CSCW and Groupware: Guide to Internet Resources

sitemapCSCW and Groupware: Guide to Internet Resources ornament

Guide to Internet Resources on CSCW and Groupware

Compiled by Randall Whitaker

Listing Date = 31 May 1997

It seems only natural that the key resources for exploring the intersection of information technology (IT) and collective activity are accessible through the grandest example of this phenomenon -- the Internet. The listing below contains what I consider to be the key sites relating to CSCW (broadly interpreted) and groupware.

KEY SITES ON CSCW AND GROUPWARE

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Center for Coordination Science (CCS)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

The Center for Coordination Science is a leading research center addressing the issues of managing workflows and other organizational attributes in response to the opportunities of networked IT.

http://ccs.mit.edu/

Collaboration, Knowledge Representation and Automatability
World Wide Web Consortium
Switzerland

Early groupware applications were designed primarily for LAN deployment. With the de facto ubiquity of the World Wide Web (WWW), attention is now shifting toward the usage of this (relatively) universal medium as the foundation for open CSCW / groupware applications. This site presents research toward this goal, addressing knowledge representation, annotation tactics, notification, and other issues surrounding the use of the Web for shared information systems and collaborative activities.

http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Collaboration/

Collaborative Software Resources
University of Hawaii

This site includes a listing of collaboration software as well as a CSCW bibliography.

http://www.ics.hawaii.edu/~jl/general

Collaborative Strategies
The Clearinghouse for Information on Collaboration Technologies, Tools and Methods!

This is a San Francisco-based consulting firm offering products and services on collaboration technologies. Their Web site includes a considerable amount of background / introductory documentation on CSCW and groupware issues.

http://www.collaborate.com/

CSCW (Computer-Supported Cooperative Work)
Technische Universität München

A sizeable nexus of pointers to Internet resources and materials.

http://www11.informatik.tu-muenchen.de/cscw/cscw.html

CSCW and Groupware
Tom Brinck
University of Michigan

This is probably my personal favorite of the general CSCW sites. Highly recommended.

Main Site [University of Michigan]:
http://www.crew.umich.edu/~brinck/cscw.html
European Mirror Site [Magdeburg Germany]:
http://wwwiti.cs.uni-magdeburg.de/~fellner/tom-cscw.html

CSCW Directory
J R A Consulting (UK)

This is a broad WWW directory to electronic CSCW information prepared for use by people working in or interested in the field.

http://www.demon.co.uk/jrac/cscwdir.html

CSCW Special Interest Groups (UK)

This site subsumes a variety of special interest groups (SIGs) on CSCW and relevant topical areas. A good source for information and discussion.

http://www.brainstorm.co.uk/reg/CSCW/groups/Welcome.html

NOTE: If I understand correctly, the UK's CSCW Special Interest Group(s) listed here have now been subsumed under the new programmatic label "Team IT", with its own Webspace. If you have problems accessing the 'brainstorm' pages, try Team IT (cf. entry elsewhere in this listing).

Team IT administers the cscw-sig electronic mailing list for discussion about CSCW. To subscribe, send an email message, in the body of which you have typed:

JOIN cscw-sig firstname(s) lastname

TO:

mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk

Groupware Central
Editor: Alan Dennis
University of Georgia

This site -- one section of the IS World network -- is a general nexus of references and pointers on CSCW research and groupware applications. NOTE: There are two major sites entitled 'Groupware Central'.

http://www.cba.uga.edu/groupware/groupware.html

Groupware Central
Collabra Corporation

Yes, there are two major sites entitled 'Groupware Central'. This one, at Collabra Corporation, is more focussed on the commercially-deployed aspects of CSCW -- i.e., groupware products, business experiences, etc.

http://www.collabra.com/groupwar/index.htm

Groupware on the Web: Classes, Species, and Instances

A quite nice collection of WWW pointers to resources on groupware utilization.

http://www.idbsu.edu:80/courses/mb581/workgrptech.html

The Groupware Yellow Pages
Consensus Development Corporation

This is a large site focusing on the applied aspects of CSCW -- i.e., groupware.

http://www.consensus.com/groupware/

Research in CSCW

A very good compilation of links to CSCW resources. (English version):

http://www.wiwi.uni-marburg.de/lokal/bwl06/interess/cscw/cscwengl.htm

Team IT Web Service
United Kingdom

Team IT is the forum for Computer Supported Collaborative Working (CSCW) and groupware, and is the new name for the UK Computer Supported Cooperative Work SIG (Special Interest Group). NOTE: I'm not sure to what extent the Team IT Webspace supersedes the UK CSCW SIG pages at:

http://www.brainstorm.co.uk/reg/CSCW/groups/Welcome.html

Team IT brings together specialists, users and researchers to promote the effective use of IT and telecommunications in support of group and team work within the framework of a not-for-profit organisation. This Webspace is 'located' at the Computer Science Department, University of Liverpool.

http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~team-it/

The unOfficial Yellow Pages of CSCW
(Enhanced Interface Version)
Technische Universität München

In its original form, The unOfficial Yellow Pages of CSCW was a text listing of groupware applications and research efforts compiled by Pål Malm of Norway. This document has been archived at multiple places around the Internet. It is a good reference compendium on CSCW / groupware applications (both experimental and commercial), and it provides a substantial listing of the early and the influential attempts to realize group IT support. The CSCW people at Technische Universität München have added an interactive front-end to Malm's material, making this installation the most 'user-friendly' one to explore.

NOTE:

The original (text) version of The unOfficial Yellow Pages of CSCW can still be obtained from its original 'home' at:

http://www.tft.tele.no/cscw/

OTHER RELEVANT WWW SITES

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ACM Special Interest Group on Office Information Systems (SIGOIS)

This ACM special interest group (along with ACM SIGCHI -- the group dedicated to human-computer interaction (HCI)) sponsors the North American CSCW conferences. There is a move underway to rename this group 'SIGGROUP' and more definitively position it as the primary focal point for CSCW interests and activities.

http://www.acm.org/sigois/

Basic Support for Cooperative Work (BSCW)
GMD FIT, Germany

The BSCW project at GMD FIT is developing tools to support cooperative work over the World Wide Web, based upon BSCW's 'shared workspace' system - an extension to a standard Web server which supports document upload, event notification, group management, etc.

http://bscw.gmd.de/index.html

A Business Researcher's Interests
Yogesh Malhotra

An unusually broad and large nexus of WWW pointers relevant to business / management / organizational research. This is the central place to seek out resources focusing on csCW -- i.e., the perspective emphasizing the cooperative work issues entailed in group IT support. Highly recommended -- especially the following subspaces:

Complex Systems and Chaos Theory: Organizations as Self-Adaptive Complex Systems: http://www.brint.com/Systems.htm
Business Process Reengineering and Innovation: http://www.brint.com/BPR.htm
Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning: http://www.brint.com/OrgLrng.htm
Virtual Corporations and Network Organizations: http://www.brint.com/EmergOrg.htm

CMC Information Sources
John December

Known for years as "The December List", this is a comprehensive collection of information sources about the Internet and computer-mediated communication (CMC). This is both *THE* Web resource on CMC issues and a venerable example of how the Web can be utilized for reference purposes.

http://www.december.com/cmc/info/

Collaborative Software Development Laboratory (CSDL)
Department of Information and Computer Sciences University of Hawaii

CSDL is a strong CSCW education and research center which is emphasizing the development of useful group support tools and toolkits.

http://www.ics.hawaii.edu/~csdl/

The Complete Intranet Resource

Since the explosive appearance of the WWW, attention has increasingly been given to developing 'intranets' (collaborative information networks within enterprises). To some people, this is a very distinct approach from deploying desktop-based groupware products. Indeed, some see intranets as a competitor to 'groupware' in the conventional sense. This site focusses on intranets, their promise, and their implementation.

http://www.intrack.com/intranet/

Conferencing on the World Wide Web
David R. Woolley

This site provides a guide to software that powers discussion forums on the World Wide Web. The explosive growth of the WWW has perhaps changed the entire game of figuring out how to constructively support group work with IT.

http://freenet.msp.mn.us/~drwool/webconf.html

CSCW Conferences

There is an annual CSCW conference whose venue alternates between North America (even-number years) and Europe (odd-numbered years). This is the primary venue for exchange of ideas and results in the CSCW community, and the proceedings can be valuable sources of material and ideas. Further details on the proceedings publications can be found in the CSCW Literature Guide at this site.

WWW sites with information about recent and prospective CSCW conferences include:

ECSCW 95: The Fourth European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, Stockholm, Sweden, September 1995.

ECSCW95 main site:

http://www.nada.kth.se/ecscw95/

CSCW 96: Cooperating Communities, November 16-20, 1996, Boston MA.

CSCW 96 main site:

http://info.sigchi.acm.org/sigchi/cscw96/

ECSCW 97
Lancaster, UK
Conference Webspace:
http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/research/cseg/ecscw97/
Conference contact information:
ECSCW'97 Conference Office
Computing Department
Lancaster University
Lancaster
LA1 4YR, UK
Email: ecscw97@comp.lancs.ac.uk
Fax: +44 1524 593608
Phone: +44 1524 593041

CSCW Research Department
GMD FIT, Germany

This department (and its multiple subunits) has to be considered one of the leading edge research centers on basic cooperation support systems, simulation models, data mining, and issues relating to computers as social media. NOTE: The organization of the Webspace at GMD FIT is extremely hierarchical -- i.e., it is difficult to see the range of subspaces unless you are at the central Web page(s). Take the time to explore around and check out the full range of units and their work.

http://orgwis.gmd.de/

Epistemology and Learning Group
MIT Media Lab

http://el.www.media.mit.edu/groups/el/

Facilitator Central
Editor: Mark A. Fuller, Ph.D.
Baylor University

This is a central WWW site on 'facilitation' -- tactics and actions taken to nuture and improve group process, particularly in meeting environments. Facilitation is an often-undervalued aspect of making groups succeed at improved performance utilizing IT support.

http://hsb.baylor.edu/html/fuller/fac/

Groupware Development Toolkits and Related Systems

This site provides summary information about products and systems which provide the mechanisms for crafting groupware applications for specific deployment situations.

http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~stevej/CSCW/toolkits.html

MIT Organizational Learning Network

http://learning.mit.edu/

Stanford Learning Organization Web (SLOW)
Stanford University

http://www-leland.stanford.edu/group/SLOW/

Workflow And Reengineering International Association (WARIA)

This relatively new professional society is dedicated to issues of work process optimization and improvements (through organizational reengineering).

http://vvv.com/waria/

WWW Collaboration Projects
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

This is a list of resources about collaboration technologies and WWW projects that support collaboration by participants.

http://union.ncsa.uiuc.edu:80/HyperNews/get/www/collaboration.html

GENERAL / REFERENCE DOCUMENTATION

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CSCW: History and Focus
Jonathan Grudin
Information and Computer Science Department
University of California, Irvine

This online essay describes some of the historical and thematic background to the current field of CSCW.

http://www.ics.uci.edu/~grudin/CSCW.html

CSCW Introductory Course Materials Online
University of Calgary

These are online course materials on general CSCW issues and groupware concerns. A good place for the beginner to explore. Some of the pages in this collection include:

The Domain and Goals of CSCW
http://ksi.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/courses/547-95/pfeifer/cscw_domain.html
Introduction to CSCW
http://ksi.cpsc.ucalgary.ca:80/courses/547-95/pfeifer/cscw_intro.html

Engelbart, Doug

If there is any single person whose vision and work have set the stage for CSCW and groupware, it is Engelbart.

A general overview of Engelbart and his work: http://www.uta.fi/~majyho/guru/Engelbart.html
Overview of Engelbart's SRI work (Augmented Human Intellect Center): http://www.csl.sri.com/augmentation.html
Transcript of May 1994 interview
(Smithsonian): http://innovate.si.edu/history/engel/engeltoc.htm
Nice general introduction to Engelbart: http://www.ualberta.ca/~ckeep/hfl0035.html
Bootstrap Institute
(Engelbart's current gig): http://www2.bootstrap.org/home.html
Toward Augmenting the Human Intellect and Boosting Our Collective IQ
(commentary by Engelbart): http://irss.njit.edu:5080/papers/sidebars/engelbart.html

Groupware: Technology and Applications, An Overview of Groupware
David Coleman

This Web page contains a good representative overview of the application side of CSCW (i.e., groupware). It is taken from Chapter One of Groupware: Technology and Applications, Prentice Hall, 1995.

http://www.collabra.com/articles/overview.htm

Groupware - The Changing Environment
David Coleman
Collaborative Strategies

This more recent publication is the first chapter in the new book Groupware: Collaborative Strategies for Corporate LANs and Intranets.

http://www.collaborate.com/chapt1.html

Social Issues of Computing

http://www.engr.csulb.edu/~jewett/social/

Whitaker, Randall
Self-Organization, Autopoiesis, and Enterprises

This inaugural presentation in the ACM SIGOIS Illuminations series offers an overview and analysis of the rising interest in self-organizing systems theory, autopoietic theory in particular, and their application to social and organizational studies.

USENET NEWS GROUPS

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comp.groupware

This is the only Usenet news group specifically dedicated to CSCW and groupware. A separate set of news groups labelled by variations on the general form 'comp.groupware.notes.*' was split off from comp.groupware to provide a separate forum for issues specifically relating to Lotus Notes.

The comp.groupware FAQs can be accessed (via FTP) at:

ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/news.answers/comp-groupware-faq/

...and a variety of others with occasionally relevant content, including:

comp.human-factors (human factors / human-computer interaction)

comp.infosystems (information systems)

comp.hypertext

comp.dcom.* (the comp. groups relating to data communications)

...and a host of other groups dedicated to the Internet, the Web, etc.

PRINT RESOURCES

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PRINT JOURNALS

Computer Supported Cooperative Work: The Journal of Collaborative Computing

Established in the early 1990's, Computer Supported Cooperative Work was the first and remains the primary print journal dedicated to CSCW. It is published by Kluwer Academic Publishers, PO Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrecht, The Netherlands. The newly-established Web pages for the journal offer tables of contents, submission guidelines, and other information.

http://kapis.www.wkap.nl/kapis/CGI-BIN/WORLD/journalhome.htm?0925-9724

...and a variety of others of occasional relevance...

There are no other scholarly journals specifically dedicated to CSCW. However, relevant articles and other materials can be found in a number of other journals. Owing to the interdisciplinary character of CSCW and CSCW-relevant research, there is no clearcut set of journals which can be expected to encompass the literature relevant to this field. Some of the journals which have published CSCW-relevant articles include:

ACM Transactions on Office Information Systems
Communications of the ACM
European Journal of Management
Management Science
MIS Quarterly
Office: Technology and People
... and a host of IT trade publications

BIBLIOGRAPHIES OF RELEVANT LITERATURE

CSCW Bibliography
Saul Greenberg
University of Calgary

A very good compilation of key background literature in the development of the CSCW field during the last decade. The site provides FTP download of the bibliography file.

ftp://ftp.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/pub/projects/CSCWbibliography

Searchable Online CSCW bibliography
Technische Universität München

A nicely interactive compendium of CSCW literature.

http://www11.informatik.tu-muenchen.de/cscw/cscw-biblio.html

Bibliography on Group IT Support
Ilse Zigurs
University of Colorado

This is a good collection of literature pointers concentrating on that CSCW speciality usually labelled group (decision) support systems (G(D)SS).

http://spot.colorado.edu/~zigurs/rescites.html#toc

CSCW and Groupware Literature Guide: Randy's Reviews, Recommendations, and (Optional) Referrals

Here, at the site you're currently visiting, I have provided a listing of key publications on CSCW / groupware, brief commentaries on them, and (for some) direct links for obtaining them through Amazon.com Books ('Earth's Biggest Bookstore'). Think of it as an annotated bibliography and book agency all rolled into one.

Situated Cognition References

Since the landmark Plans and Situated Actions (Lucy Suchman, 1987), situated cognition has been one of the canonical themes in CSCW research. This reference list,compiled by Henrik Artman, provides pointers to the relevant literature on this subject.

http://www.sics.se/uacm/references.html

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