Debating about the evaluation of groupware applications

Since my post last week raised some questions about the difficulty of evaluating groupware applications, I thought I'd continue on that and try to explain my views on the matter.

Saila said... 

"I also disagree with your opinion about the Difficulty of evaluation challenge. The reason of why it has been a challenge is not in the lengthy evaluation process itself but the challenges of collecting data in the field from "real users". When software is still under construction, it can be tried out easily e.g. in the lab and that is enough "evaluation" for single user software. When the software is meant for groups, you need to collect field data from the actual experiences with the software since usually it is impossible to simulate the real world circumstances in the lab. If they did not adopt it, can you explain why they did not use it, and will the bad experiences then result in improvements in the software so that the next field trial will succeed? There are so many contextual factors involved in each case, many of which are not related to the software itself but to the actual processes and ways of working in the group."

 

Let's see what Grudin thought as the main facts that make evaluating groupware applications more difficult.

   - "Scheduling a test is logistical challenge"

   - "Groupware is affected by factors such as group members backgrounds and personalities"

   - "Evaluation takes longer"

   - "Groupware evaluation methods are less precise"

   - "Generalizing from experience is risky"

The way I see it, saying the test takes longer or that it is a logistical challenge, is not relevant. Sure, it might lengthen the development process of the application, but if that is the way tests need to be done, why should we see the extra time taken as a negative matter. At the same time it also gives us better and more precise results and meanwhile gives the rest of the development team a chance to polish the application.

Also, saying that the it is too difficult to take all the different factors affecting the results into account, is not the right way to approach the testing situation. Just because we lack certain skills, doesn't mean it can't be done. Similar tests which take into account different human factors are carried out all the time in different fields. Like Grudin says, we just need to recruit people with skills in social and cognitive psychology, anthropology and human factors engineering. And this is the part in which I've seen the most progress from the nineties. It is no longer considered such a hindrance to need different types of skills available for carrying out something, these different people are just recruited to get best results possible.

People just need to understand that we are not stuck in a lab environment anymore, there are many ways to carry out different tests, and to me saying some of them are inherently too difficult to properly execute because of the different factors that need to be considered, is just a cheap way of saying we don't want to progress. 

In a field that is so quickly evolving, generating and adopting new methods is one of the most important tasks we have. Being left behind by saying something is too difficult to do, is like Henry Ford saying it's too difficult to build a car, we'd better keep on doing horse carriages. Thus I feel that noting the difficulty as one of the main problems developing groupware is not something we should just accept as a fact, but something we should focus to get rid of. Being left behind on this matter is not an option in a world where we get new groupware applications every day.

I feel that we've gained loads of new information, adopted new techniques, recruited people from different fields of knowledge and improved our methods of evaluating groupware since the nineties. That's why saying that the challenge we currently face in this field is not as large as it used to be earlier is not incorrect.

 

References:
[Grudin, 1994] Jonathan Grudin, Groupware and social dynamics: eight challenges for developers. Comm. ACM 37, 1 (Jan. 1994), 92-105.  

Blog post on Sunday 23th of January, "Are Grudin's Challenges up to date"

Posted by Santeri

Feverish ramblings about email

I've had fever/flu since Thursday, so I completely forgot my blogging turn yesterday. Anyway, I'll just post this now and hopefully the fever is gone next saturday.

In the lecture and materials there was much talk about email and how people use it. This got me to think about when I first started using email. I remember that in elementary school we all had to create our own email address to some finnish service that provided free email addresses at that time. We didn't really have any use to them and I remember sending maybe three emails across the room to some friends.

Later I remember using luukku.com, mostly to order something from the internet. When GMail came, I started using it and it soon replaced luukku as my main email. Luukku still remained as secondary email for suspicious sites I had to give my email address to, but nowdays I don't even remember the password anymore. In the university I of course got uta-email.

Interesting thing I realized when I thought about my email usage, is that I don't remember ever using it to any kind of personal communication. Emails I send are always related to studies or other official things. If I have something to say to a friend, I give them a call or send sms, never email.

One (more) reason to go to China!

The 23rd ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) is held this year in Hangzhou, China from March 19-23. As the title suggests, the conference is presenting views to the latest research in the design and use of groupware. Around 200 researchers will be presenting their work. Keynote speakers are CEO Jack Ma from Alibaba Group (Chinese cluster of Internet services) and Genevieve Bell from Intel Labs. The co-chairs are from Stanford University (Pamela Hinds), Microsoft Research (John C. Tang) and Alibaba Group (Jian Wang).

Glancing the topics of the conference will hint us where the interests are in this field. What makes these kind of like gatherings particularly interesting is their overwhelming multiculturalism: They enforce you to take a broader view on the design of groupware. For example, what features would a CSCW tool need to support working across different timezones (Tang & al., Your Time Zone or Mine? A Study of Globally Time Zone-Shifted Collaboration)? What sort of issues need to be considered when the group is multi-cultural (Alsheikh & al. (Whose) Value-Sensitive Design? A Study of Long-Distance Relationships in an Arabic Cultural Context)? How does socio-economic background effect on the use of groupware and technology in overall (Ames & al. Understanding Technology Choices and Values through Social Class)?

The broad and long enlistment of research topics and the presence of corporate big shots tells that the future of CSCW looks big and busy. It is highly visible already, that companies and work communities are distributed across the globe: I believe that in the future many of us are using these type of tools, whether we like it or not.

Using communication tools side by side at work

After reading slides of second lecture i started to think about my communication needs, habits and tools used during typical work day.

I think email is without doubt the most important communication tool for me. That's first option communicating with clients. It is advantage that it can be accessible with mobile phone. i'm trying to limit checking the email to couple times a day, but tend to look it always when message arrives. I usually avoid telling negative things or something not negotiable with email. In These cases i prefer old fashioned phone conversation.

Instant messaging has quite much replaced email in communication between colleagues. However, everybody are not reachable with IM, and sometimes sessions tend to turn longer than excepted and switch to phone conversation is needed. For some reason i prefer email for file exchanges, even if it is highly inefficient way to share files and it's also possible with IM.

Our Team is placed at same location, except one person. The solution for Weekly meeting is cell phone placed on the table of the meeting room and set to speaker mode. Simple and efficient.

Occasional need is to arrange group calls with multiple participant in several location. It seems that for this purpose it is usually easiest to use the Skype than struggle with settings of varying phone systems. However struggling with call codes and password is sometimes unavoidable.

The situation gets more problematic when conference with multiple participant and shared screen is required. There is quite functional tools to share screen, but i don't know any which could support simultaneus audio reasonably well. Solution is to share screen and use Skype or other phone confrerencing side by side. Works, but it's bit hassle.

There is also bunch of highly useful tools i have used used in studies and free time like Google docs, Google Code and some interesting microblog based communication tools like flowdock and presently, However, for me these are not option at work. The reason is that it is not allowed to save confidential data or documents to public services. i think occasional Skype phoning is only exception, as also im is encrypted and works inside company network.

What else.. i remember that i have once sent a fax with dedicated fax machine...

Handling email from my point of view

In the second lecture there was a topic how one is using and organizing her or his email. I could roughly divide my handling with email into two categories which differ from each others in that how I use them: an email account mostly for studying purposes and other email accounts for different purposes.

I check my email account for studying normally many times per day. Other email accounts I do not open maybe even daily, unless I am not waiting some email especially.

At this moment I have in the inbox of my email for studying many hundreds if not thousands of messages, I think I have never cleaned the inbox very well during these years what I have spent at university. Sometimes I try to empty it, but it is very time-taking. So I keep myself organizing email somewhere between the strategies no filers - spring cleaners. The inboxes of my other emails are maybe better organized; at least there are not even hundreds of messages.

I think the more there are emails in the inbox, the more important are the tools for organizing emails. Especially if there start to be hundreds of emails in the inbox, it is very useful to have a possibility to search some specific email by sender or content. Other tools what I am using for handling emails is marking them important or some other way that I can find them more easily for later use. What comes to archiving or deleting emails, usually I keep all the emails in the inbox what I think I could need someway maybe later. If I see that some email is surely needless for anything later, only in that case I destroy it at same moment.

After writing this post, I saw Taina L’s post "My e-mail handling strategy" in the blog Get connected! [1]. I think there are a lot of connections with her how I organize or not organize my email.

[1] http://coordin8.blogspot.com/2011/01/my-e-mail-handling-strategy.html

First experience in Google Group

First experience in Google Group

I took the first look at the Google group for project purposes.

At first, the program looks confusing and difficult to work with. After pilot use of the software, I can say, that it is useful platform. The learning of the program takes its time but it is worth, if you really need group tool for big project among larger group.

These features, which I like in it are follows.

At first it looks safety.  The Google group works like intranet and for a closed group. The Gg space is managed by coordinator, which looks, that only the project member can be members. The registration process looks safety and good.

What you can do there?

You can store and handle all project documents there. All document history with version is easy to see and managed. Google group seems not to be a project management tool anyway. It looks more project communication and discussion place.

You can use the e-mail system inside the group easily. I you have international project group the time difference are not problem. The discussion forum is always in order.

What I see as well is that the contact information of members spaced so, that they are easy to handle. In the case you need post addressees for delivering official post. For example to send documents to under write.

This discussion form is easy to use and good tool for meeting arrangements and for coordinating common things in a project or a process.

My work to know better the Google group continues. I like me it as platform for future projects.   

Erkki

New rights for rail passengers

New rights for rail

passengers

The EU regulation on rail passengers' rights and obligations, which expanded the rights of those travelling by train, entered into force in December 2009.

Passengers can now claim indemnification if a long-distance service is delayed by at least one hour. There are also improvements in the services for the disabled at stations and on board the trains.
Regulation on railways' responsibilities »

This is from VR,fi home page.

I am many many times missed meetings and lesion because of the delays on railroads.

But I fell, that the one hour regulation is nothing.

The trains, in which I have made reservation, has been 1 and half hours delays That’s usually means that the next train, which as well are delayed comes within one hour.

I want, that all travelers have to make WebGroup-VR to demonstrate the Russian style managements of trafficking.

Are Grudin's challenges up to date?

According to Grudin [1994] there are eight main challenges that groupware developers might face. Since these were done in -94 and the application development has evolved, it is intresting to see whether these challenges still apply. I'll pick those which I feel are not as important anymore, and try to explain why that is.

1. Disparity in work and benefit. Groupware applications often require additional work from individuals who do not perceive a direct benefit from the use of the application. This might still be important to think of when developing but the effects of it has greatly reduced, due to better internet connections etc. For example, one could work with Googledocs just as he would on an offline text editor, since most groupware parts of the application like saving and showing it to other group members, is done automatically.

2. Critical mass and Prisoner's dilemma. Groupware may not enlist the "critical mass" of users required to be useful, or can fail because it is never to any one individual's advantage to use it. Like I mentioned above, the groupware applications have evolved a lot, and most of them are usually just as useful to use for one person than they are for many, which is why the "critical mass" is so small that it can be reached even with one user.

6. Difficulty of Evaluation. The almost insurmountable obstacles to meaningful, generalizable analysis and evaluation of groupware prevents us from learning from experience. Sure, the evaluation may take longer than normal application and it might be needed to look from different perspective and concentrate on different issues, but I feel that Grudin's explanation of this issue is more of an excuse to "I don't want to learn new techniques and change my viewpoint", and thus I don't see how this has ever been an issue.

I feel that rest of the challenges Grudin presented are still more or less accurate and should be taken into consideration when developing groupware applications.

References:
[Grudin, 1994] Jonathan Grudin, Groupware and social dynamics: eight challenges for developers. Comm. ACM 37, 1 (Jan. 1994), 92-105.

Fruits of the first lecture

When I came to this course my idea of groupware was that it was something that multiple persons could work on simultaneously. Usually the picture in my head was something like a table with a huge touch screen on it and group of people using it at the same time.

However, our first lecture introduced to me a much wider and specific definition. According to Ellis, Gibbs and Rein (1991), groupware are "Computer-based systems that support groups of people engaged in a common task (or goal) and that provide an interface to a shared
environment."

Another thing that our first lecture clarified to me was that groupware doesn't need to be simultaneous. Multiple people can work on something at different times. Or even at different places. (Ellis, Gibbs, Rein, 1991; originally, DeSanctis & Gallupe)

Nice observation was also that many of the programs and tools I use daily, are actually groupware. For example Dropbox - which Aleksi tells more about here - is an excellent tool. I don't actually use it as groupware, but rather as a small, free backup tool. Also Google Docs is quite handy at times. And of course, Wikipedia.

Groupware & Small Businesses

Groupware or CSCW tools are a big business for corporate giants like IBM and Microsoft. However, the products like IBM Lotus Notes or MS Sharepoint are expensive and too wall-to-wall solutions for small (or micro) businesses. The Open Source project Liferay also seems a bit over-sized for (e.g.) a consult office of six people. Still, many of such companies could, unquestionably, benefit from the use of groupware.

Companies of, let's say, 5-10 employees rarely have PC advisers or extensive computer support services. Thus the easiness of installation, use and maintenance of the groupware is crucial. They also seldom have the time or the money (or the desire) to really focus on the procuration process of such tool.

Luckily enough, there are options beyond Lotus Notes, Sharepoint or self-tailored wiki mash-ups. One risk-free example is TeamWox Collaboration Software, which is specifically designed for small businesses. It holds all the essential features (such as HR, documents management, e-mails, discussion board, task management, accounting etc.), but requires no outside integration or maintenance. And for ten users or less, it is free.

Round up of collaboration platforms

I decided to take a look of currently offered collaboration platform products. The list is not exhaustive, but my opinion is that these are notable players in the field.

What is collaboration platform then? My understanding is that collaboration platforms are software platforms that offers common functionalities and interfaces  for building applications targeted for user groups and communities.  These server based applications have usually some built in features  like user management,   fine grained access control, messaging  and file sharing. Application interface and data layer is usually offered for  building  new applications.  Some standardisation efforts exists to make and applications api vendor neutral, I think most important one regarding this is JSR168 / 286, but maybe more about this later.

Licensing cost of these products are high,  as it is actually possible to use the products as a base for  company wide application infrastructure and messaging. however,  Liferay is available as free community edition as  alternative for commercial products.

IBM Lotus Notes.  Notes uses Client / Server based architecture. Client program installed for workstations allows access for applications, email and includes developer tools. Browser access is also supported . Data is saved  non-sql databases suitable for multimedia and web based application development.  Applications can be replicated between servers and organisations. Notes has built in email and  instant messaging.  Wide selection of  OSes is supported, and communications can be strongly encrypted. Newer versions supports JSR -standards. 

Microsoft Sharepoint Competitor for Lotus Notes offers integration for office products
and file sharing.  MS SQL server is  used for data storage. Applications  are called web parts.  Windows is only option for OS. 

IBM Websphere Portal server  IBM's Java based offering for groupwork, collaboration and integration. Platform offers standardized JSR 168/286 application interface. Applications are called  portlets, and they can be arranged to web interface. Portlet library contains  huge selection of applications ready for installing.  Primary data store is IBM DB2.  Available for  many operating systems.

Liferay Similar to IBM portal server, but open source. JSR 168/286 Portlet apis are fully supported  and product supports many commercial and open source databases including Oracle, db2, Mysql, Postgres and many more. JSR 168 / 268. Many ready made portlet -applications are bundled  with product. All operating systems are supported where java is available. Side product Social office is "Liferay distribution" bundling common collaboration portlets together.

What is Groupware?

Groupware, collaborative computing, workgroup computing, multiuser applications, computer-supported cooperative work applications… A dear child has many names. I decided to create the first groupware blog entry simply defining what is meant by term groupware.

As mentioned at first lecture, groupware is software for groups that is designed to support group work and help groups of people to achieve their common goals by communication, collaboration and coordination [Ellis, Gibbs, Rein, 1991]. Examples of groupware include desktop- and videoconferencing, coauthoring features and applications, email, bulletin boards, meeting support systems, voice applications, workflow systems and group calendars, among others [Grudin, 1994].

In conclusion, according to Grudin when defining the meaning of groupware, it would be useful to consider questions “Was this software designed to support groups?” and “Is it being used to support groups?” [Grudin, 1994].

References:
[Ellis, Gibbs, Rein, 1991] Clarence A. Ellis, Simon J. Gibbs, Gail L. Rein, Groupware: some issues and experiences. Comm. ACM 34, 1 (Jan. 1991), 38-58.
[Grudin, 1994] Jonathan Grudin, Groupware and social dynamics: eight challenges for developers. Comm. ACM 37, 1 (Jan. 1994), 92-105.

- Minna