history of resources in applications within tasks (timeline and selforganizing map views). Acknowledgments The Know-Center is funded within the Austrian COMET Program - Competence Centers for Excellent Technologies - under the auspices of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology, the Austrian Federal Ministry of Economy, Family and Youth and by the State of Styria. COMET is managed by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency FFG. References Gross, T. and W. Prinz (2003): ‘Awareness in context: A light-weight approach’. In: ECSCW ’03. pp. 295–314. McArthur, R. and P. Bruza (2003): ‘Discovery of implicit and explicit connections between people using email utterance’. In: ECSCW ’03. pp. 21–40. Rath, A. S., D. Devaurs, and S. N. Lindstaedt (2009): ‘UICO: an ontology-based user interaction context model for automatic task detection on the computer desktop’. In: Workshop on Context, Information and Ontologies, ESWC ’09. Heraklion, Greece. Schmidt, K., C. Heath, and T. Rodden (eds.) (2002): Awareness in CSCW, Vol. 11 (3-4) of Computer Supported Cooperative Work. Kluwer Academic Publishers. 10 ITSME: the next generation workstation Giorgio De Michelis and Marco Loregian DISCo, University of Milano-Bicocca and Itsme Srl viale Sarca 336, 20126 Milano, Italy {gdemich,loregian}@disco.unimib.it Abstract. In the last 30 years, the desktop metaphor has become the standard user interface for workstations, with its pros (e.g., ease of learning) and cons (e.g., interaction constraints for skilled users, lack of context awareness). The ITSME workstation will instead embody the new metaphor of stories and venues, and support cooperation by providing individual users with a richer view of their work environment, allowing them to have all they need at the right place, at the right time. In the development of ITSME we are adopting a design approach based on participation, involving various communities in all the steps we are taking. From the desktop to stories and venues The desktop metaphor (Kay, 1977) is obsolete, as new paradigms for cooperation have been emerging all through its existence, – e.g., the Web, email, social networking platforms, mobile and ubiquitous computing, – and still it has not evolved significantly since 1984: the year the Apple Macintosh hit the market. We are developing a next generation workstation, around the metaphor of stories and venues (De Michelis et al., 2009). The idea is to move away from a purely spatial metaphor, as in the desktop, in favor of another that is closer to what working people experience today: a complex interleaving of events, conversations, actions et cetera. In practical terms, we are collecting all that is relevant to a specific story within a single space (called venue): for example conversations involving the user, documents being produced collaboratively, tools 11 or applications, contacts, resources and so on. Our aim is to help users in dealing with the natural complexity of work in the most natural way possible. Today, users are continuously searching to collect what they need but, just like on the Web, this habit often leads to distraction for their real intentions, even with optimal search engines. Moreover, additional effort is required to put things in place when and after work is performed: e.g., saving files with a proper name and in a suitable folder. In ITSME, we are embodying our expertise on knowledge work by designing a new product for people who think that what they do holds value. Trying to reduce or avoid the dispersion of files in workspaces, we are designing a new user interface (for a standard GNU/Linux operating system) where all documents, URLs, people contact details, information sources, and tools that are (potentially) useful for what the user is doing are presented all together. Among the various presentations available on the ITSME website1, the concept can be interactively tested using the Web emulator. We developed some basic social computing features (private messaging, open posting, in-site bookmarking, making fans) and presented them both in a standard way and in a stories-and-venues fashion. The contents of our website (posts, community members) and RSS feeds from other sites can be conveniently organized, according to users preferences, in the two sample venues that we have created for everyone: one about the ITSME project, the other about the workstation market scenario in general. From within the emulator, community members can communicate with one another, create new contents (blog posts, that are in this sense similar to generic documents on a real workstation) or browse their existing posts, bookmarks and media, comment others’ posts and also be informed on news (that can then be discussed within the community). We are currently testing the perception of the emulator from the community, and the feedback collected will help us improve the “real” producet, i.e., the ITSME operating system. At the same time, we are preparing for the first public release of Guglielmo, our meta/data management system: a project in which we aim at involving the Open Source Software community (Di Massa et al., 2009). References De Michelis, G., Loregian, M., Moderini, C. itsme: Interaction Design Innovating Workstations. Knowledge, Technology, and Policy, 2009. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12130-009-9069-9 Di Massa, V., Loregian, M., Tameni, M. Guglielmo: an open source approach to the development of a smart linux extension. Atti della III conferenza nazionale sul software libero, 155-161, 2009. http://www.cs.unibo.it/~renzo/Confsl09_atti.pdf Kay, A. Microelectronics and the Personal Computer. Scientific American, 237(3):230–244, 1977. 1 http://itsme.it 12 IdeaPitch – A tool for spatial notes Nils eners, Wolfgang Prinz Fraunhofer FIT {Nils.Jeners, Wolfgang.Prinz}@fit.fraunhofer.de Abstract. IdeaPitch is an intuitive tool for passing notes between spatial distributed clients. It uses a ball metaphor to illustrate the passing and encapsulation of notes. Many applications exist that enable you to pass notes to people sitting next to you or at a different location. owever the fun and user experience of these applications is limited as they are mainly oriented to provide the functionality of sending a message. Most programs often have a lot of features (e.g. FTP, IM), but are not as intuitive as the real life equivalent. Like ConnecTables (Tendler, 2001) and Pick and Drop (Rekimoto, 1997), IdeaPitch connects screens virtually for information handover. With IdeaPitch we build a tool which is unobtrusive and fun to use. Further it is small and intuitive to apply for passing notes and provides a new user experience. It can be used to inform or remind someone, to start a discussion, or to perform more complex collaboration processes like a brainstorming session. The design of IdeaPitch was intended to apply the metaphor of passing information like throwing a ball. We are using balls from different sports (baseball, basketball, golf, soccer, tennis and volleyball) that lie on your desktop and can contain text in an attached text field. The balls can be thrown by dragging them with the cursor and dropping them while moving. As long as the ball remains on your screen, it is your ball. Throwing a ball out of the screen means passing it to one of your neighbors. ou can specify four neighbors, one for every edge of the screen (left, right, top, bottom). These neighbors can be spatial (people sitting next to you) or logical (people who work with you). In a spatial neighborhood, the relation of neighbors is commutative, e.g. you are the left neighbor of your right neighbor and the same 13 with the other directions (Figure 1:   ). However in a logical neighborhood, the relation of neighbors is not commutative, e.g. your right neighbor can have a left neighbor who differs from you (Figure 1:   ). Figure 1. Structure of the IdeaPitch setup. By experimenting with IdeaPitch in an office environment with colleagues, we found three use cases: • Messaging – With common chat applications there often is a lot of noise and less structure. With IdeaPitch you have one ball per discussion. The one who has the ball can contribute to the conversation and chose the next speaker by passing the ball. • Voting – By choosing different types of balls, everybody can express their opinion. These balls can be thrown to a leader who asked for voting. This scenario is possible in distributed environments as well as in meeting situations. • Brainstorming – In brainstorming sessions it is also helpful to have unique balls to cut between contribution and comments. Further you can throw a ball very fast, so that the ball flies beyond the screen of your neighbor and can land at an unexpected screen. We would like to demonstrate IdeaPitch at the ECSCW. Therefore we would setup a local server (Apache Server with PHP and MySQL). Every conference member would be able to participate with their notebook (Windows, Mac, Linux) by installing Adobe Air1 and the IdeaPitch client. Tandler, P., Prante, T., Müller-Tomfelde, C., Streitz, N., and Steinmetz, R. 2001. Connectables: dynamic coupling of displays for the flexible creation of shared workspaces. In Proceedings of the 14th Annual ACM Symposium on User interface Software and Technology (Orlando, Florida, November 11 - 14, 2001). UIST '01. ACM, New York, NY, 11-20. Rekimoto, J. 1997. Pick-and-drop: a direct manipulation technique for multiple computer environments. In Proceedings of the 10th Annual ACM Symposium on User interface Software and Technology (Banff, Alberta, Canada, October 14 - 17, 1997). UIST '97. ACM, New York, NY, 31-39. 1 http://get.adobe.com/air/ 14 Peerclipse: Tool Awareness in Local Communities Sebastian Draxler, Hendrik Sander, Piyush Jain, Adrian Jung, Gunnar Stevens University of Siegen, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Fraunhofer FIT {sebastian.draxler | hendrik.sander | adrian.jung }@uni-siegen.de, p.jain@iitg.ernet.in, gunnar.stevens@fit.fraunhofer.de Abstract. Motivated by our research in the field of Eclipse users, we want to present our idea of Peerclipse – an Eclipse plug-in to support tool awareness and tool sharing in local communities, which are using Eclipse for software development. Grounded Design of Peerclipse Eclipse is a good example for a highly flexible contemporary software system. It is based on an “everything is a plug-in”-philosophy and can be radically tailored by adding some of the thousands of additional components available on the Internet. Therefore, the user has the opportunity to adapt the software to the needs of his local working context. Unfortunately it is very difficult to keep track of the available components. In the CoEUD1 research project we investigated how people use Eclipse as their daily working environment in Software companies. One of the key findings showed that, when the need for a new tool arose, suitable recommendations regarding tool selection, installation, and configuration were sought out from co-workers who also found themselves in similar working contexts. We especially could observe this in environments where software 1 http://www.coeud.org/ 15 development was organized in agile teams. People did trust in their co-workers advice much more than in recommendations found on the Internet. We therefore follow Mackay (1990), Kahler (2001) and our own observations, and suggest that tailoring support for tools like Eclipse should mirror the cooperative aspect of the users working environment. Figure 1. The Peerclipse User Interface. Our empirical study has sensitized our design, demonstrating that tool awareness is an important issue. However there are often constraints that hinder an organic awareness, but should be supported by an appropriate technical infrastructure. Figure 1 presents first snapshots of the JXTA Peer-to-Peer based Peerclipse plug-in for Eclipse. It gives a good impression of how awareness support for tools used by co-workers could be integrated into Eclipse. It allows ad-hoc, Peer-to-Peer browsing, search and sharing of tools, used within the team. The team can be seen as a repository of tools in use and people with experience using these tools. Scenario 1 (see Figure 1) shows Peerclipse, as the user Eric is searching for an appropriate user to look up for a desired component. In getting aware of his coworker David, Eric starts to study David’s configuration in detail. Scenario 2 (see Figure 1) illustrates a reverse activity of first searching the component and then looking up at the component’s profile prior downloading it. References Kahler, H. (2001). Supporting collaborative tailoring. Roskilde, Roskilde University, Denmark. Mackay, W. E. (1990). Users and customizable Software: A Co-Adaptive Phenomenon. Boston, MIT. 16 Community Mirrors – Using public shared displays to move information “out of the box” Michael Koch, Florian Ott, Alexander Richter Bundeswehr University Munich michael.koch@unibw.de florian.ott@kooperationssysteme.de alexander.richter@kooperationssysteme.de Abstract. CommunityMirrors make information, e.g. suggestions from innovation management systems or personal content from social networking services which are usually hidden inside of information systems available in a new and innovative way. In semi-public places like lobbies or coffee corners people can see, touch and experience digital content and find information by chance without having to look for it explicitly. Intuitive presentation and interaction possibilities on large touch screens improve the visibility of information, the awareness about what is happening in the underlying systems and last but not least the appreciation for information providers. Through the integration into the user’s social context CommunityMirrors support the communication between people standing in front of the screen and so finally enhance the motivation of information providers for the generation of new content. The availability and modality of access to information – particularly to information in community support applications – can be considered as a major issue of today’s widely used client/server systems. Ubiquitous Computing and Mobile Computing, i.e. new user interfaces that are integrated into the real world, can address the boundaries of the existing community support and offer possibilities for enlarging the reach of these applications. As ubiquitous user interfaces our so-called “CommunityMirrors” provide information about people and their activities on wall-sized interactive screens. They are built using large touch screens or projections in public spaces showing 17 information that is otherwise hidden inside of enterprise information systems, social networking services or other community platforms. In contrast to existing solutions for (community) awareness support that mostly consist of single applications dealing with information gathering, storing and visualization we follow the idea of just connecting CommunityMirrors to existing platforms, and getting information “out of the box” (in which they are usually held). By providing easy to use and peripherally recognizable displays for existing systems as lightweight “mirrors” without additional databases, we are seeking to increase the visibility of the contained information and generate appreciation for the contributors. Thereby CommunityMirrors enhance the awareness of community members about each other in order to support interaction and matchmaking inside the community. Through the generation of serendipity this approach is especially helpful for information that is not searched deliberately, but profits a lot from being displayed and consumed peripherally. With the use of CommunityMirrors the process of searching is no longer guided by intention but intuition instead. For the implementation of these hybrid systems different applications and information feeds have to be integrated. Based on this need we have constructed our so-called “CommunityMirror Framework”, a modular java toolset for building CommunityMirror applications. The modularity of the framework allows quick customization to the special needs of a given context and through the intentional absence of additional databases existing platforms can be very easily enhanced with CommunityMirrors – in a manner of speaking: “out of the box”. More Information See: http://www.communitymirrors.de References Koch, M. and Möslein, K. (2006): ‘Community Mirrors for Supporting Corporate Innovation and Motivation’, Proc. Europ. Conf. on Information Systems (ECIS), Göteborg, Sweden, Jun. 2006. Koch, M. (2005): ‘Supporting Community Awareness with Public Shared Displays’, Proc. Bled Intl. Conf. on Electronic Commerce, Bled, Slowenia, Jun. 2005. Koch, M; Monaci, S.; Cabrera, A. B.; Huis in’t Veld, M. and Andronico, P. (2004): ‘Communication and Matchmaking Support for Physical Places of Exchange’, Proc. Intl. Conf. On Web Based Communities (WBC 2004), Lisbon, Portugal, Mar. 2004, pp. 2-10. Koch, M. (2004): ‘Building Community Mirrors with Public Shared Displays’, Proc. eChallenges e-2004 Conference, Vienna, Austria, Oct. 2004. 18 Why do you want to be a member of this online community? – Reasons for joining an e-mentoring community. Diana Schimke, Michael Heilemann, Heidrun Stoeger University of Regensburg diana.schimke@cybermentor.de, michael.heilemann@cybermentor.de, heidrun.stoeger@paedagogik.uni-r.de Abstract. For the purpose of getting more females engaged in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), we set up an online community that brings together female high school students and women engaged in STEM. The main foci of this online community are (1) e-mentoring between women and girls who are interested in STEM and (2) exchanging with other members within a web based community platform. As in traditional mentoring programs, e-mentoring needs people who offer to mentor or want to be mentored. Participants must invest time and effort into building a relationship to a person, they have not known before. Here, we ask why people do this. We look at reasons for women to get voluntarily engaged in an e-mentoring program as well as at reasons for girls (mentees) to get involved in an e-mentoring community. Background While research about online communities (OCs) covers a lot of areas (e.g. benefits from participation (Barak & Dolev-Cohen, 2006), importance of active involvement (McKenna & Bargh, 1998; Schimke, Stoeger, & Ziegler, 2009)), not much is known about reasons for joining an OC. Ridings & Gefen (2004) found that information exchange is the most important reason for joining OCs; reasons depend furthermore on the background of the OC: e.g. obtaining or giving career/social support is more important in OCs with professional topics, while friendship is more important in OCs dealing with personal interests. Leitner, Wolkerstorfer, and Tscheligi (2008) conducted semi-structured interviews in order to answer the question “why” people join OCs. For their study they interviewed 21 OC participants and identified three thematic pillars of OCs: (1) The communication chain: People want to be informed and to communicate upon certain topics, (2) The self-reflective chain: People want to learn from other people for self-reflecting reasons, (3) The friendship chain: People want to overcome certain space limitations to maintain and strengthen relationships. 19 Study, results, and prospects We asked 246 girls and 211 women who applied for the CyberMentor community (OC for girls and women who are interested in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) for reasons why they would like to participate. A quantitative content analysis showed that for mentors the main reasons were passing on experience and encouragement of young women. Girls mostly named learning about study courses/professions and getting more information about STEM topics as reasons for joining the e-mentoring community. Applying Leitner et al.’s three thematic pillars to the categories we conveyed from our data, we found that they were fairly applicable for the girls. The mentor’s reasons did not fit so well in their categories. This might be due to the different roles mentors and mentees have in mentoring settings. Mentors mostly pass on information and experiences while mentees are usually receivers and learners. For girls the self-reflective (44%) and the communication chain (32%) are the most important aspects, followed by friendship (15%) and other reasons (9%). The mentees want to learn from others and get information about topics they are interested in. For the mentors the communication chain (37%) and other reasons not applicable to the three pillars (35%) are mostly important for joining the OC, followed by the self-reflective chain (27%) and friendship (1%). Summarizing our findings we can say that the three thematic pillars of OCs defined by Leitner et al. (2008) fit well for the girls who are participating in the CyberMentor community. For the mentors though – who are rather ‘givers’ than ‘receivers’ – other reasons seem to be important. Thus specific roles of online community members can evoke different motivations for joining an OC. Future research might be able to answer open questions concerning links between such roles and reasons for joining an online community. References Barak, A., & Dolev-Cohen, M. (2006). Does activity level in online support groups for distressed adolescents determine emotional relief. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, 6(3), 186-190. Leitner, M., Wolkerstorfer, P., & Tscheligi, M. (2008). How online communities support human values. Paper presented at the NordiCHI '08, Lund, Sweden. McKenna, K. Y. A., & Bargh, J. A. (1998). Coming Out in the Age of the Internet: Identity "Demarginalization" Through Virtual Group Participation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75(3), 681-694. Ridings, C. & Gefen, D. (2004). Virtual Community Attraction: Why People Hang Out Online. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 10(1), Article 4. Schimke, D., Stoeger, H., & Ziegler, A. (2009). The Influence of Participation and Activity Level in an Online Community on Academic Elective Intents for STEM. Paper presented at the 5th European Symposium on Gender & ICT, Bremen, Germany. 20 Standardized Cancer Pathways: Layers of Sorting out Patients Suspected with Cancer Naja Holten Møller IT University of Copenhagen (nhmo@itu.dk) Abstract. Cancer patient pathways are well-defined sequences, where steps are planned and pre-booked in order to manage patient trajectories of diagnostics and treatment. This paper investigates the process of initiating a standardized cancer pathway. It is argued that while this process from the outside may appear as a straightforward individual activity, it is in fact a collaborative negotiation activity enacted in layers of sorting and selecting involving multiple healthcare professionals. Moreover, it is argued that in these layers of sorting and selecting health care professionals construct situated categories useful to distinguish between degrees of suspicion of cancer. This changes and reframes the design foundation for electronic referral and booking systems in healthcare. Introduction In 2007 Denmark introduced ‘packages’ or standardized cancer pathways as a strategy for standardizing waiting times for diagnostic examinations and treatments of patients suspected with cancer. A key issue concerns the decision to initiate a standardized cancer pathway for a particular patient. Due to the limited resources within the health care system, initiating cancer pathways for all patients with remotely suspicion of cancer would crash the system, since it would be impossible for the healthcare professionals to commit to the prescribed schedules and times defined by the standardized cancer pathways. Sorting and selecting patients suspected with cancer are interdependent with the classification activities 21 involved. Classification systems are inherently dynamic compromises (Bowker and Star 2000), and studies of sorting patients conceptualizes this as a complex collaborative multiplicity of work practices and processes, simultaneously working together to accomplish the successful sorting of patients (Bjørn and Rødje, 2008). Templates within the electronic referral system (Edifact) display important information guiding the sorting of patients if obs cancer - ‘c. obs pro’ is stated. However, the same template might be used implicitly if ‘patient lost 10 kg’ is stated in the free text as an indicator of obs cancer, though, weaker. Therefore, while sorting possible cancer patients might seem as a straightforward individual activity performed by the general practitioner (GP), where the decision to initiate a cancer pathway is determined using the standardized classification scheme, this paper embrace sorting and selecting as a collaborative activity. Argument: Layers of Sorting and Selecting The collaborative activity of sorting and selecting patients suspected with cancer comprises referring, booking, examining, and communicating results between various hospital departments and the GP. Contributing to the collaborative activity multiple interdisciplinary healthcare professionals (GPs, secretaries, nurses, specialists, private working specialists) engage in continuous interlinked assessing and sorting activities based upon input from the other actors. The multiplicity of actors increases both ambiguity and complexity, because healthcare professionals are sorting and selecting simultaneously in different layers. Layers of sorting and selecting comprise collaborative interrelated iterative practices crucial for getting the work done, although invisible in the formal prescribed standardized cancer pathways. When a patient does not fit into the standardized cancer pathway, though, showing signs of cancer these practices becomes visible. Thus, what counts as work varies in different perspectives and leaves out essential activities crucial for getting the work done (Star and Strauss 1999). While the official arena of voice forms the standardized cancer pathways, the invisible layers of silence comprise the negotiations involved in sorting and selecting patients. References Bjørn, P. and K. Rødje (2008) 'Triage drift: A worksplace study in a pediatric emergency department', Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) 17(4): 395-419. Bowker, G. C. and S. L. Star (2000) 'Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences', Cambridge, The MIT Press. Star, S. L. and A. Strauss (1999) 'Layers of Silence, Arenas of Voice: The Ecology of Visible and Invisible Work', Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) 8: 9-30. 22 Head Tracking and Gesture Recognition in Museum Guide Robots for Multiparty Settings Yoshinori Kobayashi∗+, Takashi Shibata∗, Yosuke Hoshi∗, Yoshinori Kuno∗, Mai Okada∗, Keiichi Yamazaki∗, Akiko Yamazaki∗∗ Saitama University, Japan, ∗∗ Tokyo University of Technology, Japan + yosinori@cv.ics.saitama-u.ac.jp ∗ Abstract. In this paper, we describe head tracking and gesture recognition techniques in a museum guide robot. The vision system we propose has been developed to deal with challenges we discovered through experiments using our robot guide in an actual art museum. Based on these observations, we developed a prototype guide robot that can explain an exhibit to multiple visitors. Recently, several museum guide robots that engage visitors in their talk in one-onone settings have been proposed. In particular, K. Yamazaki et al. (2009) reported that the guide robot increases visitor engagement when it turns its head towards the visitor at interactionally relevant places (or TRPs, transition relevance places) in its talk. Through experiments using our guide robot in an actual museum, we found that we need to consider not only one-on-one settings but also multiparty settings, as our guide robot often attracted multiple visitors at the same time. In this study, we propose a new vision system that enables the robot to explain exhibits to multiple visitors. In our previous experiment at an actual museum, there were some cases when visitors appeared to lose interest, such as when the robot provided the same explanation to the same visitor or changed the addressee (target person) during the explanation. Based on ethnographic observations of human museum guides, we found that facework plays an important role in engaging multiple visitors in their talk. We also found that the visitor who is the addressee of the human guide may avoid eye contact to display a negative answer. So it is important for a guide robot to be able to track and identify multiple visitors and recognize their implicitly displayed intentions. 23 In addressing this issue, we propose a new vision system that enables a museum guide robot to interact with multiple visitors (Figure.1). This system does principally three things: it tracks and identifies visitors, and recognizes their displayed intentions. 1) In tracking visitors, the system first detects faces using the frontal face classifier based on AdaBoost and Haar-like features. The system then starts to track each face using a particle filter framework. When the detected faces have been tracked, the system does not start to track these faces. We divide face region into 4x4 blocks and calculate the optical flow vector for each block between consecutive frames. We use these optical flow vectors for the motion prediction in the particle filter framework. Hypotheses are evaluated using multiple classifiers, each of which is trained to detect human heads in a particular direction. The most suitable classifier is selected adaptively by considering face direction with respect to the camera. In this way, we track not only visitor head position but also head direction simultaneously. 2) In identifying visitors, the system records color histograms of each image region corresponding to the clothes and motion histories of each visitor. The robot can continue to explain to the same visitor even when the system temporarily loses track of the head due to occlusion. 3) In recognizing visitors’ intentions, as displayed in head nodding and head shaking, we calculate the mean value of the vertical and horizontal components of the optical flow vectors and use them to recognize these actions. The system evaluates the score of positive intentions by considering the context of the robot’s talk especially focused on synchronization with TRPs. We developed a prototype robot that can explain paintings to multiple persons. The robot turns its head towards the person who displays positive intention. We conducted experiment in which the robot explains a painting to 15 participants and asked the participants at the end to answer the question, ”Did you feel that the robot was looking at you and other participants?” The participants’ answers suggest that the robot gazes towards participants in an effective way. Guide Scenario Robot Behavior ࡮ ࡮ ࡮ Robot Behavior ࡮ ࡮ ࡮ Particle Filter based Head Tracker Camera Images Color & Motion based User Identifier Context Analyzer Head Gesture Recognizer Estimate users’ intention Vision-based Observation Robot Action Context-based Intention Estimation Figure 1. Vision system for museum guide robot. References K. Yamazaki, A. Yamazaki, M. Okada, Y. Kuno, Y. Kobayashi, Y. Hoshi, K. Pitsch, P. Luff, D. Lehn, and C. Heath (2009): ‘Revealing Gauguin: Engaging Visitors in Robot Guide’s Explanation in an Art Museum’. In: CHI2009. pp. 1437–1446. 24 Towards a model-driven development method for collaborative modeling tools Jesús Gallardo, Crescencio Bravo, Miguel A. Redondo, Fernando Gallego Escuela Superior de Informática Departamento de Tecnologías y Sistemas de Información Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha {jesus.gallardo; crescencio.bravo; miguel.redondo; fernando.gallego}@uclm.es Collaborative modeling tools are useful and promising for many tasks within design or learning processes. However, they are difficult to build and are usually domain-specific. In response to this situation, we propose a model-driven method for the development of domain-independent collaborative modeling tools. Such a method is targeted at any user who does not have an advanced knowledge of groupware programming and needs to use a collaborative modeling tool in his/her work. Within the area of groupware tools, in this paper we focus on distributed synchronous tools to support the construction of models. Designers work on a shared workspace, in which they create a model in a collaborative way. The collaborative modeling task can refer to a group work activity, if the problem is a real situation to be solved in the scope of a company or institution, as well as to an e-learning system, if a learning method based on collaborative problem solving is followed. The particularity of the tools we are going to handle with respect to other modeling systems in the literature is that the design to be created is not going to be restricted to a specific domain; that is to say, the tool will be able to deal with diverse scopes of design described by means of a configuration process (Gallardo, 2007). This differs from domain-specific tools, which only allow the building of diagrams in a specific domain. An example of this kind of systems is DomoSimTPC (Bravo, 2006), which works with the domain of Domotics. Some studies show how the use of domain-independent collaborative tools has some advantages over the use of single user tools shared by means of a shared windows system (Gallardo, 2008). In order to make the development of such a collaborative tool easier, we are going to follow the Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) paradigm (Favre, 2004). Hence, we are going to propose a method that avoids the problems of having to re-design the tool for each new application domain. Our development method is based on three frameworks: a methodological framework, a conceptual framework and a technological framework. The methodological framework 25 consists of a series of phases that must be followed in order to develop a collaborative modeling tool. Those phases are (Fig. 1): (1) identification of the domain, (2) modeling of the domain and the shared workspaces, (3) production of the collaborative modeling tool that includes (3a) model transformations and (3b) generation of the tool, and (4) use of the generated tool. The conceptual framework is made up of the meta-models that are used in the meta-modeling process. Finally, the technological framework consists of a series of plug-ins for the Eclipse platform (Eclipse Modeling Framework, EMF, and Graphical Modeling Framework, GMF) that have been modified to acquire collaborative functionality and have been integrated to give support to the development method in its totality. Figure 1 shows, together with the phases of the method, a representation of the informal specification of the domain (A), an example of a domain model (B), an excerpt of a model transformation coded in the ATL transformation language (C) and a screenshot of the final tool generated (D). 1 2 Domain and workspace modeling Domain specification A A1 A2 … 3a 3b Model transformations Generation of the tool 4 Use of the collaborative tool B A a21 a22 a11 a12 C A D A Figure 1. Application of the development method proposed Bravo, C., Redondo, M.A., Ortega, M., Verdejo, M.F. (2006): “Collaborative environments for the learning of design: A model and a case study in Domotics” Computers and Education, 46 (2) (Elsevier), pp. 152-173. Favre, J.M. (2004): “Towards a Basic Theory to Model Model Driven Engineering” In: Proceedings of Workshop on Software Model Engineering, WISME 2004. Gallardo, J., Bravo, C., Redondo, M.A. (2007): “An ontological approach for developing domainindependent groupware” In: Proceedings of WETICE 2007, IEEE Computer Society, 2007, pp. 206-207. Gallardo, J., Molina, A.I., Bravo, C., Redondo, M.A., Collazos, C. (2008): “Comparative study of tools for collaborative task modelling: an empirical and heuristic-based evaluation” In: Groupware: Design, Implementation and Use, LNCS 5411, (Springer) pp. 340–355. 26 Collaboration using Avatars vs. Text Chat – An Experimental Comparison Andreas Schmeil Martin J. Eppler University of Lugano (USI) Switzerland andreas.schmeil@gmail.com University of Lugano (USI) Switzerland epplerm@gmail.com Keywords. Avatars, virtual environments, experiments, embodiment, collaboration, group interaction, CSCW, evaluation, text chat Introduction Face to face meetings provide multiple opportunities for knowledge sharing and decision-making that goes far beyond verbal exchange. Today, however, more and more collaborative work is accomplished in teams and workgroups who are scattered across cities, countries, and continents. For such distant settings, different modes of collaboration have emerged, none of which has yet proven to be dominant. We believe that three-dimensional, online Multi-User Virtual Environments (MUVE) are a means that can significantly improve such virtual collaboration by offering novel and innovative ways of working together, both for knowledge sharing and decision-making tasks. With this contribution, we present the design and the expected results of a controlled experiment in which participants need to share information and make team decisions, the intervention groups in a 3D Multi-User Virtual Environment, the control groups in pure text chat. Our analysis then compares these two conditions and their outcomes. Experiment Design We hypothesize that the fact of being embodied as avatars in an immersive 3D environment will lead to more effective and sustainable knowledge sharing, as well as to higher participant satisfaction, motivation and recall of shared knowledge and collaboratively made decisions. The experiment is designed to measure the added value of collaborating in a MUVE in comparison to collaboration through simple text chat. These two conditions are systematically comparable through an observation of both the experimental groups using an OpenSim virtual environment (a MUVE system similar to Second Life) and the control groups using pure text chat. The subjects of the experiment are 27 approximately 70 bachelor and master students, an already high enough number for the comparison to yield sound and meaningful results, hopefully with statistically significant findings. The experiment simulates the kick-off meeting of a fictitious project with a project team consisting of five professionals. The meeting comprises three tasks: Participants first need to present themselves to their respective team members – as they are given no information about each other beforehand. Secondly, they need to jointly clarify the main goals of the project (as described in a case given to them). As a final task, the team is then asked to assign project roles to each member, based on their specific skills and experience (described beforehand in a personal, written briefing to each participant). This experiment design is intended to enable collaboration within a project team by distributing knowledge unevenly among the participants; the team members are thus required to share information and interact with each other in order to surface so-called transactive knowledge (knowledge that becomes available through transactions between people), for solving the latter tasks. Furthermore, the selected three tasks cover three major elements of collaborative work, namely knowledge sharing, grounding (sense making), and decision-making. Measures and Expected Results The main measured variables are the motivation to work together, the satisfaction with process and outcome, as well as the accuracy of the group result (i.e., correct assignment of roles based on the assigned profiles) and the recall of other’s profiles and made decisions. The former, subjective assessments are measured through a post-task survey, while the latter, objective measurement of the recall is measured through a follow-up test, after a 45 minute distraction task. Our hypothesis is thus that the teams working in the virtual collaboration setting outperform the teams using chat. In addition we stipulate that these groups selfreport higher levels of motivation and satisfaction than the chat groups. While for the control groups all collaboration is conducted through text chat, in the MUVE condition participants can also use spatial information (such as proximity or distance), personalization (avatar appearance, gestures, animations), virtual objects (interactive or static), and other means introduced by 3D virtual environments to collaborate with their team members. Through our experiment, the added value of being represented as customizable avatars in a configurable three-dimensional virtual environment can be isolated for simple, team-based knowledge sharing and decision making tasks. The results of this experiment can also point out key criteria that are relevant for designing value-adding immersive collaboration experiences. Finally, the (positive and negative) impact of interactive visual aids and interactive tools and instruments for remote team collaboration can be better assessed. 28 COMET: Collaboration in Mobile Environments by Twisting Nitesh Goyal RWTH University, Aachen nitesh.goyal.84@gmail.com Abstract. This paper describes a novel interaction style and vocabulary of physical deformation based gestures for collocated collaboration with deformable mobile devices. These gestures include bending and twisting to improve user experience while collaborating with limited screen estate and device footprint. Details Commercial handheld devices often adapt the traditional WIMP interaction paradigm. Icons and widgets occupy precious screen estate and external input devices, such as pens, occupy a second hand and are easily misplaced (Schwesig, C., 2004). (Bergquist J., 1999 & Gellersen H., 2005) further show the necessity of CSCW in mobility. There have been several ideas on how to physically deform computers, e.g. (Schwesig, C., 2004; Harrison, B., 1998; Teh, J., 2008; Michelitsch, G., 2004; Murakami, T., 1994; Sheng, J., 2006; Herkenrath, G., 2008). However, there is no prior work that refers to using these deformations for collaboration. Also, the suggested deformations and haptic feedback in the mentioned works have restricted functionality and cannot model a collaborative environment adequately. As further mentioned in (Schwesig, C., 2004; Harrison, B., 1998), WIMP interfaces are not the best­suited interfaces for such devices. We show how deformation based gestures could be extended to be used in a collaborative environment to perform tasks like sharing files, contacts, making 29 appointments. They do not obstruct existing gestures. Instead, they complement the existing or previously proposed gestures for text entry, selecting, deselecting, zooming in/out, and scrolling for standalone devices. These three naturally mapped gestures are shown in the Table 1 below. The user bends the handheld across the two diagonals to “break” the environment and choose the desired environment. BREAK WAVE The user pulls one part towards self and pushes the other away to split the screen. The part closer to him shows his own display, while the other part shows the collaborator’s view. PULSE The user creates a WAVE and passes it from one end to the other end in the direction of the receiver to send the data. Table 1. The three gestures by physically deforming the handheld device. As shown, the user does not have to change the grip for performing the tasks. He just has to hold the device in two hands. References Schwesig, C., Poupyrev, I., Mori, E. (2004): ‘Gummi: a bendable computer.’ Proceedings of CHI 2004, ACM, 263­270. Bergquist J., Dahlberg P., et al (1999): ‘Moving out of the meeting room: Exploring support for mobile meetings’ Proceedings of the Sixth ECSCW, Copenhagen, Denmark, 81­98. Tamaru E., Hasuike K., et al. (2005): ‘Cellular phone as a collaboration tool that empowers and changes the way of mobile work: focus on three fields of work’ Proceedings of the Ninth ECSCW, Paris, France, 247–264. Harrison, B., Fishkin, K., Gujar, A. et al. (1998): ‘Squeeze me, hold me, tilt me! An exploration of manipulative user interfaces’ Proceedings of CHI 1998, ACM, 17­24. Teh, J., Cheok, A., et al. Huggy Pyjama (2008): ‘A mobile parent and child hugging communication system.’ Proceedings of IDC 2008, ACM, 250­257. Michelitsch, G., Williams, et al. (2004): ‘Haptic chameleon: a new concept of shape changing user interface controls with force feedback.’ Ext. Abstracts CHI 2004, ACM, 1305­1308. Murakami, T., Nakajima, N. (1994): ‘Direct and intuitive input device for 3­d shape deformation.’ Proceedings of CHI 1994, ACM, 465–470. Sheng, J., Balakrishnan, R., Singh, K. (2006) ‘An interface for virtual 3d sculpting via physical proxy.’ Proceedings of GRAPHITE 2006, ACM, 213–220. Herkenrath, G., Karrer , T., Borchers, J. (2008): ‘Twend: twisting and bending as new interaction gesture in mobile devices.’ Proceedings of CHI 2008, ACM, 3819­3824. 30 Towards a groupware environment for collaborative programming learning Crescencio Bravo, Fernando Gallego, Jesús Gallardo, Francisco Jurado ESI. Departamento TSI. Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha (Spain) {crescencio.bravo, jesus.gallardo, fernando.gallego, francisco.jurado}@uclm.es! Students of computer programming face diverse difficulties, such as using a programming language with constructions that they find abstract as well as unfamiliar but that must be used to solve problems in an effective way (Karsten & Kaparthi, 1998). They will have to overcome these difficulties in order to acquire successfully the skills they will need in their professional activity. In answer to those problems, the aim of the research work reported here is to study the combination of advanced groupware systems for computer programming, techniques for analyzing student interaction and collaboration (Bravo et al., 2008), and intelligent tutoring based on generation of advice and guidance, with the objective of creating a learner-centred environment based on CSCL principles and following a learning by doing approach by means of problem solving. The present systems for collaborative programming, e.g. DPE (Jo & Arnold, 2003), lack a suitable educational approach. There are only a few CSCL environments for programming learning, e.g. JeCo (Moreno et al., 2004), but they present limitations with regards to advanced communication, coordination and awareness tools, and to specific tools for collaborative programming. So far attempts to turn ECLIPSE into a groupware tool, e.g. Jazz Sangam (Devide et al., 2008), have not gone beyond incorporating instant messaging, audio and videoconference, control version systems and strongly-coupled collaborative editing. We deal with these gaps by proposing a groupware environment based on ECLIPSE that develops the principles and incorporates the techniques mentioned above. We chose ECLIPSE because it is a real-world IDE, very extended at academic level and well-established in industry. Moreover it facilitates the incorporation of new tools through plug-ins. Fig. 1 shows a first prototype of such an environment, incorporating a session panel showing the member list, a tool for handwriting on the source code, a structured chat (which offers a set of preestablished communication acts) and a coordination tool for floor control. These elements incorporate a few awareness elements such us the users’ state and a semaphore indicating when participation is required in the floor control tool. The groupware environment presented includes the following tools: (i) coordination and decision-making tools to harmonize synchronous collaborative work; (ii) a structured chat; (iii) an audio and video-conference tool; (iv) 31 awareness tools (tele-pointers, radar views, session panel with participants’ state, etc.); (v) a collaborative planning tool, to define the problem-solving strategy; (vi) a handwriting tool for the annotation of programs; and (vii) advanced collaborative programming tools (editing, compiling and executing), including collaborative monitoring of variables during debugging and the shared visualization of compilation errors. Figure 1. Prototype of collaborative programming learning environment. References Bravo, C., Redondo, M.A., Verdejo, M.F. and Ortega, M. (2008) Framework for Process and Solution Analysis in Synchronous Collaborative Learning Environments. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, vol. 66 (11), pp. 812-832 Devide, J., Meneely, A., Ho, C-w, Williams, L., and Devetisikiotis, M. (2008) Jazz Sangam: A Real-time Tool for Distributed Pair Programming of a Team Development Platform. Infrastructure for Research on Collaborative Software Engineering (IReCoSE) workshop at ACM SIGSOFT Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE), Atlanta, GA Jo, C.H. and Arnold, A.J. (2003) A portable and Collaborative Distributed Programming Environment. International Conference on Software Engineering. Las Vegas, USA 198-203 Karsten, R. & Kaparthi, S. (1998) Using dynamic explanations to enhance novice programmer instruction via the WWW. Computers and Education, Volume 30, Issue 3/4, pp. 195-201 Moreno, A., Myller, N. and Sutinen, E. (2004) JeCo, a Collaborative Learning Tool for Programming. Proceedings of the 2004 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages - Human Centric Computing (VLHCC'04). Washington DC, USA 261-263 32 For a Participative Knowledge Management Thomas MARTINE University of Technology of Troyes th.martine@gmail.com This poster presents the results of two Knowledge Management (KM) experiments conducted within an industrial project. This industrial project aims at conceiving a building that must be functional during a long time scale. It thus relies on diverse sets of knowledge: mechanics, chemistry, numerical calculations, underground engineering, safety, project management and so on. Several evaluations of the project showed that knowledge tracking could be improved, that is, one could more swiftly retrieve and make consistent the documents justifying the technical decisions regarding the project. One of the responses to this problem was to create a document base specifically conceived for knowledge tracking. Three characteristics of the base serve this objective: (1) the base multiplies the entry points into the documents so that the thematic connections between them appear more quickly, (2) the documents are standardized so as to ensure every document meets quality criteria, (3) a base manager must verify each modification of the documents before integrating it into the base. This base is therefore very useful to the communities whose practices revolve mainly around ensuring the global consistency of knowledge within the project. The difficulty is that this issue is not the main focus of the communities who are asked to write the content of the base and keep it up­to­date. Those communities’ main focus is indeed to conduct studies aiming at producing very specific pieces of knowledge. The issue of the global consistency of the knowledge mainly arises when they write the syntheses that are undertaken for the milestones of the project. Those syntheses are then an opportunity to put the diverse studies in perspective and to bring new issues to light. The problem is that the knowledge base implies to produce additional syntheses in templates which are different from the ones of the milestone syntheses. The base thus represents a potential disruption for the communities in charge of conducting the studies. Two recommendations can 33 therefore be issued: (1) making the form of the knowledge base documents match the form of the milestone syntheses so as to reduce the overall charge of syntheses production; (2) co­building the base and its functioning with all the communities involved: those focused on global consistency and those focused on the studies. In this co­building perspective, tools such as wikis are interesting. The principle of wikis is that (i) every document can be modified by each user, and (ii) each user has tools to monitor the evolution of each document. The users can thus negotiate, as problems occur, the rules regulating document management. It was then decided to test a wiki for the preparation of the Scientific Analysis. This document is a milestone synthesis gathering all knowledge concerning the physical phenomena affecting the building. There were mainly two expectations regarding the use of the wiki: (1) it would expand the participation in the preparation of the document beyond the department that is directly in charge of it, and (2) it would enable a better preparation of meetings, thus reducing their frequency. To achieve those objectives, the wiki was structured so as to make the participation of everyone as little time consuming as possible. It was first structured around the “input data” of the Scientific Analysis, and questions were then identified and put into tables so that each expert could answer them in a box. The problem was that this pre­configuration considerably reduced the possibilities of each user to use the wiki for his own needs. The wiki thus faced the same problem as the knowledge base: it was structured around the interests of a small part of its potential users. It is indeed worth noting that the Scientific Analysis is inseparable of other milestone syntheses, notably the Safety Analysis and the Engineering Dossier. This means the questions raised by the communities in charge of the Scientific Analysis have direct impacts on the communities in charge of those two documents and reciprocally. To manage the interactions between those communities, coordination meetings are regularly organized by the project management department. In those meetings, the participants have the possibility to freely reformulate the questions according to their own perspectives. Two recommendations can therefore be made: (1) the wiki should be structured around the coordination meetings, that is, around the work of the project management department; (2) this space should be co­constructed by the diverse communities involved: the communities in charge of the Scientific Analysis, the Safety Analysis, the Engineering Dossier and the project management. The first result of this study is the following: a KM setting needs to reflect the diverse interests and functioning modes of the communities it is based on. The knowledge base and the first test on the wiki constitute two counter­examples in that respect. Two recommendations can therefore be made: (1) relying on the settings and the structures which already exist, that is, on what has already been put to the test and satisfies the diverse communities involved; (2) co­constructing the new settings and the new structures so that they reflect the diverse interests and forms of functioning of the communities involved. 34 Co-constructing IT and Healthcare Tariq Andersen1, Jørgen Bansler2, Pernille Bjørn4, Erling Havn2, Mie Jensen3, Finn Kensing1, Jonas Moll1, Troels Mønsted2, Kjeld Schmidt5 University of Copenhagen, 2Danish Technical University, 3Copenhagen University Hospital, 4IT-University of Copenhagen, 5Copenhagen Business School tariq@diku.dk, bansler@man.dtu.dk, pbra@itu.dk, havn@man.dtu.dk, mie.christa.jensen@rh.regionh.dk, kensing@citi.ku.dk, jonas@jermiin.dk, trmo@man.dtu.dk, schmidt@cscw.dk 1 Abstract. The CITH project (Co-constructing IT and Healthcare) is an ongoing 4-year interdisciplinary research project, which investigates while intervenes in the collaborative practices involved in disease management of chronic heart patients with an ICD (Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator). CITH project Chronic disease management is one of the major areas within healthcare which is highly dependent upon continuous collaboration across professional boundaries, institutions, and geographical locations. Successful chronic disease interventions usually involve coordinated, multidisciplinary care teams (Wagner 2000). The aim of the CITH project is to analyze existing collaborative practices amongst heterogeneous actors who manage ICD patients, with the aim of designing, developing, and evaluating IT applications and services supporting the work of both healthcare professionals and patients. Based on workplace studies (Luff, Hindmarch et al. 2000), we have conducted observations, artefact analyses, and interviews with healthcare professionals from the Heart Centre at the Copenhagen University Hospital as well as at two local hospitals. Moreover, we have conducted interviews with patients in their homes and participated in educational sessions for ICD patients. As a result, we have 35 produced observations notes, interview transcripts, documents, video, and pictures of relevant artefacts and activities. Although this analysis of the existing work practices is still on-going, the design perspective of the project has also been initiated, i.e. through workshops with healthcare professionals and patient groups. These workshops seek to interpret practices and reflect on possible relevant design solutions for supporting chronic disease management in general and ICD patients in particular. As described below CITH follows two paths for analysis and design. Healthcare professionals’ Collaboration The healthcare professional path focuses on communication and coordination practices. One key finding is that while there are established practices for communication and coordination within each hospital (e.g. among lab technicians, device representatives, and consulting cardiologists), collaborative activities across sites (e.g. among GPs, the Heart Centre, and local hospitals) are sparse and primarily ad hoc. This is, indeed, puzzling in light of the healthcare professionals’ clear acknowledgement that collaboration across sites beneficially would improve their work. Currently, we are investigating new opportunities for collaborations through shared workshops with participants from multiple sites. ICD Patients The patient path explores design opportunities to support chronic ICD patients and their relatives in their homes, as well as strengthening their communication with various healthcare professionals on two perspectives. They are to understand and improve communication needs between and at the follow-up consultations. Key themes grounded in fieldwork studies are; e.g. optimizing asynchronous dialogue between ICD patients and healthcare professionals, supporting systematic collection of events and experiences, improving overview of individual treatment plan including prescribed medication and side effects, and automated feedback on patient condition leveraging data provided by the ICD. References Luff, P., J. Hindmarch, et al., Eds. (2000). Workplace studies: Recovering work practice and informing system design. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Wagner, E. (2000). "The role of patient care teams in chronic disease management." British Medical Journal 320(7234): 569-572. 36 Pointing Accuracy in Collaborative Virtual Environments Nelson Wong and Carl Gutwin University of Saskatchewan, Canada nelson.wong@usask.ca, carl.gutwin@usask.ca Abstract. Pointing is ubiquitous and important in everyday life, and should also be important in collaborative virtual environments (CVEs). However, pointing is not well supported in common CVEs, such as World of Warcraft and Second Life. To better support pointing in CVEs, we first need to understand the fundamental – how well people can interpret the direction that another person is pointing. We conducted two studies to investigate this question. The first identified several ways that people point towards distant targets, and established that not all pointing requires high accuracy. The second study looked more closely at how accurately people can produce and interpret the direction of pointing gestures. We found that although people are more accurate in the real world, the differences are smaller than expected. Our results show that pointing can be successful in many situations in CVEs. Ultimately, we want to better support pointing and find out how pointing can support collaboration in CVEs. Observations of Distant Pointing In order to determine issues that are important for pointing in CVEs, we carried out an observational study to look at the way that people point (and interpret others’ pointing gestures) in the real world. We recruited four pairs of participants. They were asked to perform a series of activities in a fifth­floor room that had large windows overlooking a city. The activities involved the production and interpretation of pointing gestures. The referents were things outside the room including different objects (e.g., an apartment building, a car, or a sign), general areas (e.g., a parking lot containing many cars), and paths (e.g., a path between two buildings). The targets could be either directly visible, partially occluded, or completely out of view. The 37 participants used different communication channels (pointing gesture only, pointing plus speech, and pointing plus written notes) to indicate the targets. Our main finding shows that the degree of precision needed for pointing depends on how difficult it is to describe the target using the available verbal channel. Interpreting Pointing Direction In the second study, we investigate people’s ability to interpret the direction of a pointing gesture. While pointing gestures are complex and have multiple stages, our focus was on the ‘holding’ state of pointing gestures because it conveys the most information about direction. The main research questions are how accurately people could determine what others were pointing at, how accurately people could point at objects themselves, and how interpretation of pointing direction differed between the real world and a CVE. The study had five factors: two task types (production of the pointing gesture or interpretation of the gesture), two environments (real world and CVE), two distances (600cm or 300cm to the targets), two field­of­view widths (85° or 120°, only used in the CVE), and two observing locations (behind or beside, only used for interpretation tasks). The study was conducted in two environments. In the real­world setting (a 750cm x 400cm room), a 1024 x 768 projector displayed targets on a 400cm­ width wall. The projected area was 300cm x 225cm. The image was horizontally centred on the wall and 100cm above the ground. In the CVE, we created a room that replicated the real world setting. Ten participants were asked to product and interpret pointing gestures toward the targets. Each participant performed 15 trials per condition (counterbalanced using a Latin square design). The main result shows that people are more accurate in producing and interpreting pointing gestures in the real world; however, the differences are smaller than expected. Conclusion and Future Work Pointing is a natural and expressive part of human gestural communication, but current CVEs do not yet provide good support for pointing. We carried out two studies. The results suggest that pointing can work well in CVEs. In future, we will investigate different control mechanisms over different levels of expressiveness of avatar pointing. We will also observe pointing activities in more realistic settings in CVEs. In additions, we will explore situations where pointing in CVEs can enhance collaboration. Our goal is to improve pointing activities, which in turn improves collaboration in CVEs. 38 Mobile Social Media for Groups Lampinen Airi, Lehtinen Vilma, Huotari Kai, Luusua Vesa, Mäntylä Martti, Sarvas Risto, Seppälä Lassi & Turunen Jani Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT / Helsinki University of Technology TKK Abstract. In this poster, we discuss initial results of ICT use practices in a campus setting, both in relation to studies and other student activities. Furthermore, we present a new mobile group-centered social media service developed for campus settings. Introduction Staying in touch with both groups and individuals, and knowing what is sizzling around, are essential activities in campus life. Communication technologies play a significant role in these activities (see e.g. Quan-Haase, 2007). In this poster, we discuss initial results concerning ICT use in a campus setting and present a new mobile group-centered social media service that is currently in beta phase. During the academic year 2008-2009, we conducted an exploratory study with mixed methodology, following a freshman class in a university of technology. The initial results reveal that the participants preferred a particular medium, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), despite the availability of hyped social media and IM services popular among their peers. The medium was considered particularly important when communicating with fellow students. While our technologysavvy participants were motivated to use IRC with a textual interface in mobile settings, too, others are likely to prefer a more easy-to-use service with a graphical user interface. We believe that a possibility to use group communication tools in a mobile setting would bring added value to the users, especially in coordinating both social and academic activities on the campus. 39 Ossi ! Group-centered Mobile Social Media In the scope of our project, we have developed a mobile group-centered social media service to be used on campuses. The service, Ossi, is a simple mobile online social interaction service for high-end mobile phones (e.g., Nokia N95, N97, iPhone). The service aims at facilitating study activities, creation and maintenance of social relations and the following of on-going “sizzling” in one’s study environment. Currently, Ossi is in beta phase - we develop new features continuously based both on research objectives and end-user feedback. The service provides facilities for creating social networks and exchanging messages between users in public and friends-only channels. Functionalities for sharing location information in status messages and channel posts, and for creating and managing groups are being developed. Future Directions In September 2009, we will launch a large-scale user study with students from three campuses. We study privacy and publicity management, by focusing on the use of group features and on the sharing of location information: How and for what kinds of purposes are different group features adopted? How do users manage the sharing of information when privacy settings are not available? Once privacy controls are introduced to the service, we will study their use and their effects on the use of the service, from the point of view of managing group relations and of sharing location information. In addition to conducting focus groups and questionnaires, we will analyze logged usage data. To understand it properly, we will, additionally, carry out usage scenario experiments in the style of Razavi & Iverson (2009). The work is a part of a research project that develops new mobile social media services for urban communities and studies their adoption and use in everyday life. Acknowledgements We thank everyone who has contributed to the OtaSizzle research project that is funded by the MIDE program of the Helsinki University of Technology TKK. References Quan-Haase, A. (2007). College Students' Local and Distant Communication: Blending Online and Offline Media. Information, Communication and Society, 10, 5, 671-693. Razavi, M. N. & Iverson, L. (2009). Improving Personal Privacy in Social Systems with Peopletagging. In Proceedings of International Conference on Supporting Group Work (GROUP’09). Sanibel Island, Florida, USA. 40 Kassi: Everyday Favors in Social Media Matching Resources by Means of Campussourcing Suhonen Emmi, Nuutila Esko, Makkonen Juho, Sundberg Ville, Törmä Seppo, Virolainen Antti & Wiikeri Julia Helsinki University of Technology TKK, Aalto Mobile Web Research Group firstname.surname@tkk.fi Abstract. Kassi is a social web service for changing favors and borrowing items, especially in a local community such as a university campus. Kassi will be used in studying motivation to contribute to collective action in social web services. Resources People Have We all have skills that others might not have and we own things that we need only occasionally. Thus, we have different kinds of resources that we could offer to others, and at the same time we may lack some resources ourselves. Despite of this supply and demand of everyday small favors, there are no efficient and widely used ways of dividing resources among ordinary people. Social web offers a great opportunity to support this kind of communal action and spirit. A Web Service to Match Resources The preceding is the ideological basis of a social web-service called Kassi, which we have been developing since the summer 2008. Kassi is now in beta phase and will be released in autumn 2009. Kassi is mainly designed for campus setting, both in relation to studies and other student activities and also to help students in their everyday life in general. Currently Kassi allows people to create their own 41 profiles, where they can write down items they could lend and favors they could do. These items and favors can then be searched and browsed by other Kassi users. Users can also add their own listings if they are looking for help that is not found already or if they have a more specific need or offer in mind. Motivations to Contribute to Collective Action For us, Kassi is not only a service, but also a research platform. Some user research has already been done during the design process, but actual studies on the use of the service will be done in academic year 2009-2010. The main studies consider motivations to contribute to collective action. Brzozowski et al. (2009) have studied how feedback and peer pressure affects the amount of contributions in enterprise social media. They found that manager and coworker activity correlated with employees becoming active users. Also, corporate culture may be a motivational factor for employees. We are going to study similar topics in a campus setting. Why people participate? What will increase or decrease participation? How could the systems be designed to encourage positive participation? Antin (2009) is also addressing a similar topic in his research on meaning of knowledge and competence in contribution to collective goals. Studies will be made using interviews, focus groups and questionnaires as well as monitoring users’ actions in Kassi. Furthermore, two master theses will be finished in autumn 2009. One considers reputation mechanisms in social media and the other user-created content classification. The work is a part of the research project that develops new mobile social media services for urban communities and studies their adoption and use in everyday life. Acknowledgments We thank everyone who has contributed to the OtaSizzle research project, funded by the MIDE program of Helsinki University Technology TKK. References Brzozowski, M.J., Sandholm, T. and Hogg, T. (2009). Effects of Feedback and Peer Pressure on Contributions to Enterprise Social Media. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Supporting Group Work (GROUP ’09). Florida, USA. Antin, Judd (2009). Motivated by Information: Information About Online Collective Action as an Incentive for Participation In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Supporting Group Work (GROUP ’09). Florida, USA. 42 How can we support engineering processes by marking-up emails Craig Loftus, Christopher McMahon, Ben Hicks IdMRC, University of Bath, United Kingdom c.t.loftus@bath.ac.uk Abstract. The authors have identified the inclusion of engineering specific contextual information as a means to improve the usability and re-usability of emails. A proposed system to introduce such contextual information is presented with the aim to gain the insights of the CSCW community into aspects of managing the adoption of new collaborative systems and in selecting or developing the systems to support this contextual information. Background The authors have identified the inclusion of engineering specific contextual information as a means to improve the usability and re-usability of emails. A proposed system to introduce such contextual information is presented with the aim to gain the insights of the CSCW community into aspects of managing the adoption of new collaborative systems and in selecting or developing the systems to support this contextual information. This research is carried out from the perspective of engineers’ reuse of information in the context of projects involving multiple organisations collaborating over ≈30 year product life-cycles. The primary focus is one of improving the quality of records of engineering work but the research is carried out with the understanding that there is a need to provide immediate or short term value to produce an acceptable value proposition for the email authors. 43 Proposal The proposal is to develop a lightweight and flexible engineering vocabulary that describes and provides explicit information about, common engineering activities. A model for the production of vocabularies to support the specifics and work flows of particular organisations would also be developed. The vocabulary developed would focus on supporting the activities carried out by email (and other informal electronic communication systems) that are not currently supported by discrete tools. An author would structure their email using predefined common elements, either whilst writing or through a process of retrospective classification. The elements would be applied to information on the scale of Information Fragments. Darlington et al. (2008) define an Information Fragment as a meaningful sub-part of an information item without “contextualising information nor conventional form” but is “meaningful by virtue of the information it contains”. The addition of elements to information fragments would associate particular concepts or explicit information representations with those fragments. They would also allow for the addition of concept specific meta-data. This approach is simply one of marking-up the information using a particular coding scheme, using an approach conceptually similar and in implementation, to HTML. The use of elements would act to provide both a guide for the author in writing an email and allow for richer machine interpretation of the content. The approach would aim strike a balance maintaining the freedom of the author to create an email as circumstances and personal preferences require, whilst enforcing a minimum level of structure and consistency in emails across a group or company. The creation of a set of domain specific vocabularies will be the primary contribution of this research. The vocabularies will allow for information which will support use and reuse of engineering information in email and other free form electronic communications mechanisms. The resulting authoring system would act as a lightweight layer on top of current email clients and would be transparent to clients that do not support the additional information. Hicks et al. (2008) identify the migration of informal information into more explicit representations is an established approach to information management. This proposal would provide an intermediate approach between free form and highly structured tools by allowing for flexible addition of information and the strictures of templates. Implementation To add additional information around Information Fragments, it is proposed the system will use a combination of standalone XML data island and Microformats (Khare and Çelik, 2006) or RDFa (Adida et al., 2008). The latter of which would make use of standard vocabularies and new domain specific vocabularies. 44 Challenges In terms of the system as described one of principle challenges will be to balance the long term advantages in reuse, which come at the cost of some extra work on behalf of the author, with the more immediate advantages of the direct recipient. Cayzer (2004) speaks to the need to avoid producing cumbersome and overly rigid systems. References Adida, B., M. Birbeck, S. McCarron, and S. Pemberton (2008): ‘RDFa in XHTML: Syntax and Processing’. W3c recommendation, W3Chu. Cayzer, S. (2004): ‘Semantic Blogging and Decentralized Knowledge Management’. Communications of the ACM, vol. 47, no. 12, pp. 47–52. Darlington, M., S. Culley, Y. Zhao, S. Austin, and L. Tang (2008): ‘Defining a Framework for the Evaluation of Information’. International Journal of Information Quality, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 115132. Hicks, B., A. Dong, R. Palmer, and H. McAlpine (2008): ‘Organizing and Managing Personal Electronic Files: A Mechanical Engineers Perspective’. ACM Transactions on Information Systems, vol. 26, no. 4, pp. 23:1–23:40. Khare, R. and T. Çelik (2006): ‘Microformats: a pragmatic path to the semantic web’. In: Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on World Wide Web (WWW’06). New York, NY, USA, pp. 865–866, ACM. 45 How can information systems support collaboration between health-workers involved in shared care across organizational boundaries? Vigdis Heimly, Ole Andreas Alsos Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Department of Computer and Information Science vigdis.heimly@idi.ntnu.no, ole.andreas.alsos@idi.ntnu.no Abstract. Information infrastructures can facilitate exchange and sharing of health information. An upcoming Norwegian health reform in 2009 will have focus on how the patient can get health services in, or closer to, their homes. The change in the cooperation processes between primary and specialized care will trigger the need for better collaboration platforms. ICT-systems that support collaboration between health workers have been available for more than 10 years, but they are still in limited use. Some indications of why this process has been so difficult are given as a basis for development of new systems that can support the health reform. The work is based on a survey to the Norwegian hospitals in 2008, semi-structured interviews at hospitals and with GPs, participation in meetings with end users, and available documentation. ICT-support for shared care In order to make the treatment chain between primary care and the hospital as efficient as possible, there is a need to register, communicate, and interpret the information that is exchanged by all the involved parties. The information can either be sent as a message, the receiver can actively get access to information that is stored by the another party, or the sender can actively register information in a system held by the cooperation partner held by a third party. The selected technical solution can depend on national legislation, and agreements between the communicating actors, but core EHR-systems are like to replace message based solutions in the coming years. The health worker’s questions Different alternatives will have implications on the involved health’s workprocesses. How can I make sure that I get access to the right information when I 46 need it? How can I be aware that new information is present, at how can I make other parties aware that I have added new content that might be of interest? If the work processes are changed, and the workload is shared between the health workers in new ways, how I trust that others support the new changes? Methods A series of semi-structured interviews with users of existing systems used in shared care, a survey to the hospitals, participation in meetings with project managers, and reading of reports and other documentation has provided some clues to factors that should be paid special attention when new systems are being designed and developed. Results and recommendations Information to be shared need to be suited for the context in question. As an example, an electronic health record document that was written for internal use at the hospital is not necessarily usable for the patient, the GP, or the nurse in homecare. A common understanding of the needs of all the actors who are going to share the health information should be developed over time, and should also imply changes in both specifications of data, user interfaces and technical. New technical solutions need to support all the involved health-workers work processes to a sufficient degree at all levels. The health-workers in different organizations also need to get a better understand of the cooperating actor’s work processes. Extended use of work-exchange where e.g. GPs work with collaborations issues in part time positions at hospitals can be beneficial for a better understanding of other actors’ needs. “If I supply content that benefits you, you should also supply me with content that benefits me.” If this is not possible, other incentives (as economic) should be considered. Awareness of when new content is added is important, but should on the other hand not be to disturbing in the daily work process. As an example, GPs that have been involved in a Norwegian core medical chart project did not want be informed immediately when medication was prescribed for their patients by other doctors, but want to check this on a list at a daily basis. New technical solutions will facilitate new possibilities for collaborations, but many of the existing organizational barriers will still remain, and should be carefully considered when designing new technical solutions. Use of qualitative research methods can be used to get a better understanding of how future collaborative support for shared care can be designed and used. Further use of semi-structured interviews with future users and data analysis based on grounded theory can be beneficial. 47 Towards a commitment network on the Grid Shared Desktop Germana Nóbrega1 , Fernando Cruz2, Carolina Santana, Jovanini Timo 1 Universidade de Brasília, Brazil, 2 Universidade Católica de Brasília, Brazil gmnobrega@cic.unb.br, fwcruz@ucb.br, karolstana@yahoo.com.br, jovanini.timo.compline@caixaseguros.com.br As highlighted by Sampson and Fytros (2008), the concept of Knowledge Management (KM) has been approached from different perspectives, e.g., the organisational and sociological perspective, which addresses key questions such as how one can create and master knowledge in groups, focusing on social networks and communities of practice. In addition, the authors place Competence Management as an important research issue within the research framework of KM. Within the business context, competence maps have been exploited for identifying competence gaps necessary to deal with companies’ needs (Sicilia, 2006). Identifying such gaps is an important step for triggering competence development programs within organisations, for instance, in learning communities (e.g. the tenCompetence project1 ). Competence maps can also be seen as one suitable source of information for managers to gather employees together in group projects. However, having individual (technical) talent is not a guarantee of performing well together (Rajendran, 2005). Most contemporary problems faced by the organisations and the society are recalling the paradigm of Complexity and its systemic, complex, and transdisciplinary perspetive (Morin, 1984). This reinforces the need to achieve excellence in (multi, transdisciplinary) team work. In an ongoing research project, we are particularly concerned with the above mentioned issues, and with the question of how technology can support team both formation and work within an organisation. The main goal of our project is then to design and to prototype a commitment network as both a conceptual framework and a compound of computational artifacts capable of supporting knowledge workers - connected under certain criteria - on safely engaging in group work, by taking 1 www.tencompetence.org 48 into account past accomplished commitments, as well as by identifying incoming possibilities from the network dynamics. In order to attain this goal, a set of dedicated network services are being provided, retrieving information from three different sources: a Competence Portfolio of each individual in the network, a Cases Library, which keeps memory of all the previously performed Commitments, and a Community Profile, maintained to store its current needs and goals. The dynamics of the Commitment Network emerges from the life-cycle of each single Commitment. Such life-cycle is the result from adapting mainly the activities supported by each level from the D EGREE system (Barros and Verdejo, 2000). The phases composing the resulting Commitment life-cycle are Configuration, Negotiation, Performance, Analysis, and Synthesis. From the technology viewpoint, the Commitment Network is being implemented as a number of Grid services on the top of the AGORA platform2 , within its Grid Shared Desktop (G SD) service (Dugénie et al., 2006). Thanks to the immanence principle of G SD, a group can configure in run-time its work environment according to its needs, in terms of tools/services necessary to accomplish the task at hand. This renders the Commitment Network services both domain and task independent. Acknowledgments Work supported by CNPq (Brazil) under the grant 481602/2007-0. References Barros, B. and M. F. Verdejo (2000): ‘Analysing student interaction processes in order to improve collaboration: the DEGREE approach’. Int. J. AIED, vol. 11, pp. 221–241. Dugénie, P., P. Lemoisson, C. Jonquet, M. Crubézy, and C. Laurenço (2006): ‘GSD: a bootstrapping environment for collaboration’. Advanced Technology for Learning (ATL) Journal, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 241–249. Morin, E. (1984): ‘Science et pratique de la complexité’. In: Actes du colloque de Montpellier. Paris: La Documentation Française. Rajendran, M. (2005): ‘Analysis of team effectiveness in software development teams working on hardware and software environments using Belbin Self-perception Inventory’. Journal of Management Development, vol. 24, no. 8, pp. 738–753. Sampson, D. and D. Fytros (2008): ‘Competence Models in Technology-enhanced Competencebased Learning’. In: H. H. Adelsberger, Kinshuk, J. M. Pawlowski, and D. Sampson (eds.): International Handbook on Information Technologies for Education and Training. Springer. Sicilia, M.-A. (2006): ‘Ontology-based competency management: infrastructure for the knowledge intensive learning organization’. In: M. D. Lytras and A. Naeve (eds.): Intelligent learning infrastructure for knowledge intensive organizations: a semantic Web perspective. Idea Group Inc., pp. 302–324. 2 http://agora.lirmm.fr 49