Computer-Supported Collaboration: With Applications to Software Development

With the development of networked computing and the increased complexity of applications and software systems development, the importance of computer-supported collaborative work [CSCW] has dramatically increased. Globalization has further accentuated the necessity of collaboration, while the Web has made geographically distributed collaborative systems technologically feasible in a manner that was impossible until recently. The software environments needed to support such distributed teams are referred to as Groupware. Groupware is intended to address the logistical, managerial, social, organizational and cognitive difficulties that arise in the application of distributed expertise. These issues represent the fundamental challenges to the next generation of process management. Computer-Supported Collaboration with Applications to Software Development reviews the theory of collaborative groups and the factors that affect collaboration, particularly collaborative software development. The influences considered derive from diverse sources: social and cognitive psychology, media characteristics, the problem-solving behavior of groups, process management, group information processing, and organizational effects. It also surveys empirical studies of computer-supported problem solving, especially for software development. The concluding chapter describes a collaborative model for program development. Computer-Supported Collaboration with Applications to Software Development is designed for an academic and professional market in software development, professionals and researchers in the areas of software engineering, collaborative development, management information systems, problem solving, cognitive and social psychology. This book also meets the needs of graduate-level students in computer science and information systems.

Computer-Supported Collaboration with Applications to Software Development reviews the theory of collaborative groups and the factors that affect collaboration, particularly collaborative software development. Theinfluences considered derive from diverse sources: social and cognitive psychology, media characteristics, the problem-solving behavior of groups, process management, group information processing, and organizational effects.It also surveys empirical studies of computer-supported problem solving, especially for software development. The concluding chapter describes a collaborative model for program development. Computer-Supported Collaborationwith Applications to Software Development is designed for an academic and professional market in software development, professionals and researchers in the areas of software engineering, collaborative development, managementinformation systems, problem solving, cognitive and social psychology. This book also meets the needs of graduate-level students in computer science and information systems.

Introduction. 1: Cognitive and Social Psychology in Collaboration. 1. Introduction. 2. Cognitive models. 3. Cognitive effects and biases. 4. Social psychology factors. 2: Media factors in collaboration. 1. Introduction. 2. Environmental factors affecting collaboration. 3. Visual and auditory clues in face-to-face collaboration. 4. Video versus audio-only. 5. Proxemic effects. 6. Dialog structure. 7. Social context cues. 8. Managerial behavior and information richness. 9. Effects of I/O rates and asynchrony. 10. Physical artifacts. 3: Group problem-solving: Tasks, productivity, early experiments. 1. Introduction. 2. Group productivity and types of tasks. 3. Group problem solving on disjunctive tasks. 4. Characteristics of groups. 4: Computer-supported processes and productivity. 1. Introduction. 2. Process gains and losses. 3. Structuring interactions. 5: Communication and information in organizations and groups. 1. Introduction. 2. Effects of organizational embedding. 3. Information sharing. 6: Groupware. 1. Introduction. 2. Groupware applications and effects. 3. Impediments to developing and using groupware. 4. Design presuppositions in groupware. 5. Virtual workspaces. 6. Shared I/O and development toolkits. 7: A brief survey of experimental results on computer-supported collaboration and software development. 1. Introduction. 2. Standardized frameworks. 3. Meta-analyses. 4. Computer-supported brainstorming studies. 5. Software development tasks. 8: Collaborative-cognitive model for introductory software development. 1. Introduction. 2. Problem solving. 3. Software development. 4. Composite cognitive model for problem solving based introductory software development. 5. Collaborative factors in software development. Glossary. References. Index. Author Index.