Mike Eisenberg Dean and Professor
Mike Eisenberg Dean and Professor. The Information School University of Washington. Mike Eisenberg. Perspectives on Virtual Collaboration January 24, 2002. Outline. Uses for Virtual Collaboration Barriers – Challenges - Issues R&D Agenda 2002. Purpose. Purpose. Purpose.
Mike Eisenberg Dean and Professor
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Presentation Transcript
Mike EisenbergDean and Professor The Information School University of Washington
Mike Eisenberg Perspectives on Virtual Collaboration January 24, 2002
Outline • Uses for Virtual Collaboration • Barriers – Challenges - Issues • R&D Agenda 2002
Purpose • To facilitate human interaction • To boost individual and group performance • Effectiveness • Efficiency • To add value by connecting people to people
Uses • Connections • Information sharing • Information gathering • Information use • Cooperative work • Education
Challenge Transition from: • traditional teaching of individuals in a highly social setting to: • adding the social setting to an already individualized process.
Challenge “… The litmus test for developing technologies will be how well they meet that challenge.” -- Bill Gibbons, Syracuse University email message 8/11/97
Related Issues • Affective responses as they relate to time and space • It’s more than just communication; it’s also about information
Space & Time The social and psychological dimensions: • Nature of the connection in time • Feeling regarding space • Locus of control • Richness of the media experience
Email/Mail Lists Asynchronous Feeling of being “connected;” beginning of sense of community Locus of control: email – individual; mail lists – can be external (moderator) Media richness - limited
Video Conferencing • Synchronous • Feeling regarding space = sense of distance • Locus of control: shared • Rich medium
Chat • Synchronous • Feeling regarding space – sense of immediacy and connected • Locus of control: shared, but cumbersome • Medium not very rich
Graphic Chat • Synchronous • Feeling regarding space – immediacy, togetherness • Locus of control: shared, but still cumbersome • Rich medium
Video Broadcast • Synchronous • Feeling regarding space – broadcast, mass-media • Locus of control: one-way • Medium can be very rich
Challenge To put it all together: • synchronous and interactivity of video conferencing • feeling of space immediacy and togetherness of graphic chat • sense of community of mail lists • shared locus of control of video and chat • the medium richness of video
Other Challenge It’s more than just communications
Other Challenge It’s also about information It’s more than just communications
Information Issues • Human Information Behavior in Collaborative Situations • purpose and need, problems (overload) • uses and sharing • search and retrieval • Information Management • coping with information overload • representation and organization • storage and retrieval
Agenda 2002 • Study the affective - the emotional, psychological and social dimensions. • Develop systems that create sense of togetherness, not distance, in space and time. • Recognize and study the information side: uses, problems, behavior, management.
And Beyond… Change: • Be prepared to break out of thinking in terms of existing systems (media, structure, format).
