Toward a Taxonomy of Groupware Technologies

1993

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

2002

With GroupOrga (Groupware Based Organization Design) we present a "thinkable" application environment and framework for distributed and collaborative organization design. The relationship between collaboration and organization structure is touched by addressing the question how people in an organization can collaboratively design constantly evolving organization structures. After specifying the term collaboration in the context of GroupOrga we discuss how collaboration technology can support global organizations. With the GroupOrga architecture we present a technological layer for a deeper understanding of collaboration in general. This framework is not restricted to a specific technology, such as the World Wide Web, but considered to be an open architecture. Despite this fact, we look at two collaboration technologies in comparison: groupware and the Web. The question which technology is flexible enough for which requirements is one aspect. Another aspect is that of concrete Web-and groupware-based applications in the GroupOrga project. Our experiences from selected case studies and test implementations will be the concluding topic.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2010

CRIWG conferences follow a simple recipe for success: good papers, a relatively small number of attendees, extensive time for lively and constructive discussions, and a high level of cooperation both within and between paper sessions. CRIWG 2010 continued this tradition. This 16 th CRIWG exemplified the continuing interest in the groupware research area. Papers were reviewed by at least three members of an internationally renowned Program Committee, using a double-blind reviewing process. Based on the reviewers' recommendations 27 papers were finally accepted: 18 long papers presenting mature work, and 9 short papers describing work in progress. The accepted papers were grouped into seven themes that represent current areas of interest in groupware research: Knowledge Elicitation, Construction and Structuring, Collaboration and Decision Making, Collaborative Development, Awareness, Support for Groupware Design, Social Networking and Mobile Collaboration. In addition, we featured a paper describing the history of CRIWG research. We were further very pleased to have Jay Nunamaker, Director of the Center for Management of Information at the University of Arizona, USA, a renowned specialist in group support systems as keynote speaker. Finally we had a demo and distinguished lecture on a new generation of thinkLet-based group support systems by Bob Briggs. CRIWG 2010 would not have been possible without the work and support of a great number of people. First of all we thank all members of the Program Committee for their valuable reviews of the papers. We were grateful for the advice and support provided by the CRIWG Steering Committee, and we thank the Doctoral Consortium Chairs Rafael Gonzalez, from

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2003

1. Introduction Business is a set of complex activities which is performed by coordinating the tasks of different persons of the same group or people of different groups. The intelligent execution of business needs accurate and timely information for decision making. Business activities involve meeting, discussion, scheduling of tasks, communication, managing work flow etc. There is traditional way of doing these activities in business which is time consuming and in situations where members are situated at different locations cannot be performed. Information Technology has extended its help and support in doing these complex activities efficiently and always possible even when people are not physically available at the central place of execution or at the time of execution of the particular activity. Groupware is the term used to denote a type of software that supports group tasks. The commercially available Groupware are the set of software tools having capability to support many group activities. Our research reveals that the Lotus Notes was the first commercially available groupware. Today, we have large number of groupware and some of them are available as open source. The application of Groupware in group environment has improved the quality of group tasks in terms of time saving, efficiency, effective communication and coordination. The present paper is an effort to trace the evolution of groupware and its early use in group work environment. This paper includes defining the Groupware (the digital collaborative tool), evolution of various tools, Groupware as part of CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work) research, Scope of Groupware current status of groupware in groupware, findings and suggestions. Literature has been reviewed to find the initial efforts that has resulted in development of groupware technology. The paper tried to scan the literature to reveal the process of development in the technology and its application in business process improvement. Important tools of groupware have evolved over the years to meet the increasing requirement in group work environment.

International journal of engineering research and technology, 2021

Application software utilized to assist groups consisting of two or more individuals working towards same outcome is called collaborative software. These software mostly function by allowing process managers to keep track of required group processes that are needed to obtain a specific result. Software development heavily relies upon inter/intra-team collaboration between small teams of developers to build functional software modules. Utilization of collaborative groupware software monitors individual contributions towards process outcomes. Mapping individual contributions will cause a boost in overall productivity by allowing the organization process managers to highlight specific unfulfilled processes over the span of a Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). Tools designed to facilitate inter/intra-team collaborative interaction were examined. This paper studies factors which influence design of collaborative groupware implementations along with their adoption by end-users in a post COVID (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic impacted world. We present our inferences on existing productivity groupware implementations after going through referenced literature pertaining to their construction and impact on the end-user. We detail the variables which influence usage patterns and implementation of productivity tool, investigating whether User Interfaces (UI) allow for end-user to have an uncluttered experience while navigating the tool, checking for cohesive user engagement using local variables unique to the experiences of domestic teams. Lastly, we conclude with a few points regarding complications faced while designing resources to assist globally distributed virtual networks of teams carrying out complex projects.

Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), 2003

More often than not, users appear to use groupware in another way than the groupware designers intended or IT departments expected. Users tend to 're-invent' the technology by developing novel uses, giving rise to what we call 'the evolving use of technology'. This innovative use of groupware in time leads to changed and changing work processes and individual working practices change (

1995

Group Communication Paradigms play an important role in the management of group activities, such as reliable information diffusion in support of replication and cooperation. They consequently provide an appropriate framework for groupware applications support. To meet the new challenges posed by large scale distributed settings like the Internet, a new generation of group communication systems has emerged, built on the lessons learnt from early prototypes. This paper presents new services/features proposed by this new generation of systems and shows their relevance in the context of groupware support. Experiments with a cooperative application demonstrate how the features of a group-based system like NAVTECH can be used to enhance the functionality of groupware applications. NAVTECH is a modern group communication and activity support system developed at INESC. and the groupware applications requirements. Selecting key functionality of the groupware platform, we have shown that groups can be identified at different levels of the architecture and established a mapping to group support services .

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

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

Proceedings, 2021

This meta-analysis examines the studies on groupware published between the years 2010 and 2020. Descriptive analysis was conducted to determine the distribution of studies in terms of publication year, time–space matrix category, targeted sectors, research methods, and the academic field of the journals that published these studies. Although groupware played a significant role in communication, collaboration, and coordination of users in various collaborative work conditions and sectors, the majority of studies focused on asynchronous and distributed collaborative work environments in the software engineering field, and the research method preferred was design science.