Application of a Cognitive Model of Collaboration to a User Interface (original) (raw)
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San Francisco, CA 1. Introduction This paper draws from data collected as part of a larger case study on conversation in computer-‐mediated team meetings (see also Markman, 2007, 2009, 2010). A group of five undergraduate students at a large, public university in the southwest United States were recruited for a summer-‐semester(five and one-‐half weeks) independent study course under the supervision of the director of the Science, Technology, and Society program.
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We have developed an explanatory, descriptive model broad enough to reflect the different elements of collaborative work which are part of commercial and public organisations. Our model aims to establish a structured representation of the attributes which influence and form part of collaborative work. It is predominantly based on the existing literature on computer supported cooperative work, distributed cognition, education, social and organisational psychology, management science, and collaboration within healthcare teams; and is additionally supported by our experience of working with a range of industrial organisations. We applied the model in a practical way to underpin the concepts of a new methodology called CoScope, which was designed to assess the collaboration capability of organisations. The methodology focuses on the extent to which
From socially-mediated to technology-mediated coordination
Proceedings of the 8th iternational conference on Computer supported collaborative learning - CSCL'07, 2007
It is well known that scripts based on good practices can enhance the collaboration effectiveness and efficiency in CSCL environments. Yet, to achieve rich, interactive, and creative collaborative learning settings CSCL tools need new flexible, dynamic and lightweight metaphors. This design tension between social and technology-mediated coordination is difficult to resolve and worthy of close analysis. In this paper, we study such a tension through the use of the Group Scribbles (GS) CSCL tool, developed at SRI International, a GUI-based approach that enables the creation and enactment of lightweight CSCL scenarios. The potential of GS, as well as its limitations and possible extensions are studied in relation to design scripts based on Collaborative Learning Flow Patterns. Preliminary experiences in an authentic environment illustrate several facets of the design tension, such as the participants' workload and awareness, or the adaptation to emergent situations. On the other hand, this study points out the need for a new flexible architecture that complements Group Scribbles. This paper focuses on activity-level coordination and awareness in face-to-face activity, and examines the tradeoffs between socially-mediated and technology-mediated coordination. It aims to provide an initial exploration View publication stats View publication stats
Computer Mediated Interaction in Business
Recent trends in Management and Commerce, 2023
The way individuals experience group work can vary from person to person and from one meeting to another. Flow refers to the state of being actively engaged and finding enjoyment in the task at hand. With the growing recognition of the significance of computer-supported collaborative work (CSCW), numerous studies have focused on investigating how CSCW affects group behavior in different fields such as organizational behavior, learning, marketing, sociology, and human-computer interaction. These two characteristics, both combined and separately, have been frequently cited as crucial factors influencing processes and outcomes in group settings. The computer support used in CSCW ranges from electronic mail and bulletin boards to electronic meeting systems and group decision support systems. The group task may involve activities such as problem-solving, open-ended discussions, or brainstorming. Flow refers to a state of complete engagement in a task, were individuals experience concentration and enjoyment. Unlike "participation," which is often measured by the number of exchanges or a member's perception of inclusion, flow is an individual's subjective experience. The measurement of flow typically includes factors such as decision time and quality, while process measures encompass group communication, group satisfaction, and variables related to individual satisfaction. The importance of flow in fostering creativity has been explored in other research on computer-supported collaborative work (CSCW). In the CSCW literature, user satisfaction, along with group performance, has been recognized as a significant dependent variable. Results from Numerous empirical studies have focused on user satisfaction, but there is a need for further investigation into the individual's experience and the mediating variables involved. Previous research has explored the literature on computer-mediated communication (CMC) in organizations has widely acknowledged a significant distinction between CMC and other forms of interaction: the absence of nonverbal cues in CMC. Unlike face-to-face or video-based communication, CMC relies solely on language and typography, lacking the cues conveyed through body language. This distinction has been recognized as a crucial factor differentiating CMC from unmediated communication, telephonic communication, and video-conferencing. The authors express gratitude to Elizabeth Harwood, Steve Goransson, United Airlines employees, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for their participation in the research. Additionally, they extend thanks to Michael Holmes and three anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions, which contributed to the development of this work. A previous version of this research was presented at the annual meeting of the Speech Communication Association in November 1994, held in New Orleans.
Conversational effectiveness in multimedia communications
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Due to the fact that we observed real meetings with naturalistic data, we were unable to measure directly the overall effectiveness of communication in the different conditions. Other research has shown that characteristics such as back-channels and interruptions are related to task outcome. Laboratory studies are needed to measure the effects on task outcome of disrupting the different conversation characteristics under more controlled conditions (O'Conaill et al., 1993, citations omitted). Accordingly, our approach to assessing the effectiveness of new communications technology centres on performance and subjective satisfaction measures in a laboratory experiment in which alternative communications modalities are used for the performance of controlled tasks. The outcome of this research will, we hope, be a deeper understanding of the factors that contribute to the effectiveness of communications and communications technology for collaborative work, as well as some practical methods that can be used to study and evaluate situated communication. Communication modality When collaborators are co-located in space and time, they typically communicate "face-to-face," which is to say they use spoken language accompanied by expressive sounds and gestures (such as laughing, groaning, whistling, smiling, frowning, eyebrow raising, head nodding, hand waving, and pointing). However, would-be collaborators do not always find it convenient or possible to be in the same place at the same time, and so they may engage in mediated communication. Mediated communication can take on a variety of forms, which include using a human messenger, writing letters, sending electronic mail, talking on the telephone, leaving a recorded voice message, and communicating via a multimedia workstation. These forms of communication can be classified and differentiated in a variety of ways. Some forms use spoken language, while others use written language. Some forms are synchronous, allowing interaction in real time, while others are asynchronous. Some forms support only verbal communication, while others also support some degree of visual communication, such as expressions and gestures. Some forms support formal, highly structured language and action, while others support informal, conversational interaction. Finally, some forms of mediation impose rigid constraints-that is, they force communication to be, say, written, asynchronous, visual, and purely verbal; others are more flexible in that they allow communication to be either written or spoken, synchronous or asynchronous, visual and auditory, verbal and non-verbal, formal or informal. In the research literature, specific systems for mediated communication and the dimensions along which they vary have been referred to as communication modalities. Face-to-face communication has also been regarded as a modality (Chapanis et al., 1972; 1977). ITP 8,1 56 Modality and cooperative work Communication is central to the concept of cooperative work (see, e.g. Malone and Crowston, 1990; Reder and Schwab, 1988)). Communication systems for cooperative work are being developed in a variety of modalities that reflect the space of possible mediating characteristics. Some of these systems are asynchronous; examples include electronic mail servers and other structured information systems such as The Coordinator (Winograd, 1988), gIBIS (Conklin and Begeman, 1988), and COSMOS (Bowers and Churcher, 1988). Other systems are synchronous; examples include shared editors, teleconferencing systems, and multimedia computing environments. Systems also vary on the dimensions of visual versus non-visual, written versus oral, and formal versus informal. Synchronous, informal, oral and visual interaction for cooperative work necessarily requires communication and computing systems that employ multiple media. Multimedia communications can be supported via computercontrolled audio and video channels external to the computer display, with communication to and from individual workstations. This style of interaction was developed for CRUISER (
The effect of social grounding on collaboration in a computer-mediated small group discussion
The Internet and Higher Education, 2006
There is a tremendous amount of pressure on educators to incorporate highly advanced computer-mediated communication (CMC) into the classroom, but the research shows that this is not an easy task. Part of the difficulty learners experience within current network applications is a lack of support from the design of the software for the development of a common ground. This paper reports on a study of how a group of online students used a software application specifically designed to mediate a threaded discussion. Results of the study show that properly designed software had a significant impact on the creation and maintenance of the common ground necessary to create and foster a community of talk. Nonetheless, the data also shows that specialized software is not enough. An important factor in using online interaction well is for the teacher to closely monitor students online. These two factors, suitably designed software that is appropriately implemented, are closely related and will result in optimum experience for students.
Group Cognition in Synchronous Chat
gerrystahl.net
There are many theories useful for framing collaborative-learning research and they may in principle be irreducible to a single theory. Collaborativelearning research explores questions involving numerous distinct-though interacting-phenomena at multiple levels of description. The useful approach may be to clearly distinguish levels such as individual, small-group and community units of analysis, and to differentiate terminology for discussing these different levels. Theory in general has evolved dramatically over the ages, with a trend to extend the unit of cognition beyond the single idea or even the individual mind. Seminal theoretical works influential within collaborative-learning research suggest a post-cognitive approach to group cognition as a complement to analyzing cognition of individuals or of communities of practice. There is no one theory of collaborative learning. Research in collaborative learning is guided by and contributes to a diverse collection of theories. Even the word theory means different things to different researchers and plays various distinct roles within collaborative-learning work. The reading of the history of theory presented here is itself reflective of one theoretical stance among many held, implicitly or explicitly, by collaborative-learning researchers. The nature and uses of theory have changed over history and continue to evolve. The theories most relevant to collaborative learning-in the view developed in this paper-concern the nature of cognition, specifically cognition in collaborating groups. Through history, the analysis of cognition has broadened, from a focus on single concepts (Platonic ideas) or isolated responses to stimulae (behaviorism), to a concern with mental models (cognitivism) and representational artifacts (post-cognitivism). Theories that are more recent encompass cognition distributed across people and tools, situated in contexts, spanning small groups, involved in larger activities and across communities of practice. For collaborativelearning research, theory must take into account interaction in online environments, knowledge building in small groups and cognition at multiple units of analysis. A brief history of theory An important approach to collaborative-learning research is the relatively recent field of computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). This chapter will focus on that field. CSCL is multidisciplinary by its nature and because of its origins (see Stahl, Koschmann & Suthers, 2006, for a history of CSCL from a perspective similar to the one here). Consider the name, Computer-supported Collaborative Learning: it combines concerns with computer technology, collaborative social
A user’s guide to the pragmatics of computer mediated communication
Computers are widely believed to be "artificial" models of "natural" human intelligence. "AI" and the related field of cognitive science have received a great deal of study in recent years. The entry of the computer into the field of communications suggests another interesting metaphor which may also prove useful. Instead of considering the computer as a model of the mind, one could look at computer mediated communication systems as "artificial" models of the "natural" communication systems in which we are accustomed to participate. The interesting feature of "AC" is not the use of computer hardware, but the conscious construction of programs and conventions by which to simulate familiar communication systems, and to make possible new systems not previously conceived. This discussion will explore the implications of artificial communication in the case of computer conferencing, a particularly revealing application of computers to human communications. Computer conferencing is a sophisticated kind of electronic mail system employed to facilitate group discussion over a computer network. The technology makes it possible to define private groups, usually no larger than 50, with access to a topically defined discussion forum. Messages typed by members of the group at their own computer terminals are transmitted over phone lines to a central computer where they are classified and stored. Participants can "sign on" at times of their own convenience, using the central computer as a "meeting place" for an "asynchronous" conversation that may last weeks or months.