المؤلفون: Ochoa, Sergio F.¹ sochoa@dcc.uchile.cl, Herskovic, Valeria¹ vherskov@dcc.uchile.cl, Pineda, Edgard¹ epineda@dcc.uchile.cl, Pino, José A. jpino@dcc.uchile.cl

المصدر: Information Sciences. Jul2009, Vol. 179 Issue 15, p2643-2655. 13p.

مصطلحات موضوعية: *Knowledge management, *Information resources management, *Information retrieval, *Decision support systems, *Information sharing, *Business information services, *Information science

مستخلص: Abstract: Collaborative activities such as coordination, decision-making and negotiation critically depend on historical information of an organization. This information is usually part of isolated legacy information systems, therefore, it can be inconsistent, redundant and difficult to retrieve and link. Previous research in CSCW has proposed the use of Organizational Memory Systems (OMS) to accumulate, organize, preserve, link and share diverse information coming from various sources, and thus support such collaborative activities. However, there is a need to provide a low-cost feeding process, to embed privacy mechanisms and to support information retrieval capabilities for all users of the OMS, in order to make these solutions useful to a broad range of organizations. As a way to deal with this need, this paper presents a transformational model able to: (a) facilitate the feeding of an OMS based on information stored in legacy information systems, (b) ease the information retrieval process, and (c) embed automatic mechanisms to evolve the information stored in the OMS, through a document privacy lifecycle. This is a low-cost solution that can be implemented using OpenSource technologies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

المؤلفون: Ferreira, Antonio¹ asfe@di.fc.ul.pt, Antunes, Pedro² paa@di.fc.ul.pt, Pino, José A.³ jpino@dcc.uchile.cl

المصدر: Information Research. Mar2009, Vol. 14 Issue 1, p3-3. 1p. 1 Chart.

مصطلحات موضوعية: *Quantitative research, *Computer-supported cooperative work, Human information processing, Group process, Human behavior, Work environment, Performance, Workflow, Groupware (Computer software), Computer input-output equipment, Formative evaluation, Sharing

مستخلص: Introduction. Shared workspace evaluation can be expensive and time consuming. It is also usually oriented towards high-level qualitative perspectives of the collaboration among users. A quantitative method is presented, giving emphasis to the low-level details of critical scenarios of shared workspace interaction, and allowing for comparisons of predicted execution time. Method. Models of human information processing are used to approximate human behaviour while working through a shared workspace. Generic groupware input/output devices and information flows are categorised. Analysis. Three cases of shared workspace activity are analysed. For each case, two or more design scenarios are evaluated and their performance compared. Results. The method contributes to formative evaluation regarding the manipulation of coupling mechanisms and the timing and availability of group awareness information, and it offers indications about the potential performance of users working with shared workspaces. Conclusions. The proposed method is aligned with the century-old need to measure before improving. It is aimed at providing the groupware designer with a tool to make quick calculations, enabling several design iterations, without requiring users or functional prototypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

المؤلفون: Baeza-Yates, Ricardo¹, Pino, José A.¹

المصدر: Information Research. Jul2006, Vol. 11 Issue 4, p13-13. 1p. 3 Charts.

مصطلحات موضوعية: *Computer-supported cooperative work, *Information organization, *Telematics, Groupware (Computer software), Performance evaluation, Quality of work life

مستخلص: Introduction. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) projects are difficult to evaluate when implemented at most organizations. There are many variables and some of these are qualitative and hard to assess. However, there are other variables that could be measured and, thus, for a specific CSCW system, management could have a performance estimate. Method. A groupware application is modelled, focusing on the work done and time spent on the collaboration. Analysis. The following variables and their relations are studied: quality of the outcomes, number of people involved and time spent on the overall task, and total work done. Results. An application - collaborative retrieval - is formalized to illustrate the model. For this application, a specific heuristic is proposed to the case when many people search for the same information, thereby increasing the recall and precision of the answer. The evaluation methodology is applied to this case, showing some experimental results. Conclusion. We present an initial attempt to formally evaluate performance measures related to CSCW applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

المؤلفون: Antunes, Pedro¹, Costa, Carlos J.², Pino, José A.³

المصدر: Information Research. Apr2006, Vol. 11 Issue 3, p4-4. 1p. 6 Diagrams, 1 Chart.

مصطلحات موضوعية: *Electronic systems, *Virtual communities, *Data transmission systems, *Digital communications, *Information resources management, Digital electronics, Communication education

مستخلص: Introduction. Genre analysis is an approach to study communication patterns and thus it can be applied to the specific context of meetings. This research investigates the use of genre analysis in the design of electronic meeting systems. Background. The primary goal of genre analysis is to understand how virtual communities use digital communication to collaborate. This knowledge is fundamental for informing the design of information systems, particularly in areas where communication and informality are paramount. However, the research literature does not report any experiments where genre analysis has been used to inform the design of electronic meeting systems. Problems. The paper tackles the following common problems found in current electronic meeting systems: (1) reduced organizational integration, neglecting many contextual cues and explaining factors necessary to make meeting outcomes usable within the organization; (2) lack of support to specific communities of users, stressing the dependency on a facilitator to configure and manage the technology; and (3) lack of support to meeting occurrences that span long time periods. Conclusions. The paper describes how genre analysis was used to develop electronic meeting systems for several organizations and meeting genres. It covers the complete design process, from genre elicitation to validation. The obtained results demonstrate that the genre approach produces electronic meeting systems focused on organizational integration, pre-configured to communities of users, supporting long-term usage and added organizational value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]