Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)

Organizations have been experimenting with intraorganizational crowdsourcing (IOC), yet the mechanisms of IOC production remain an underresearched topic. Drawing on a 2-mode ERGM, we examine structural mechanisms and individual-level factors that shape the network structure of idea generation and selection yielded by an IOC idea challenge in a global IT corporation. Results show a Matthew effect leading to 1) highly centralized employee participation around a few " superactive " employees who engage with many ideas and 2) highly centralized idea popularity with a few ideas attracting most employee attention. We find support for shared affiliations among employee-idea clusters in the first half of the participation, which is, however, less likely in the second half. We also find support for geographic homophily. The rise of crowdsourcing platforms for idea generation and selection has attracted research on their implications for organizational problem solving and innovation (Brabham, 2013). However, most studies have focused on open crowdsourcing platforms, which allow the influx of ideas beyond a clearly defined, formal organizational boundary. By contrast, relatively few studies have examined how intraor-ganizational crowdsourcing (IOC) platforms allow organizations to tap the collective wisdom within a closed system of employees for new ideas and innovation. More importantly, little attention has been

A long-term naturalistic study reveals how artists designed, visitors experienced, and curators and technicians maintained a public interactive artwork over a four year period. The work consisted of a collaborative augmented reality game that ran across eleven networked displays (screens and footpads) that were deployed along a winding ramp in a purpose-built gallery. Reflections on design meetings and documentation show how the artists responded to this architectural setting and addressed issues of personalisation, visitor flow, attracting spectators, linking real and virtual, and accessibility. Observations of visitors reveal that while their interactions broadly followed the artists’ design, there was far more flexible engagement than originally anticipated, especially within visiting groups, while interviews with curators and technicians reveal how the work was subsequently maintained and ultimately reconfigured. Our findings extend discussions of ‘interactional trajectories’ within CSCW, affirming the relevance of this concept to describing collaboration in cultural settings, but also suggesting how it needs to be extended to better reflect group interactions at multiple levels of scale.

Software agents are a means to support socio-technical decentralised systems that increase the complexity of daily life. Designing multi-agent systems involves modelling methods for which it is currently not possible to check for soundness before a technical implementation. To improve the design process, the agent models require a mapping to a formalisation that is sufficiently expressive to represent equivalent model properties. The formalized presentation must cater for evaluating the model soundness, simulation and performance experimentation with different test data. The paper gives a set of mapping heuristics from agent models to a sufficiently expressive formalisation representation that follows a real life running case stemming from the healthcare domain.

The paper reviews work on informal technical help giving between colleagues. It concentrates on the process of how colleagues help each other to use a computer application to achieve a specific work task, contrasting this with the focus of much prior work on surrounding issues like the choice of whom to ask, information re-use and the larger work context of encouragement or otherwise of such learning. By an analysis of the literature and a study of office activity, some strengths and weaknesses of the method are identified. The difficulties of talking about the process of performing graphical user interface actions are explored. Various design implications for functionalities to improve the efficiency of informal help giving are explored. A consideration of informal learning can help in designing more effective, learnable, robust and acceptable CSCW systems. It also provides a different perspective on interface design as an exploration of features to support human–human interaction, using the computer screen as a shared resource to support this. In this way CSCW research may contribute to HCI research, since during such help giving, all computer systems are at least temporarily collaborative applications.

Designing information systems for cooperative decision making in complex environments poses new challenges to the theory and methodology of work analysis. In particular, a theoretical framework is needed for analyzing and modelling cooperative work and specifying requirements to computer-based systems meant to support cooperative work. The paper outlines a conceptual framework for analysis of cooperative work. In this framework, cooperative work relations are conceived as emerging formations shaped by the requirements of the work domain and the characteristics of the technical and human resources at hand. In the course of this discourse, the paper shows that a generative theory of cooperative work is feasible. The conceptual framework has been developed in concert with practical work analysis projects in several different domains: technical consultancy, municipal administration, mechanical engineering, portfolio management, mathematical research, policy making in trade union federations, labor protection counselling, wage appraisal in construction, production control in manufacturing, and resource planning in hospitals

Meeting new people and socializing can be a fun and stimulating experience. Yet, for some the task of breaking the ice between themselves and another person can be difficult. In this paper, we present a model in an attempt to explain and understand different aspects of icebreaking, in particular the sequential phases of which the act can be broken in to. Moreover, we present a game prototype that utilizes changing of gameplay to help encourage this sequential icebreaking. In-context case studies showed several positive design aspects and points of both model and prototype. Evaluation of the study raised important questions about relevance and validity. However, all in all the study gives incentive for future work and research.

Online dating systems are a common way to discover romantic partners. Yet there persists a gap in knowledge regarding how users of these systems determine which potential partners are worthy of in-person meetings, as well as the outcomes of these in-person meeting decisions. The objective of this dissertation is twofold: 1) to understand how online dating system users make decisions to meet or not meet potential romantic partners in-person, and 2) to understand how online dating system designs currently support—and could better support—predictions of initial in-person attraction to potential romantic partners.

... him, or to be in his company without a male relative also being present. ... The work that our participants described could similarly be said to have reinforced their ... unpack in greater detail how our participants' communication practices reflected specific Arabic cultural expectations ...

Despite being considered a fundamental issue in the design, use, and appropriation of digital technologies, IT security has found but little attention in CSCW so far. Approaches in Human-Computer Interaction and Software Engineering do not account appropriately for the weave of dispersed practices that it takes to 'do' IT security—practices that involve a heterogeneous set of actors and unfold at diverse sites and across organizational, legal, and professional boundaries. In this paper we propose to conceive of IT security through the lens of care, a notion that we draw from Science and Technology Studies. Caring for IT security requires continuous, often invisible work that relies upon tinkering and experimentation and addresses perennial oscillations between in-/securities. Caring for IT security, then, engages with established accountabilities and cultivates a moral stance that refrains from blaming insecurities upon single actors. We conclude with outlining a caring approach to IT security for CSCW.

Massively multiplayer online (MMO) environments are an emerging computer technology that makes possible new kinds of
distributed communities and online sociability. What distinguishes MMOs from other Internet media is that they take face-toface
conversation as their primary metaphor for user interaction, rather than, say, the page or the bulletin board. Because they
simulate 3D spaces and contain thousands of people who do not know each other, MMOs constitute public spaces, although
virtual ones. As such, they can be studied in ways analogous to those of public places in the physical world. Inspired by the
work of William H. Whyte and Ray Oldenburg on sociability in real-life public places, we take a similar approach toward the
study of MMOs. We ask the question: what makes some virtual public spaces in MMOs successful “third places” while other
similar places fail? Through our virtual ethnography of dance clubs and corner bars in three MMO environments, we find four
features of virtual public spaces that appear critical for their success: accessibility, social density, activity resources, and hosts.
We further argue that MMO sociability is just as authentic as that in “real-life” contexts while highlighting ways in which it
is distinctly different.

Abstract: This deliverable has been produced in the context of the Knowledge-Practice Laboratory (KP-Lab) project, which is aimed at facilitating innovative practices of working with knowledge in higher education, teacher training, and professional networks. This deliverable is a synopsis of the first experiences encountered during the first 6 months of the work in WP10. WP10 focused on tools and practices where elicitation, capturing and creating knowledge in different representational modes aims to making them available for ...

This workshop addresses the changing nature of work and the important role of exchange platforms as both intermediaries and managers. It aims to bring together interdisciplinary and critical scholars working on the power dynamics of digitally mediated labor. By doing so, the workshop provides a forum for discussing current and future research opportunities on the digital economy, including the sharing economy, the platform economy, the gig economy, and other adjacent framings. Of particular interest to this workshop is the intersection between worker and provider subjectivities and the roles platforms take in managing work through algorithms and software. Our one-day workshop accommodates up to 20 participants.

Creativity, a primary academic objective, is crucial in higher education, as economic, informational, societal and environmental advancements rely on people’s ability to innovate. Creativity is widely investigated in its individualistic form, yet there is a notable dearth in work that studies its collective dimension, from a learning perspective.
This study focuses on validating the psychometric properties of an existing instrument (ASCC), by measuring creative collaboration in blended learning settings. Two hundred and thirty six under and post-graduate students self-evaluated their creative collaboration experiences, using the ASCC instrument. The findings of exploratory factor analysis denote a three-factor (21-item) structure, measuring ‘Synergistic Social Collaboration’, ‘Distributed Creativity’, and ‘Time Regulation and Achievement’, with good internal consistency.
An instrument with valid psychometric properties for the assessment of creative collaboration is much-needed in the growing research and practitioners’ community. This is critical in the fields of Design, HCI and Engineering, that rely extensively on the creative collaboration (online and offline) of teams to develop innovative products that are suitable for real-world purposes.

In the study described in this paper, the role of technology in organizational learning and performance, and collaborative platforms’ contributions on improving organizational performance are explored. The paper also mentions major types of collaborative tools and platforms used for organizational performance improvement. This study investigates the possible contributions of the usage of technology together with appropriate collaborative strategy to the organizational learning and performance improvement.

E-Government projects are currently service-oriented, focusing on the implementation and diffusion of digital public services, through one-stop points of access for citizens. E-Government strategic plans are political, directed at cost and time minimization during the execution of public services, and they do not analyze citizen needs, or public Administration’s internal operating peculiarities. Surveys carried out around the world show that users evaluate digital public services. The same surveys show that citizens don’t hesitate to return to traditional methods rather than using digital channels to transact with the public Administration again; neither would they recommend their use to others. In this paper we present collaborating and participating tools and methods for use by public servants, in order to offer their knowledge and experience in the execution of custom and non-automated public services. Collaborating tools can succeed in the development of real one-stop shops for e-Government.

Georg Simmel [American Journal of Sociology 55:254–261 (1949)] is widely credited as the first scholar to have seriously examined sociability – ‘‘the sheer pleasure of the company of others’’ and the central ingredient in many social forms of recreation and play. Later Ray Oldenburg [The Great Good Place. New York: Marlowe & Company (1989)] extended Simmel’s work by focusing on a certain class of public settings, or ‘‘third places,’’ in which sociability tends to occur, such as, bars, coffee shops, general stores, etc. But while Simmel and Oldenburg describe activities and public spaces in the physical world, their concepts may apply as well to virtual or online worlds. Today Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) are extensive, persistent online 3D environments that are populated by hundreds of thousands of players at any given moment. The sociable nature of these online spaces is often used to explain their success: unlike previous video games, MMOGs require players to exchange information and collaborate in real-time to progress in the game. In order to shed light on this issue, we critically examine player-to-player interactions in a popular MMOG (Star Wars Galaxies). Based on several months of ethnographic observations and computerized data collection, we use Oldenburg’s notion of ‘‘third places’’ to evaluate whether or not the social spaces of this virtual world fit existing definitions of sociable environments. We discuss the role online games can play in the formation and maintenance of social capital, what they can teach us about the evolution of sociability in an increasingly digitally connected social world, and what could be done to make such games better social spaces.

This thesis introduces within the Interaction Design field geographical notions of space and place, in order to enhance the design and development of novel interactive environments in the physical world.
Ubiquitous computing technologies allow designers to envision and develop “augmented” physical environments, where computational elements and I/O devices are seamlessly embedded within the fabric of spaces, and within the objects that populate these spaces. I believe that current research in the Interaction Design field lacks conceptual and methodological tools for dealing with the full range of issues that these novel systems present.
In this thesis I analyse features of existing augmented spaces and discuss the different conceptualizations of space that have emerged to support the conceptual design of such systems. In order to overcome the limits of these approaches, my proposed contribution to the field is the introduction of the notion of place as it has been developed within the humanistic school of geography. Place is a notion of space inextricably linked with the wealth of human experience and use occurring within it, and invested by values, attitudes and cultural influences. In other words, place is experienced space.
In the thesis I present an articulation of the concept in order to highlight the different dimensions of human experience of place. I also describe the practical application of this approach to a design case, namely an interactive museum exhibition. I describe the different phases of the design process and how they were informed by the concept of place and its methodological implications, visitor experiences of and reactions to the final exhibition are also analysed.

Areas of research such as Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), Information Systems (IS), and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) are interdisciplinary by virtue of their particular research questions and destined to venture beyond the conceptual and methodological sanctuaries of institutionalized disciplines. Researchers in such areas therefore face a constant temptation to import conceptual innovations or theories that might make it less taxing and troublesome to venture outside the disciplinary habitat. In the case of practice-centered computing, so-called practice theory, developed over the last few decades in the philosophy of sociology by Bourdieu, Giddens, Schatzki and others, obviously poses such a temptation but should not be imported unexamined. The aim of this chapter is to subject this body of theory to critical scrutiny. In so doing, the argument draws on Wittgenstein's analysis of normative regularity or "rule-following".

This article has one theme and two parts. The theme is that we humans can do more and do it more enjoyably when we cooperate. The first part of the article explains eight principles  from  cooperative  learning,  a  methodology that facilitates students learning in groups of two-four members, along with the learning they do with teachers and by studying on their own. The second part describes four cooperative learn-ing techniques, as a way to bring to life the eight principles from the first part, and also to provide readers of the article with ready-made ideas for using cooperative learning in their own teaching. This article suggests that shorter cooperative learning  activities can  prepare  students  for  doing  projects, and that students can do shorter cooperative learning activities as part of the work they do on projects.

The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) has been parsimonious, empirically supported, widely cited, most
prominent, most compelling and well established model for predicting intentional behavior. Despite its
comprehensive and valid prediction on behavior, TPB has received many debates and criticism on its narrow
sufficiency of the three original components constructs of attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral
control. This article discusses on the empirical support of various authors that recognized other relevant external
factors to be considered in addition to the original model and considerations for future research context to enrich
the existing theoretical contributions.

Overview of ongoing research in the CISA group (WISE research lab) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. The group is investigating cross-media information spaces and architectures, interactive paper and augmented reality solutions as well as multimodal and multi-touch interaction frameworks. Thereby, we are doing research on new document formats for representing information across different types of media as well as fluid user interfaces for interacting with the resulting cross-media information spaces. A significant part of our research is based on applying and extending the resource-selector-link (RSL) hypermedia metamodel.

More information: https://beatsigner.com/cross-media-information-spaces-and-architectures.html

This thesis seeks out some answers to the broad question of what one can learn from digital games. In response to prevailing discussions about how, where and what gamers learn, the aim is to examine emerging forms of knowledge embedded in practices in and around digital games. As an alternative to abstract accounts of what members of the gaming culture learn, the thesis describes the reasoning and knowledge displayed by gamers and game developers with respect to their long and short-term commitment to games on the market and games in development, respectively. In conclusion, it is suggested that digital games are establishing autonomy from other forms of entertainment media and software industries as a result of the ways games and gaming as multistable objects of knowledge have become deeply embedded in society.