Conference Paper

Event-based awareness promotion for distributed collaborative activities

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Abstract

Maintaining awareness is central to effective coordination and collaboration in complex human activities, but pervasive computing environment has not adequately addressed this requirement from a formal design perspective. Existing awareness solutions work only for relatively small-scale collaboration in traditional workplace, and they suffer from either inflexibility or lack of scalability if applied to pervasive computing environment. Based on our analysis of awareness life cycle, we propose a model of event-based awareness promotion mechanism. Our model extends focus-nimbus model and reaction-diffusion model with computational reasoning of dependencies and diffusion paths. The model is partially validated through implementation of our experimental environment, DACE (Dependency-based Awareness and Coordination Environment), which supports belief tracking, updates, and reasoning tasks and enhance the cognitive capability in awareness interpretation and use. Key principles of the DACE system are explained through a hypothetical scenario of search and rescue exercise typical in emergency response applications.

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... Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) pour la sensibilisation aux activités distribuées [Cai et Yu, 2014] et également l'analyse de conceptions collaboratives [Bang et al., 2017], la spécification d'événements composites pour le support de la collaboration dans la conception logicielle [Yuan et al., 2002] ou encore la définition de patrons de conception dédiés à la collaboration dans les architectures basées événements [Verginadis et al., 2009] CoDesign est un exemple de framework permettant de faire de la conception logicielle de manière collaborative [Bang et al., 2010]. L'utilisation d'une architecture basée événement permet à l'application d'être très extensible car très peu couplée. ...
Thesis
L’évolution technologique du web durant ces dernières années a favorisé l’arrivée d’environnements virtuels collaboratifs pour la modélisation 3D à grande échelle. Alors que la collaboration réunit dans un même espace partagé des utilisateurs distants géographiquement pour un objectif de collaboration commun, les ressources matérielles qu'ils apportent (calcul, stockage, 3D ...) avec leurs connaissances sont encore trop rarement utilisées et cela constitue un défi. Il s'agit en effet de proposer un système simple, performant et transparent pour les utilisateurs afin de permettre une collaboration efficace à la fois sur le volet computationnel mais aussi, bien entendu, sur l'aspect métier lié à la modélisation 3D sur le web. Pour rendre efficace le passage à l’échelle, de nombreux systèmes utilisent une architecture réseau dite "hybride", combinant client serveur et pair-à-pair. La réplication optimiste s'adapte bien aux propriétés de ces environnements répartis : la dynamicité des utilisateurs et leur nombre, le type de donnée traitées (3D) et leur taille. Cette thèse présente un modèle pour les systèmes d’édition collaborative en 3D sur le web. L'architecture cliente (3DEvent) permet de déporter les aspects métiers de la 3D au plus près de l’utilisateur sous la forme d’évènements. Cette architecture orientée événements repose sur le constat d’un fort besoin de traçabilité et d’historique sur les données 3D lors de l’assemblage d’un modèle. Cet aspect est porté intrinsèquement par le patron de conception event-sourcing. Ce modèle est complété par la définition d’un intergiciel en pair-à-pair. Sur ce dernier point, nous proposons d'utiliser la technologie WebRTC qui présente une API familière aux développeurs de services en infonuagique. Une évaluation portant sur deux études utilisateur concernant l’acceptance du modèle proposé a été menée dans le cadre de tâches d’assemblage de modèles 3D sur plusieurs groupes d’utilisateurs.
... Various strategies have been proposed for delivering awareness information (Poulovassilis and Xhafa 2013;Cai and Yu 2014;McGrenere et al. 2010). Important considerations when providing the awareness information are the real needs of the receivers and the care to avoid receivers' information overload. ...
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People working in a cooperative manner need to be updated on events and informed about other users and their activities in their workspaces in order to collaborate effectively. It is necessary that group members feel they are part of the group, in particular when they are geographically dispersed. This kind of information is called awareness and it is an important research aspect in the computer supported cooperative work and computer supported collaborative learning areas. Supporting awareness has important, if subtle, benefits, such as increasing the effectiveness of collaborative work, fostering social relationships, and improving the general wellbeing of individuals. To create and define awareness mechanisms in collaborative environments supported by computers is a complex process that includes several steps that need to be considered, focused on understanding characteristics of interdependent group work with the objective of designing adequate computer-based technology to support cooperative work processes. However, in the literature it is so difficult to find out a structured method that allow designers to develop collaborative applications centered on awareness aspects. This paper proposes the definition of a framework that could assist groupware engineers to incorporate awareness mechanisms in their developments. This framework has a methodological proposal or set of phases to follow, as well as a taxonomy that includes the awareness information that should be incorporated to improve the collaborative experience. The paper presents a review of several awareness mechanisms, frameworks and uses proposed in the literature from a software engineering perspective, focusing on the aspects to be considered when designing and implementing awareness mechanisms in groupware tools. A descriptive theory of awareness for the purpose of supporting groupware development is thus generated. Finally, a case study is described using the framework proposed.
... For example, in single task and with an available safe-explicit feature, novices applied visitor motion strategy whereas experts applied the most successful strategy: the safe-explicit feature. An interpretation can be found in the following definition: "It is human perception and experience of events that generate awareness" [2]. Thus, even if we provide adequate awareness features, their interpretation stay user-dependent (especially according to the expertise). ...
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Intended for designers and researchers, Context and Consciousness brings together 13 contributions that apply activity theory to problems of human-computer interaction. Understanding how people actually use computers in their everyday lives is essential to good design and evaluation. This insight necessitates a move out of the laboratory and into the field. The research described in Context and Consciousness presents activity theory as a means of structuring and guiding field studies of human-computer interaction, from practical design to theoretical development. Activity theory is a psychological theory with a naturalistic emphasis, with roots going back to the 1920s in the Soviet Union. It provides a hierarchical framework for describing activity and a set of perspectives on practice. Activity theory has been fruitfully applied in many areas of human need, including problems of mentally and physically handicapped children, educational testing, curriculum design, and ergonomics. There is growing interest in applying activity theory to problems of human- computer interaction, and an international community of researchers is contributing to the effort. Contributors Rachel Bellamy, Susanne Bødker, Ellen Christiansen, Yrjo Engeström, Virginia Escalante, Dorothy Holland, Victor Kaptelinin, Kari Kuutti, Bonnie A. Nardi, Arne Raeithel, James Reeves, Boris Velichkovksy, Vladimir P. Zinchenko
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Geospatial information is a fundamental component of many crisis management activities. However, current geospatial technologies do not support work by crisis management personnel, most of whom are not technology specialists—a key impediment is that the technologies require the user to learn the system’s language . In addition, geospatial technologies are not ‘collaboration friendly’—they impede rather than facilitate group work. In this paper we address both issues by presenting (1) a theoretical framework for understanding the roles of visual mediation in map-supported human – human dialogues, and (2) a computational approach for enabling such roles in collaborative spatial decisionmaking contexts. Building upon our initial implementation of a map-mediated collaborative environment, the DAVE_G system [a natural, multimodal, dialogue-enabled interface to geographical information systems (GIS)], we model human – GIS and human – GIS – human dialogues as complex visual-cognitive signification processes in which maps become dynamic facilitators. Using a scenario simulating two crisis managers dealing with a major nuclear release event, we demonstrate how visual display (in DAVE_G) actively mediates human – human dialogue directed to situation assessment and action planning in real applications.
Conference Paper
E-business and e-government implementations are becoming more and more widespread with growing number users depending on availability, accuracy and security of such e-services. The users must be able to trust these services, otherwise they will be reluctant to embrace the new opportunities and will not be able to reap the potential benefits. In addition, the end users wish to use the e-services in the simplest way possible and to have them ldquoon taprdquo 24times7 as other conventional utilities. For this to become possible, a robust interoperability fabric among the involved institutions needs to be established. This means having a lot of collaborative interactions invisible to the end-user (a business or an individual citizen) in order to fulfill the promise of e-services. Such interactions become more complex when the organizations belong to different countries, act according different laws in different languages. This paper presents the work being done to create an efficient, secure and trusted interoperability framework for public sector agencies of European Union member countries.