Collaboration

1. Collaboration Human Computer Interaction CIS 6930/4930 Section 4188/4186

2. Intro • Old school: individualism • Alienating and antihuman • New School: chat rooms, listserves, MMORPGs, IRC • socially respectable and occassionally positive • Terms: • Computer Support Cooperative Work (CSCW) • Does this include cooperative, collaborative, and competitive? • Groupware (team orientated collaborative interfaces) • Covers many fields including: • Psychology • Sociology • Now a design requirement for most interfaces • Everyone must give a presentation on one interface, including • Invention date, Pros, Cons, Current Usage, Business possiblities, Research areas, Future • Choices: email, IRC, IM, MMORPG, Medical, B2B,

3. Types of Collaboration • Focused Partnerships – close collaborations between a small group (2 to 3) that require each person • Ex. Authors, Medical team, Programmers • Needs: Share documents, joint review • Apps: IM, Video conference, email, broadband • Lecture/demo – one person shares to others • Needs: Store, replay, broadband • Conferences – distributed communication (synchronous and asynchronous) • Needs: many-to-many messaging • Apps: Blogs and wikis (group editing spaces) • Structured Work – group with distinct roles work on a task • Apps: online conference/journal managers • Meeting and decision support – Many people with local and global data (psychology impacts)2 • Apps: program committees • Electronic commerce – reviewing data and making decisions as a group (time and space distributed) • Apps: b2b negotiations • Teledemocracy – groups, organizations, gov’t meetings • Apps: online town-hall meetings (impacts constituent power) • Online Communities – large widely distributed group • Apps: MMORPG, Communities of interest (COIs) and Communities of practice (COPs) • Collabortories – groups that work together over time and space, usually to share equipment, expertise, etc. • Apps: Time sharing unique equipment • Benefits from similar file formats • Telepresence – remote participants to have experiences as being present. Notion of co-presence • Apps: VR, remote control vehicles • Questions about etiquette, subtlety, responsibility, trust

4. Space – Time Matrix

5. Goals of Collaboration • Research is harder w/ collaborative systems • Controlled experiments are more complicated • Multiple users • Distributed nature • Lots of data to process • Researchers can use: • Social psych lit • Reflective case studies of tools • Usage stats • What makes some interfaces successful while others not? • Accepted: Cell phones, email, IM • Research: VE, video conferencing • How do you evaluate effectiveness? • Acceptance can be misleading (IM, email) • Surveys, usage stats, test scores for teaching apps • Don’t discount the effect of shared risk in face-to-face meetings that make them compelling

6. Asynchronous Distributed Interfaces • Different methods to support AD collaboration • What are the pros and cons of each? • E-Mail • Organization is difficult for large volume users • Spam • Half of US population uses it • List control • Newsgroups • Communications between groups • Hiearchical structure • Listserve (moderated/unmoderated) • Discussion Boards (evolved from BBSs) • Stat: Lurkers outnumber posters by 100:1 • Most unmoderated groups do not survive • Support for archiving, sorting, searching • Online conferencing benefits from anytime connectivity • Online communities • Topics focused groups • Both: good collaboration and addiction and disturbing cyber-identities • Successful: Patient support (rare diseases, immobile patients) • Generalized Reciprocity – help others believing you will be eventually helped • Requires both good interfaces and understanding of the social community • Clearly stated purpose, well-defined membership, explicit policies • Data-mining in online forums • Subset: Distance education courses • Subset: Open source communities • Evolution of emoticons (icons [typically text] that represent an emotional state)

7. Synchronous Distributed Interfaces • Different Place, Same Time • Initial systems: GRoup Outline Viewing Editor (GROVE) • Edit the same document simultaneously w/ voice chat • Sharing and affecting information dynamically • Example research: Distributed acting rehearsals • Expansive 3D environments • App: ActiveWorlds • Research: Role of avatars in these environments • Slater • What is important for avatars? • Instant Messenging • 28% were simple interactions, 31% about scheduling and coordination • Short Messaging Systems (SMS) – Texting • Enables a more even distribution of technology • Short: India fishermen can check dock prices before coming ashore • Allows activists and protestors to organize quickly

8. Video and Audio Conferencing • Large industry for video and audio conferencing • Companies: Polycom, Sony, VTEL • Pros: infrastructure available, cost versus travel, facial expression, some body language • Cons: eye contact, intimacy, subtle side meetings, availability, body expression, physical contact • Leverage desktop videoconferencing (DTVC) - mid90s • CU-SeeME • Net Meeting (screenshot) • Allows access to files during conversation • Considerations: • Bandwidth, packet loss, compression quality, latency, action synchronization, FOV • Studies on impact on task performance of audio and visual streams • Chapanis ’75 – importance of audio for review of shared visuals • Audio is important, though users often desire video • If review of an object is the task, then using video significantly improves performance • What has restricted more wide usage? • Is it eye-contact? • Lack of 3D? OOTF • Would constant-on video conferencing improve the sense of co-presence? or just intrusive? (Jancke ’01) • Tasks • Helped: Initial meetings • For distance learning: Audio > video > text

9. Face to Face Interfaces • Teams of people working together and sharing technology • Ex. pilot & co-pilot, stock traders, air traffic controllers • GroupSystems (Univ. of Arizona – Valalcich ’91) • Semicircular classroom w/ 24 personal computers built into desks • Anonymous proposals • Study: (Nunamaker ’91) discusses benefits • Broader input, fewer dominators • More candid comments • Group history was useful • Helped focus the group discussion • Improved information analysis • Lots of projects on shared spaces • Capture Lab at Electronic Data Systems (Mantei ’88) • 8 Macs around an oval desk for business meetings with a central display that any user can take control of • Display walls (Xerox PARC’s LiveBoard) • New tracked pens allow for electronic copies • Public display walls is a new interaction paradigm that needs new interaction methodologies

10. Electronic Classrooms • Most balance learning with • Too much ‘chatting’ • Cheating • Conversations off topic • New learning and interaction styles • More interactive than traditional lectures • More prep time • Reports of greater efficiency • Anxiety is reduced by showing work more often • Can support small group dynamics (pairs learn better than individuals for collaboration tasks) • Time variance reduced with fewer stragglers • Novel simulations: Hostage negotiation, space camp