Workshops
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Sunday 7
September 1997 |
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Conference participants took part in the following workshops. Workshops
offer an informal environment for focused group discussion and learning.
Full-day Workshops
Workshop 1: Workplace Studies: Theoretical and Practical Issues
Organiser: Duska Rosenburg, Brunel University
In recent years, social scientists and designers have recognized the
need for a greater integration of their work in the study of cooperative
work settings and in the design of the supporting technology. The goal
of this workshop is to bring together participants from a number of academic
disciplines concerned with the relationship between people and technology
in the workplace. The discussion will be focused on the work done in this
area in recent years. The underlying theme of the workshop will be the
nature of ethnography as a descriptive social science and its role in workplace
studies to inform design.
Duska Rosenberg
Center for Research in Information Environments
Brunel University
Uxbridge
Middlesex UB8 3PH
Email: Duska.Rosenberg@brunel.ac.uk
Workshop 2: Community Networks:
Opening a new research field for cooperative work
Organisers: Fiorella de Cindio, University of Milano; Leandro Navarro,
Gerard RodrÃguez and Artur Serra, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya
Over the last decade many community networks have developed mainly
in the US and Canada as grassroots services, serving local communities.
The European experience is just beginning. Despite their big success, significant
social and technological problems are slowing down their initial push.
Little theoretical work has been done in relation to these experiences.
Although learning from these experiences, and taking advantage of the long
experience of the CSCW community, we propose working for the opening of
a new research field of cooperative work, helping to start a new generation
of global-local community networks with a broader impact on society. Cases
studies on running community nets will be presented. Researchers trained
in CSCW may have one of the best backgrounds for this new research area.
Artur Serra
Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya
Campus Nord
Gran Capita s/n. Barcelona 08071
Spain
Tel: +34-3-4017182
Fax: +34-3-4017055
Email: artur@ac.upc.es
Workshop 4: Collaboration in the Digital Library
Organisers: Elizabeth Churchill, FXPAL; Elisabeth Davenport, Queen Margaret
College, Edinburgh; Rob Procter, University of Edinburgh; Dave Snowdon,
University of Nottingham ; David Nichols and Michael Twidale, Lancaster
University
Much of the research in CSCW is illustrated and perhaps influenced
by a certain common set of scenarios of collaborative working. We expect
that a different scenario, that of the digital library, will broaden the
understanding of the research needs and influence future research focus
in CSCW. In this scenario, collaboration is a critical issue for how people
effectively and efficiently use the immense resources of a digital library.
This workshop aims to consider how the results of CSCW research and
practice can be used to inform the design of digital libraries which can
most effectively meet the needs of the various involved users.
Michael Twidale
Computing Department
Lancaster University
Lancaster
LA1 4YR UK
Tel: +44 1524 594475
Fax: +44 1524 593608
Email: mbt@comp.lancs.ac.uk
Workshop
5: Social Agents in Web-Based Collaboration
Organisers: Thomas Kreifelts, Gloria Mark and Angi Voss, GMD, Sankt
Augustin; Arnstein J. Borstad and Vidar Hepsø, Statoil Research Centre,
Trondheim
Software agents are being developed as new methods for supporting
the formation of groups and social networks, and for interacting with and
shaping information and knowledge. The goal of this workshop is to exchange
and discuss ideas and experiences of how agents can function in Web-based
collaboration. We intend to focus on how agents can support collaboration
by: supporting the self-organization of people into groups; matching problems
to results and expertise; facilitating the construction of collective knowledge
bases; and providing awareness information. Additional topics include:
roles of agents, interaction of social agents, and appropriate metaphors
for social agents.
Thomas Kreifelts
GMD-FIT.CSCW
D-53754 Sankt Augustin
Germany
Email: kreifelts@gmd.de
Fax: +49-2241-142084
Workshop
6: Object Oriented Groupware Platforms
Organisers: Hermen van der Lugt, Telematics Research Centre, The Netherlands;
Prasun Dewan, University of North Carolina; Henri ter Hofte and Harm Bakker,
Telematics Research Centre, The Netherlands; Uwe von Lukas, Computer Graphics
Centre, Germany; Kazi Farooqui, University of Ottawa
This workshop will be a forum for researchers from different areas,
such as CSCW software development, distributed systems, object oriented
software, and group communication, to discuss the state of the art of and
research agenda for Object Oriented Groupware Platforms. Topics of interest
include, but are not limited to: distributed object computing (CORBA, DCOM,
etc.), object groups, component technology and multimedia objects in groupware,
generic objects, components and architectures for groupware platforms.
(Accepted Papers)
Prospective participants are asked to write a short position paper on
the issue and send it for review by 13 June 1997 to ecscw97oogp@trc.nl.
Workshop 7: Network Communities: Supporting Community on the Net
Organisers: Annette Adler, Xerox Systems Architecture; Paul Dourish;
Mizuko Ito, Stanford University and Institute for Research on Learning;
Elizabeth D. Mynatt and Vicki O'Day, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
This workshop considers the nature of community on the internet and
the role of design and technology in creating and fostering it. The following
issues will be explored: establishing shared orientation and boundaries;
membership, identity and expectations about appropriate (and inappropriate)
behaviour; developing and communicating social rhythms; dealing with the
relationship between virtual and real embodiments of community, and finally
how communities develop, change and reproduce themselves over time. We
will discuss examples of existing network communities to illustrate these
issues and to further characterize network communities, with the aim of
proposing specific design implications for them.
Annette Adler
Xerox PARC
3333 Coyote Hill Rd.
Palo Alto
California 94301
USA
Email: adler@parc.xerox.com
Half-day workshops (afternoon)
Workshop 8: Computer Support for Home Life: CSCW & Domestic Environments
Organisers: Scott D. Mainwaring, Interval Research Corp.; Jon O'Brien
and John A. Hughes, Lancaster University; Wayne G. Lutters, University
of California, Irvine
Many technologies such as the PC, Internet access, new digital media
and advanced telephony are now to be found in the home and are changing
(or seeking to change) the ways in which people are entertained, informed
and interpersonally connected in the domestic environment. The workshop
will consider how lessons learned from the body of empirical research in
CSCW and its underlying methodologies can be brought to bear on this increasingly
important locus of technological change - the home.
Relevant issues include but are not limited to: the social, spatial,
and technological organization of household activities, the impact of technologies
on private and public life, methods for studying behaviour and technology
in the home, conflict within households over the introduction and use of
technology, and changing conceptions of home/work and private/public domains.
Jon O'Brien
Dept. of Sociology
Lancaster University
Lancaster
LA1 4YL UK
Fax: +44 1524 594256
Email: domestic-cscw@comp.lancs.ac.uk
Workshop 9: CSCW for Learning: Physician, heal thyself?
Organisers: Julian Newman, Caledonian University; Steve Draper, University
of Glasgow; Roger Hartley, University of Leeds
Increasing student numbers, limited resources and demands to improve
the quality of instruction, have led many in the educational system to
become interested in CSCW as a means of providing greater support and interactivity,
perhaps at a distance.
The goals of the workshop are: to overcome the limited perspectives
that people from different backgrounds often bring with them when they
start to apply CSCW to education; to provide an opportunity, through explicit
discussion with other people working on computer-mediated collaboration
in education for participants to reflect more critically on their own practices
and assumptions; and finally, to improve educational practice in the use
of computer-supported communication and decision-support environments.
Julian Newman
Department of Computing
Caledonian University
City Campus
Cowcaddens Road
Glasgow G4 0BA
Fax: +44 141 331 3280
Email: j.newman@gcal.ac.uk
Last Changed: 21 Jan 98
Changed By: Jacqui Forsyth
Email: ecscw97@comp.lancs.ac.uk