See also: Multi-user dungeon and Intelligence amplification § Douglas Engelbart: Augmenting Human Intellect
Douglas Engelbart first envisioned collaborative computing in 1951 and documented his vision in 1962,6 with working prototypes in full operational use by his research team by the mid-1960s.7 He held the first public demonstration of his work in 1968 in what is now referred to as "The Mother of All Demos".8 The following year, Engelbart's lab was hooked into the ARPANET, the first computer network, enabling them to extend services to a broader userbase.
Online collaborative gaming software began between early networked computer users. In 1975, Will Crowther created Colossal Cave Adventure on a DEC PDP-10 computer. As internet connections grew, so did the numbers of users and multi-user games. In 1978 Roy Trubshaw, a student at University of Essex in the United Kingdom, created the game MUD (Multi-User Dungeon).
The US Government began using truly collaborative applications in the early 1990s.9 One of the first robust applications was the Navy's Common Operational Modeling, Planning and Simulation Strategy (COMPASS).10 The COMPASS system allowed up to 6 users to create point-to-point connections with one another; the collaborative session only remained while at least one user stayed active, and would have to be recreated if all six logged out. MITRE improved on that model by hosting the collaborative session on a server into which each user logged. Called the Collaborative Virtual Workstation (CVW), it allowed the session to be set up in a virtual file cabinet and virtual rooms, and left as a persistent session that could be joined later.11
In 1996, Pavel Curtis, who had built MUDs at PARC, created PlaceWare, a server that simulated a one-to-many auditorium, with side chat between "seat-mates", and the ability to invite a limited number of audience members to speak. In 1997, engineers at GTE used the PlaceWare engine in a commercial version of MITRE's CVW, calling it InfoWorkSpace (IWS). In 1998, IWS was chosen as the military standard for the standardized Air Operations Center.12 The IWS product was sold to General Dynamics and then later to Ezenia.13
Collaborative software was originally designated as groupware and this term can be traced as far back as the late 1980s, when Richman and Slovak (1987)14 wrote: "Like an electronic sinew that binds teams together, the new groupware aims to place the computer squarely in the middle of communications among managers, technicians, and anyone else who interacts in groups, revolutionizing the way they work."
In 1978, Peter and Trudy Johnson-Lenz coined the term groupware; their initial 1978 definition of groupware was, "intentional group processes plus software to support them." Later in their article they went on to explain groupware as "computer-mediated culture... an embodiment of social organization in hyperspace." Groupware integrates co-evolving human and tool systems, yet is simply a single system.15
In the early 1990s the first commercial groupware products were delivered, and big companies such as Boeing and IBM started using electronic meeting systems for key internal projects. Lotus Notes appeared as a major example of that product category, allowing remote group collaboration when the internet was still in its infancy. Kirkpatrick and Losee (1992)16 wrote then: "If GROUPWARE really makes a difference in productivity long term, the very definition of an office may change. You will be able to work efficiently as a member of a group wherever you have your computer. As computers become smaller and more powerful, that will mean anywhere." In 1999, Achacoso created and introduced the first wireless groupware.171819
The complexity of groupware development is still an issue. One reason is the socio-technical dimension of groupware. Groupware designers do not only have to address technical issues (as in traditional software development) but also consider the organizational aspects 20 and the social group processes that should be supported with the groupware application. Some examples for issues in groupware development are:
One approach for addressing these issues is the use of design patterns for groupware design.24 The patterns identify recurring groupware design issues and discuss design choices in a way that all stakeholders can participate in the groupware development process.
Groupware can be divided into three categories depending on the level of collaboration:2526
Collaborative management tools facilitate and manage group activities. Examples include:
The design intent of collaborative software (groupware) is to transform the way documents and rich media are shared in order to enable more effective team collaboration.
Collaboration, with respect to information technology, seems to have several definitions. Some are defensible but others are so broad they lose any meaningful application. Understanding the differences in human interactions is necessary to ensure the appropriate technologies are employed to meet interaction needs.
There are three primary ways in which humans interact: conversations, transactions, and collaborations.
Conversational interaction is an exchange of information between two or more participants where the primary purpose of the interaction is discovery or relationship building. There is no central entity around which the interaction revolves but is a free exchange of information with no defined constraints, generally focused on personal experiences.28 Communication technology such as telephones, instant messaging, and e-mail are generally sufficient for conversational interactions.
Transactional interaction involves the exchange of transaction entities where a major function of the transaction entity is to alter the relationship between participants.
In collaborative interaction, the main function of the participants' relationship is to alter a collaboration entity (i.e., the converse of transactional). When teams collaborate on projects it is collaborative project management.
Johnson-Lenz, Peter; Johnson-Lenz, Trudy (March 1991). "Post-mechanistic groupware primitives: rhythms, boundaries and containers". International Journal of Man-Machine Studies. 34 (3): 395–417. doi:10.1016/0020-7373(91)90027-5. /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩
Carstensen, P.H.; Schmidt, K. (1999). "Computer supported cooperative work: new challenges to systems design". Retrieved 2023-01-30. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2625053 ↩
Beyerlein, M; Freedman, S.; McGee, G.; Moran, L. (2002). Beyond Teams: Building the Collaborative Organization. The Collaborative Work Systems series, Wiley. http://media.johnwiley.com.au/product_data/excerpt/39/07879637/0787963739.pdf ↩
Wilson, P. (1991). Computer Supported Cooperative Work: An Introduction. Kluwer Academic Pub. ISBN 978-0792314462 /wiki/ISBN_(identifier) ↩
Aparicio, M and Costa, C. (2012) Collaborative systems: characteristics and features. In Proceedings of the 30th ACM international conference on Design of communication (SIGDOC '12). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 141-146. doi:10.1145/2379057.2379087 /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩
Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework Archived 2011-05-04 at the Wayback Machine, Douglas C. Engelbart, 1962 http://www.dougengelbart.org/pubs/augment-3906.html ↩
A Research Center for Augmenting Human Intellect, Douglas C. Engelbart and William K. English, 1968. http://www.dougengelbart.org/pubs/augment-3954.html ↩
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Heritage of Delivering Successful Warfighting Solutions https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.cwid.js.mil/public/CWIDFctShtSuccesses21Mar08.doc ↩
Collaborative virtual environments for analysis and decision support, Mark Mayburry https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mark_Maybury/publication/220423771_Expert_Finding_for_Collaborative_Virtual_Environments/links/00b495295de7a430ec000000.pdf?disableCoverPage=true ↩
"(Press Release) InfoWorkSpace saves lives in Iraq - Ezenia!, Inc". Ezenia.com. Retrieved 2014-06-25. http://www.ezenia.com/news/infoworkspace-saves-lives-in-iraq/ ↩
"(Press Release) InfoWorkSpace - Ezenia!, Inc". Ezenia.com. Archived from the original on 2014-05-27. Retrieved 2014-06-25. https://web.archive.org/web/20140527023159/http://www.ezenia.com/products/products-infoworkspace/ ↩
Richman, Louis S; Slovak, Julianne (June 8, 1987). "SOFTWARE CATCHES THE TEAM SPIRIT New computer programs may soon change the way groups of people work together -- and start delivering the long-awaited payoff from office automation.fouttoune". Money.cnn.com. https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1987/06/08/69109/index.htm ↩
Johnson-Lenz, Peter (30 April 1990). "Rhythms, Boundaries, and Containers". Awakening Technology. Archived from the original on 9 September 2011. Retrieved 27 July 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20110909120159/http://nexus.awakentech.com:8080/at/awaken1.nsf/UNIDs/CFB70C1957A686E98825654000699E1B?OpenDocument ↩
Kirkpatrick, D.; Losee, S. (March 23, 1992). "HERE COMES THE PAYOFF FROM PCs New network software lets brainstormers around a table all talk at once on their keyboards. The result: measurable productivity gains from desktop computing". CNN. https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1992/03/23/76204/index.htm ↩
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