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The purpose of this paper is to clarify the CSCW in collaborative 4D modelling and its user interface (UI)/interaction designs for prototyping. Four-dimensional (4D) modelling technology has potentials to integrate geographically dispersed planners to achieve collaborative construction planning. However, applying this technology in teamwork remains a challenge in computer-supported collaborative work (CSCW).

The research adopted user-centred design (UCD) methodology to investigate a usable 4D collaboration prototype through analysis, design and usability testing. By applying CSCW theories, it first clarified the meaning of 4D CSCW to formulate design propositions as design target. By leveraging UCD theories, subsequently, the first-stage research sought an optimal standalone 4D modelling prototype following a parallel design approach. At the second stage, it further investigated into a collaborative 4D modelling prototype using an iterative design. It adopted collaborative task analysis into the UI/interaction design extension for a collaborative prototype based on results obtained from the first stage. The final usability testing was performed on the collaborative prototype to evaluate the designed CSCW and UI in a controlled geographically dispersed teamwork situation.

The test results and user feedback verified their usability. It also disclosed design weaknesses in collaborators’ awareness and smooth tasks’ transitions for further enhancement.

The combination of CSCW and UCD theories is practical for designing collaborative 4D modelling. It can also benefit designs for collaborative modelling in other dimensions like cost analysis, sustainable design, facility management, etc. in building information modelling.

This paper describes how an area of computer science research, Computer Supported Cooperative Work, can be applied to world of libraries. Collaborative activities can be described by whether they occur in the same time and in the same place. These activities can be broadly arranged into three groups depending on the participants: staff‐staff, user‐staff and user‐user interactions. Applying computer technology to these activities requires careful consideration of the work practices involved and the costs and benefits of any changes.

This paper sets out to highlight conclusions from computer‐supported cooperative work (CSCW) research, which are relevant to e‐learning environments, in this case, WebCT.

The paper analyses the CSCW literature and identifies the main findings relating to the use and acceptance of collaborative technologies. These findings are applied to the analysis of 65 free‐form accounts of the use of WebCT obtained from student users in a higher education institution.

The challenges to cooperative work tools widely demonstrated within the CSCW research community since the early 1990s are alive and well in the context of e‐learning technology more than ten years later. In particular, there is strong evidence of discrepancies in benefits for different stakeholders, the need for a critical mass of users, and problems with lack of fit with social norms.

Conclusions are based on computing students from one institution, but there is no reason to believe that the sample is atypical.

The conclusions identify a need for stakeholder involvement in the introduction of e‐learning environments in the tradition of participative design.

The paper brings well‐established findings from the CSCW community to the e‐learning domain.

Computer supported collaborative working (CSCW) is an extension to groupware computing which recognizes that there is a need to go further than supporting existing ways of working by using technology to underpin innovative forms of work organization and practice. Outlines the government‐backed initiative to raise the awareness of CSCW and briefly describes the exemplar projects being funded under the initiative.

This paper aims to focus on academic library managers’ learning practices in the context of cooperative work supported by computational artefacts. Academic library managers’ everyday work is mainly cooperative. Their cooperation is supported predominantly by computational artefacts. Learning how to use the computational artefacts efficiently and effectively involves understanding the changes in everyday work that affect managers and, therefore, it requires deep understanding of their cooperative work practices.

Focused ethnography was conducted through participant observations, interviews and document analysis. Ten managers from a university library in Sweden participated in the research. A thematic method was used to analyse the empirical material. Computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) and work-integrated learning was used as the conceptual lens.

Five learning practices were identified: collaboration, communication, coordination, decision-making processes and computational artefacts’ use. The findings show that learning is embedded in managers’ cooperative work practices, which do not necessarily include sufficient training time. Furthermore, learning was intertwined with cooperating and was situational. Managers learned by reflecting together on their own experiences and through joint cooperation and information sharing while using the computational artefacts.

The main contribution lies in providing insights into how academic library managers learn and cooperate in their everyday work, emphasizing the role of computational artefacts, the importance of the work context and the collective nature of learning. It also highlights the need for continual workplace learning in contemporary knowledge work environments. Thus, the research generates contributions to the informatics field by extending the understanding of managers’ work-integrated learning in their everyday cooperative work practices supported by computational artefacts’ use. It also contributes to the intersection of CSCW and work-integrated learning.

The changing technological landscape has brought about new forms of groups and grouping that span across computing and communication devices, space, time, institutions, cultures, realities (physical, virtual, and augmented), and intelligence (natural and artificial intelligence). This chapter utilizes a series of publication and keyword analyses to identify trends in group and technology research in the fields of communication, management, and computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) between 2008 and 2019. The results reveal prominent research areas, and recent shifts and emergent questions in the study of groups and technology, highlighting a complex entanglement of technology with collaborative social practices. The chapter concludes with a discussion of novel key areas and trends suggested by the analyses, with the goal of contributing toward a research agenda for future study of groups and technology.

Questions related to perception in groupware systems have received a lot of attention in recent Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) studies. This paper presents a model of support of perception for a groupware approach based upon communication, coordination and cooperation. The suggested model is applied through learningware technology. The AulaNet learning environment was used as a source of experiences for development of the proposed model. The conception of a new service, implemented on AulaNet to illustrate the utilization of perception information, also is presented. Some of the problems that have been encountered, questions of implementation and difficulties derived from the addition of new functionalities, are highlighted throughout the paper.

Describes the Grace Project, its goals and scope. The aim of Grace is to build distributed group communications tools within an Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) networking environment. Grace provides the foundations for a globally distributed system for cooperative working based on information sharing within activity and organizational domains. Introduces a conceptual model of group communications derived from analysing sample activities. Outlines architecture of Grace and explains the use of existing OSI services. Examines two prototype activities: a Help desk in detail and Computer Conferencing in outline. Discusses the implications of trying to control the access to the above type of tools. Briefly describes the status of group communications standardization.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on assessing individuals’ problems in learning groups/teams and should lead to the assessment of the group/team itself as a learning entity.

In this paper, an extension of the IMS-Learning Design (IMS-LD) meta-model is proposed in order to support the assessment of collaborative activities in e-learning. Besides, the software architecture which consists of a set of components forming a web wizard to create, track and assess the collaborative assessment processes is described as to support that extension of the IMS-LD meta-model.

With the proposed solution we can: make assessment fairer using individual and collective assessment indicators to assign final scores to learners; make an assessment step by step for better individual and collective monitoring activities; and divide the assessment into lighter phases for the correctors. Consequently, the evaluator will have more detailed information about his/her students and the quality of judgment will be better. This could also be useful for the evaluator in order to plan further examinations.

Further experimentations are necessary to test the effectiveness of the proposed system in order to analyze its performances under a massive usage. In addition, the authors plan to use a survey to collect learners’ opinions to know the effectiveness of the proposal in terms of fairness in the assessment of collaborative activities in an online community.

This paper addresses important issues in the educational area, especially assessment of collaborative activities. In fact, to reduce subjectivity and increase fairness in assessing learners in collaborative work, for example, using the peer assessment, in order to try reducing subjectivity and fairly assessing learners. However, while assessing group work, the same mark is attributed for all group members and authors have concluded that it is not the right approach to make a fair and more objective assessment.