This post will deal with data mining and it’s concerns regarding privacy. Data mining is extremely useful for requiring automated and accurate statistics on a certain subject. By running the query “big brother at work” in Google, we find hundreds of thousands results. They all boil down to the same basic need: privacy.

But when reading our previous post, it becomes clear that the structure of the current companies need to change in order for Social Software to be successfully adapted. This implies more freedom for the employees, which at its turn implies there should be a new way of keeping an eye on what your employees are doing.

The current situation

Momentarily, Groupware is the most common form of software in companies supporting collaborative work. However, inherent to Groupware is the fact that it is under strict control of the managing authority. Thus, techniques such as data mining are applied to check on its users, the employees. However, the mining resources are all private ones: e-mail, telephone logs, voice mail etc. This causes the employees to feel their privacy is infringed.

How situation could look like

When looking at the situation in Enterprise 2.0, the Groupware has been influenced by Social Software principles, leading to the emergence of new platforms on the intranet. Examples of such platforms are company wiki’s and blogs. All user activity is now shared on these platforms. Data mining can thus focus on this public information, which has two advantages:

1. Maybe the most important one. As the employees can contribute on a free base, they explicitly choose which data they want to share (by blogging, tagging etc). Thus, when this data is used for mining, it will not cause the employees to feel monitored.
2. When provided with the possibilities of Web 2.0, users share a lot of social information out of their own motivation. Thus a lot more useful data will be present for the algorithms to digest, leading to even more accurate statistics.

Conclusion

The direct advantages of using web 2.0. for CSCW were already explained in our previous post. By looking a bit further, it appears there a few other advantages on the side. In this case we discussed the possibility for managers to rid their employees of the Big Brother feeling and still keep control on their activity on the job.

References

• Ido, G. (2008): Public vs. Private – Comparing Public Social Network Information with Email

In this post we will address the benefits research in the CSCW domain and the one in the Social Software domain could obtain by more closely integrating both ideas with each other. By closer inspection, we notice the domains share a lot of similarities in the formulation of their ideas. In fact, one could say they are the same. However this is not correct: they are synonyms, yet their specific studies focus on different ideas.

Before we continue, we’ll give an overview and a brief explanation of all applied terms in this post. Note the distinct differences between them.

Social Software

The term Social Software describes what it means: software that is intended to support and promote social interaction, rather then individual use. A well known synonym for (or example of) Social Software is Web 2.0. Although the term “Web 2.0″ has only been introduced in 1999, the idea behind it dates back to 1945 (Vannevar Bush’s Memex).

Groupware

Groupware is the technological system providing the users the possibility to work together as a group. Groupware supports the ideas formulated within the CSCW domain. The technology can be virtually anything: from a computer to a conference meeting. The main goal of groupware is to make the user aware of his or her colleagues, who are also participating in the system. There are two important requirements:

1. The technology should have a high adaptability as it’s intended to be used in groups of people. All users, and for that matter all groups of users, should be allowed to learn the working of the system without too much problems.
2. When the first requirement is met, the second can be more easily achieved. Namely: The uers of the system should be active! This is for the utmost importance, if the users do not use the system, it will not work. This concern is even greater within Social Software as user contribution is voluntary.

Enterprise 2.0

The last term we will discuss is Enterprise 2.0. The term stands for the application of the Social Software ideas in companies.

CSCW and Enterprise 2.0

Now that all terms have been explained, we can take a look at the benefits Enterprise 2.0 could gain by learning from the research of CSCW. Firstly there are a few differences between using Social Software and Groupware. Social Software concentrates on the “me”, the user should benefit from using it, otherwise there will be no motivation. Groupware on the other hand concentrates on the “we”, the group. For a complete overview of the differences take a look at p.422 of CSCW and Enterprise 2.0 – towards an Integrated Perspective by Michael Koch.

It follows that, as CSCW makes use of Groupware and Enterprise 2.0 of Social Software, they can not be readily combined. Therefore a few adaptations should be made to both sides, in order to optimize their cooperation.

The main objective, as stated above, is to motivate your employees to use the Groupware platform. Therefore, Groupware development could learn from the principles of Social Software: freedom to participate. However this does not implies your employees should gain complete freedom: the art is to find the right balance between open participation (leading to motivation and a certain fun factor) and guiding your employees to participate. Too much freedom will lead to poor and uncontrolled results, while too much guidance will lead to unmotivated employees.

Conclusion

Thus, a symbiosis can be obtained by blending both principles together to obtain just the right mix of freedom and control. This will be Enterprise 2.0, a form of business life that provides much opportunities by exploiting the possibilities of Web 2.0.

In order for this to be successful, the structure of the modern enterprise will have to shift from a strict organization to a more free work environment.

References

• Koch, M. (2008): CSCW and Enterprise 2.0 – towards an Integrated Perspective

Time for a brain dump. I have just completed reading work coming from Mor Naaman, Jeffrey Boase and Chih-Hui Lai at Rutgers, slated for CSCW 2010, on the content of messages in what they’ve decided to call “social awareness streams.”

And right there I have an issue. I’m lumping it together with the term “weak ties” which found prominence in the 1940s (well before the internet was considered in social theory) and the found a new audience a few years back with its adaptation to online networks.

Today, referring to the activity on microblogging sites as either of these is probably very limited, based on myriad case studies of individuals and their very real connections and friendship strength, found through CMC. They are neither “weak” (as in traditional notions of acquaintances who can be called upon when needed), nor simply an “awareness” of others in a network. They are also not built in a heirarchical organization – they are horizontal. In fact, Castells’ emphatic assertions that when we talk about communication we are actually discussing realms of power and influence, means that “communication” isn’t a term to be thrown about lightly.

He’s right.

My theory of the strength of these relationships is discovered through a realm of CMC that is primarily representated in phatic communion. The relationships exist as communities within what I call the latent sphere of the networked society. (In this sense, I use the networked society as defined by Manuel Castells.)

You can buy Ghostbusters-type slime like this at www.midnightwarriorsentertainment.com

If Vincent Miller is correct, and Twitter is nothing more than a celebrated phatic technology-a technology which exists purely to support phatic communion, then the very real relationships being discovered today through its use are far more tangible than those discovered through discussing the weather in real life. And the fact that Twitter has existed and morphed in so many ways over these short years I respectfully suggest dispels any notion that it fulfills the “social awareness streams” suggested by the researchers at Rutgers. It, in fact, provides people with real connections, in the most concrete form – in fact (hold on to your hat) in a way that potentially surpasses that experienced in real life.

These people will regularly never have met in real life, until at least having met online first. Homophily still exists – we still form communities on this phatic network. (Just look at the hashtags to find the communities and topic areas that draw people together. And that’s before Twitter added the List function. And then also, what about all the third party tools that operate solely on allowing you to classify your ‘groups’ of people in that space, such as Tweetdeck…) But these communities are not just asking simple stuff like what the weather is like, or just passing the time of day. The depth of feeling is not just as acquaintances. This depth of connection to people we never before would have connected with, and in fact to many we would never approach in real life (such as the homeless), has never before been realised by any other form of media. It’s new. It’s potentially both scary and exciting.

Even though Twitter is accepted by the mainstream middle class to such an extent it no longer receives explanations in newspapers (and in fact is used as the basis for reporting by lazy journalists), it still has not reached critical mass. But it will happen.

I believe the mommyblogger community is leading the way in demonstrating the case study proof of my assertions. We have seen real connections, and real support – people reaching out in very real ways to support each other, typically in times of great need – within this community. This latent sphere bubbles up and is electrically tangible. Like Flubber (it’s highly viscuous, highly volatile, and has a great sense of rhythm) or the slime in Ghostbusters. (Sorry, but you’ll understand my meaning ) It’s not just “aware”.

So imagine the future – where more communities realise that potential. And then take it that step further, where the brands you love most are able to be part of that space. You know the old saying that if mums ruled the world, there’d be no more war? Here we are in a global networked society, with mums leading the way. Who can tell what comes next?

The 2010 International Symposium on
Collaborative Technologies and Systems (CTS 2010)

May 17-21, 2010
The Westin Lombard Yorktown Center Hotel
Chicago, Illinois, USA
http://cisedu.us/cis/cts/10/main/callForPapers.jsp

You are cordially invited to participate in this Symposium through paper submission, a workshop or a special session organization, a tutorial, an invited speech, a demo, a poster, an exhibit, a panel discussion, a doctoral dissertation, whichever sounds more appropriate and convenient to you.

The symposium will include invited presentations by experts from academia, industry, and government as well as contributed paper presentations describing original work on the current state of research in collaboration technologies, collaboration systems, virtual environments, and related issues. There will also be tutorial sessions, workshops, special sessions, demos, posters, panel discussions, doctoral consortium, and exhibits. Conference sponsorships are welcomed.

Important Dates:
Paper and Poster Submission Deadline ————- December 1, 2009
Workshop/Special Session Proposal Deadline ——- November 1, 2009
Tutorial/Demo/Panel Proposal Deadline ———— December 1, 2009
Notification of Acceptance ———————– February 1, 2010
Registration & Camera-Ready Manuscripts Due —— March 1, 2010

For further details and updates, please consult the conference web site at URL: http://cisedu.us/cis/cts/10/main/callForPapers.jsp, or contact one of the Co-Chairs: Bill McQuay, Voice: (937) 255-4947, Ext. 3607, Email: William.McQuay@wpafb.af.mil or Waleed W. Smari, Voice: (937) 229-2795, Email: Smari@arys.org.

The First International Workshop On Collaborative Social Networks
- CollaborateSN 2009 -
http://www.dicom.uninsubria.it/~barbara.carminati/collaborateSN09

In conjuction with CollaborateCom 2009, http://www.collaboratecom.org/

Crystal City, Washington D.C., USA, November 11-14, 2009

Call for Papers – due September 4th

The widespread adoption of Web 2.0 related technologies has facilitated user collaboration and knowledge sharing. Thanks to these technologies, collaborative communities are today one of the emerging trends in the ICT area. Notable examples of collaborative communities are those in online social networks, where users are able to establish relationships with other users, possibly of different types and for purposes that may concern business, entertainment, religion, dating, etc, and also they are able to enforce information sharing based on these relationships. As such, social networks represent a natural place for collaborative communities. Collaborative tools based on the social networking paradigm, i.e., collaborative social network, are today more and more used not only by single users, but also at the enterprise level to communicate, share information, taking decisions, and doing business. This is in line with the emerging trend known as Enterprise 2.0 As such, the existence of collaborative social networks that can be used for various reasons creates both interesting opportunities and challenges.

The aim of this workshop is to bring together researchers in various disciplines to explore the effect of social networks on collaborative applications. Our ultimate goal is to foster communication and collaboration across disciplines to enable interdisciplinary approaches
for collaborative social networks.

CollaborateSN-2009 will be held in conjunction with the 5th International Conference on Collaborative Computing: Networking, Applications and Worksharing, (CollaborateCom-2009), which is jointly sponsored by IEEE CS, Create-Net, the International Computer Sciences, and Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering (ICST).

We solicit unpublished research papers that address various aspects of online social network based collaborative applications. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

* Models of privacy and security related to collaborative social networks and social networks
* Social network analysis and mining for collaborative applications
* Access control models and solutions for collaborative social networks
* Studies of user needs and behaviors for various collaborate applications in social networks
* Business models for collaborative social networks
* Trust and Reputation models in collaborative applications
* Knowledge-base management in collaborative social networks
* Interoperability issues in social networks
* Semantic technologies for collaborative social networks
* Decentralized architectures for collaborative social networks

PROGRAM CO-CHAIRS

Barbara Carminati – University of Insubria, Italy.

Murat Kantarcioglu – University of Texas at Dallas.

Position Announcement
RESEARCHER AND SOFTWARE DEVELOPER
PhD Candidate in Collaborative Technologies

The Department of New Media Technology of MODUL University Vienna is seeking an outstanding candidate for joining its research team as a PhD candidate with a special focus on collaborative technologies and Java J2EE enterprise portals. MU Vienna is an international university located on top of Kahlenberg, a scenic hill overlooking the Austrian capital. It combines a strong academic foundation with state-of-the-art curricula and a commitment to innovation and sustainability as key drivers of success in a dynamic and knowledge-based society.

www.modul.ac.at/nmt/researcher

Requirements

* Degree in computer science, information systems or a related area
* Good analytical skills and extensive programming experience, preferably in Java or Python

* Expert knowledge in the following fields:
– J2EE Enterprise Portals (e.g., Liferay)
– Dynamic Web Technologies (AJAX, CSS, etc.)
– Social Collaboration Systems and Web 2.0 Applications

* Optional Qualifications
– Open Source Database Management Systems (PostgreSQL)
– Linux System Administration (Debian)
– Human-Computer Interaction, Information Visualization

* Ambition to produce internationally recognized research output, and willingness to collaborate within an interdisciplinary team.

The position remains open until filled with review of resumes to begin August 15, 2009. Additional information on the Department of New Media Technology is available at: www.modul.ac.at/nmt, www.idiom.at, www.geospatialweb.com, and www.ecoresearch.net. MU Vienna is an equal opportunity employer and encourages qualified women to apply. Please send
your application including cover letter, CV and academic transcript to Mag. Gertraud Moser at gertraud.moser@modul.ac.at (preferably as a single PDF file; use www.filemail.com for files exceeding 10 MB).

Assistant Professor in Information Systems, specifically Communications and Collaboration Management Application deadline 2009-08-15

Applications are invited for an Assistant Professorship position in Information Systems with a specialization in communications and collaboration management. The successful applicant would be based in the Department of IS of the Muenster School of Business and Economics. Communications and collaboration management studies the impact of communication systems or infrastructures, such as unified or real-time communication or CSCW, in an (inter-)organizational context. Research might focus on emerging practices of communication or collaboration in groups or in social networks.

Assistant Professor (in German: Juniorprofessur W1) is a post that offers an opportunity to qualify for full professorship in the German university system. The appointment is initially for three years with an option of an extension for another three years after successful evaluation.
The teaching load is an equivalent of 4 hours/ per week for the first three years and 5 hours/ per week thereafter. The supervision of PhD candidates is welcomed. The post provides the opportunity to build a research programme. Experience in funded research is valued.

Applicants should have a PhD degree information systems or in management or economics with a specialization in information systems. Further, knowledge is expected in
* organization and management theory,
* social science,
* qualitative research methods.
Applicants should be fluent in English, German language skills are beneficial but not a prerequisite. They should have good collaborative skills and be willing to work in interdisciplinary teams. Further, good communication skills in writing and in presentations are required.

The application shall be written in English and include the following items:
* Description of the applicant’s research and pedagogical qualifications, as well as other qualifications;
* Curriculum Vitae (CV);
* Complete list of publications;
* A plan for future work within the area of the announced position, both scientific and educational, if appointed.

The University Muenster is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to raising the ratio of women scientists in senior positions. Consequently, we actively encourage applications from suitably-qualified women who will be treated preferentially. The same applies to suitable
applicants with disabilities.

Applications shall be sent no later then August 15th electronically to:
dekan@wiwi.uni-muenster.de or
to: Prof. Dr. Stefan Klein
Dean Muenster School of Business and Economics Universitaetsstr. 14-16
D-48143 Muenster

Inquiries about the post should sent to Prof. Stefan Klein, mailto:
stefan.klein@uni-muenster.de

Further details about the Münster School of Business and Economics and the
Department of IS can be found at:
http://www1.wiwi.uni-muenster.de/fakultaet/?sprache=eng (school)
http://www1.wiwi.uni-muenster.de/fakultaet/organisation/wirtschaftsinformati
k/ (department) http://www.wi.uni-muenster.de/WI/orga/klein.cfm?status=#status# (research group)

Open Design Spaces Mensch & Computer 2009 Call for Papers

A éste evento si hay que ir…pero como ponente!, vamos a ver que se tiene antes del 15 de Abril.

Cuantas veces no te has enfrentado a la tarea de realizar algun trabajo el cual al final debe estar representado en un documento word y que debe ser realizado por varias personas?
el proceso comun seria dividirse el trabajo en secciones cada cual avanzar en su parte, cuando alguno halla terminado su parte enviar el documento word via correo electrónico a los otros participantes o a un coordinador encargado de juntar las distintas partes. De esta manera el control de cambios es muy dificil de llevar o darlo a conocer a todos los participantes.

A continuacion os muestro lo que nos ofrece google documents y cuales son sus ventajas.

1. Cualquier miembro del grupo puede crear el documento inicial y compartirlo a los colaboradores de la actividad.

2. Luego compartirlo con los miembros del grupo y que participarán en la creación del documento.

Esquina superior derecha de la ventana de google documents para compartir el documento con los colaboradores

de esta manera nos evitamos el envio de documentos adjuntos y por tanto la gestión de cantidades de versiones de documentos. Aqui solo existe un documento el cual puede ser modificado por sus colaboradores.

Un link al documento será enviado a los colaboradores adicionados y éstos podran efectuar sus cambios y que serán reflejados en tiempo real a todos sus participantes.
Esto de por sí ya constituye una ventaja porque no tendrás que esperar a que tus compañeros envien sus avances para ver que están escribiendo.

tambien puedes disfrutar de mecanismos de awareness como avisos cuando tus colaboradores están editando el documento al mismo tiempo que tu.

y lo mejor de todos es el sistema de control de cambios que permite guardar revisiones de cada una de las modificaciones hechas por los miembros o colaboradores

si quieres comparar versiones no tienes nada mas que checkear las revisiones de tu preferencia y google docs te ofrece una manera de ver las modificaciones, eliminaciones y adiciones haciendo uso de colores.

de esta manera se puede incluso tranquilamente modificar el texto de adicionado por otra persona si tienes una idea mejor de redacción, o borrar aquella parte que no consideras importante, todo sin miedo a dañar el documento ya que tienes el historial de revisiones a tu disposición.

ahora os doy un tip: que tal si en lugar de modificar o borrar un texto quisieras dejar una sugerencia en un parrafo o frase del documento? … en otras palabras emular la funcionalidad de word de dejar comentarios.

podrias simplemente utilizar la funcionalidad del text background color, escoger un color por convención y dejar tus comentarios o anotaciones en el parrafo o frase que desees.

De esta manera te ahorraras mucho tiempo y te organizarás mucho mejor, animate, solo debes liberarte de aquellas predisposiciones mentales a hacer las cosas como siempre las has venido haciendo antes.

Collaborative Coupling over Tabletop Displays
Anthony Tang, Melanie Tory, Barry Po, Petra Neumann, Sheelagh Carpendale
Human Communication Technologies Lab CHI 2006
討論者在於collaborative interface工作常會發生互相干擾，或是同一時間需要共用一物件，文章中提出了三種視覺觀看的技術(Filter Lenses ShadowBoxs)，並做兩個task去討論小組或個人如何使用這3種技術完成工作。

Collaborative Coupling就像是一種關係，(1)(2)個人互不影響去使用這介面(2)-(5)阻礙其他人工作
filters(左)可觀看全觀的地理資訊並可抽離選擇(像是只選擇市街圖或公車路線圖等)，Lenses(右上)可指定某地區的地圖並顯示詳細資訊，ShadowBoxs允許需要的區域選取並移至介面的任何地方

According to this report, information on pharmaceutical drugs on wikipedia is incomplete and much more likely to contain errors of omission compared with the Medscape Drug Reference (MDR). Using http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifampicin as an example of a Google search result, the authors have compared Wikipedia entries with those of MDR, a “freely accessible general drug information database that had been previously evaluated and found to be broad in both scope and depth of drug information that was gathered from authoritative references”. Paradoxically, information on Rifampicin at MDR appear to be unaccessible. Only after having found out that Rifampicin’s trade name is IsonaRif I am able to retrieve some of the the data. Wikipedia may be inferior to MDR with regard to to completeless and acuracy but fares much better when it comes to availability, transparency of the editing process, the use of citations, openess and the extent of linking to other relevant information resources. The collaborative editing of wikipedia entries is an example of distributed human computation. Medicine should start exploring it’s potential rather than warning of its possible side effects.

En los ultimos años se ha incrementado el desarrollo de sistemas groupware, motivado por la necesidad de soporte al trabajo colaborativo, que a su vez tiene su auge con el aumento en las capacidades de transmision de informacion y de la especializacion de los miembros de los grupos debido a el aumento de la dificultad de los problemas a resolver. Tales sistemas tienen sus antecesores en aplicaciones como LotusNote, que intentan dar soporte a trabajo colaborativo entre dos o mas personas, actualmente existen muchos sistemas que soportan en buena medida la colaboracion.

El termino groupware como tal tiene muchas definiciones que conciden entre otras cosas en el soporte al trabajo colaborativo. Sistemas de mensajeria tanto instantanea como asincrona suelen ser incluidos en la categoria de sistemas groupware, ademas de estos son incluidos los sistemas workflow, sistemas de informacion (publicaciones web, blogs, wikis, etc), entre otros.

Sin embargo la colaboracion no es facil de lograr, uno de los factores que tienen gran incidencia en el logro del trabajo colaborativo es la posibilidad de establecer interacciones casuales. Como ejemplo de interaccion casual podemos citar una situacion comun en una oficina: alguien realiza un trabajo, otro individuo de la oficina se acerca y al ver el artefacto sobre el que trabaja su companero decide opinar, tal opinion es una interaccion casual y esta puede desencadenar un proceso colaborativo. Sin embargo para que las interacciones casuales tengan lugar se necesita que los individuos tengan informacion del contexto en donde los demas miembros del grupo estan desarrollando su trabajo, tal informacion es Workspace Awareness (awareness de espacio de trabajo). Para tal fin existen los artefactos de awareness.

Podriamos decir entonces que la colaboracion efectiva en sistemas groupware depende en buena medida de los artefactos de awareness proporcionados y de la efectividad de tales artefactos para suministrar informacion contextual a los individuos involucrados en el trabajo.

Abstract.

Awareness has become a cornerstone in computer systems design to reduce the meta-communicative efforts needed to collaborate across physical distances and in computer-mediated environments [1], that´s why is becoming important to identify problems associated with the use of awareness in order to design better Awareness displays, considering those aspects that goes against the reason and purpose of the awareness systems. This abstract attempt to show some of the identified awareness problems, the incidence in the asker and helper, and trying to find out some situations where using awareness makes a significant difference.

Introducción.

Algunos autores sostienen que la comunicación espontánea informal en espacios de trabajo, es bastante importante y útil para generar procesos de aprendizaje y trabajo colaborativo; sin embargo existen estudios orientados a demostrar que hay ciertas consecuencias que hay que pagar por el uso de Awareness. Las investigaciones apuntan a tratar de identificar tales consecuencias o problemas y generar estrategias para atacarlos, con el objetivo de diseñar mecanismos de Awareness lo mas eficientes posibles o que cumplan mejor con su propósito de potenciar el aprendizaje y trabajo colaborativo.

Problemas y Consideraciones de Diseño de Pantallas de Awareness.

Uno de los problemas identificados en el uso de pantallas de Awareness en espacios de trabajo computacionales, es el asunto de las interrupciones; Estas pueden generar reducción de la productividad del sujeto que es cuestionado, más, que al sujeto que pregunta, y por lo tanto es una consideración de mucho peso a tener en cuenta al momento de diseñar sistemas con Awareness.

Las investigaciones apuntan a atacar e identificar aspectos que generan interrupciones y la búsqueda de mecanismos o estrategias para dar soluciones, además de identificar situaciones en las cuales el uso de Awareness es mas conveniente o genera mejores resultados, a continuación se mencionan algunos aspectos a tener en cuenta para el diseño de pantallas Awareness buscando reducir las interrupciones:

La sincronización, entendiéndose por ésta, los mecanismos para proveer información referente al nivel de disposición que el sujeto cuestionado tiene en un momento específico de responder a preguntas. Se deben considerar mensajes en la pantalla Awareness que provean información al sujeto que pregunta del nivel de disposición a responder del sujeto objetivo y de esta manera contribuir con la sincronización.

La motivación: ya que el sujeto que necesita respuestas y el que es cuestionado, no son movidos por los mismos intereses a no ser que ambos personajes sean miembros de un mismo equipo trabajando en objetivos compartidos.

La cantidad de información presentada: ya que puede generar reducción en las interrupciones si le da al sujeto que pregunta la suficiente información para decidir si es el momento apropiado para preguntar o si por el contrario debería esperar.

Novedosos aportes…

Actualmente existen novedosas investigaciones como la llevada a cabo por Benjamin Waber en MIT, la cual presenta un sistema Awareness el cual captura información por medio de censores localizados en dispositivos móviles, los cuales son recolectados y estudiados, haciendo uso de una nueva área de investigación llamada “Reality Mining” que pretende obtener datos cuantificables por medio de dispositivos electrónicos generalmente inalámbricos, y en tiempo real, de las interacciones sociales reales como la comunicación cara a cara, entre miembros de un determinado grupo o equipo, que luego son analizados haciendo uso de Social Network Analysis (SNA) y finalmente se pretende a partir de los resultados obtenidos del análisis, aplicar técnicas de Social Network Stimulation (SNS) para finalmente enrutar o estimular comportamientos deseados en una red.

A continuación se describe la solución Awareness de Waber y cómo ésta intenta solucionar los problemas de las Interrupciones de los sistemas Awarenes:

Uno de los dispositivos construidos es llamado el “Presence Book” el cual brinda información en tiempo real acerca de la disponibilidad, accesibilidad y la red social egocéntrica.

A continuación se presenta pantalla Awareness en la figura:

- Pantalla de Presence Book.

Como se mencionó anteriormente, este sistema recolecta información mediante censores bluetooth y otros, y ataca los siguientes problemas:

La disponibilidad: intentando responder la pregunta ¿estaría interrumpiendo una conversación si llamo ahora?, o ¿están ellos demasiado ocupados para recibirme ahora? [3]. Para el prototipo, las conversaciones y datos de movimiento son usados para inferir la información presentada en la pantalla del dispositivo respecto a la disponibilidad.

La accesibilidad: intentando responder a la pregunta de que tan difícil es para un usuario acceder a determinado sujeto, buscando determinar de que manera es accesible tal sujeto, por ejemplo, si el sujeto está en su oficina entonces estará disponible para una comunicación cara a cara, pero si el sujeto está caminando fuera del área de trabajo, entonces es accesible solo vía e-mail o llamada telefónica. El prototipo usa datos de localización para cumplir con el propósito de la accesibilidad.

Finalmente el prototipo muestra también una red social egocéntrica que muestra los enlaces que conectan a un usuario con el sujeto de su interés, esto con el objetivo de responder a la pregunta ¿Quién que yo conozca conoce al sujeto de mi interés?, o ¿Quién en el departamento de desarrollo, pasa mucho tiempo con el departamento de ventas? Lo cual puede ser bastante útil para iniciar relaciones sociales.

Como se puede observar Reality Mining proporciona información bastante importante que puede contribuir a la construcción de mejores sistemas Awareness, gracias los datos cuantificables que pueden ser recolectados para posterior análisis.

Algunas Conclusiones.

Algunos estudios experimentales han demostrado que el uso de Awareness para la coordinación de comunicaciones interruptoras, potencia el aprendizaje colaborativo y reduce las perturbaciones asociadas con las interrupciones, pero tales comunicaciones deben darse en un ambiente de beneficios compartidos o de identidad común como es el caso de equipos de trabajo de proyectos específicos[2].

Los resultados mencionados en las investigaciones sugieren que el uso de pantallas de Awareness, es un factor que potencia el trabajo o aprendizaje colaborativo en ambientes que requieren un apretado acoplamiento entre los integrantes del grupo, ya que comparten intereses y motivaciones comunes, lo cual hace que cada miembro sea respetuoso con el tiempo y la concentración de sus compañeros y por lo tanto haga preguntas solo en las situaciones mas necesarias, siempre teniendo en cuenta la disposición del sujeto cuestionado a responder.

Es importante tener en cuenta la aplicación de Reality Mining para la implementación de sistemas Awareness ya que el análisis de datos provenientes de la interacción real de los sujetos de una red son bastante valiosos si se quiere atacar el problema de las interrupciones.

Referencias:

[1] Palfreyman K. A. and Rodden T., A protocol for user awareness on the World Wide Web, Procs. of CSCW’96, Boston, MA, USA, 1996, 130 – 139.

[2] Dabbish Laura, Kraut Robert E., Controlling Interruptions: Awareness Displays and Social Motivation for Coordination, Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. Pag 190.

[3] Kim Taemie, Chang Agnes, Pentland Alex. Enhancing Organizational Communication using Sociometric Badges, MIT Media Laboratory, Wellesley College, Pag 3