Collaboration Technology

Towards an Architecture for Virtual Enterprises

by Luis M. Camarinha-Matos

L. M. Camarinha-Matos, H. Afsarmanesh, C. Garita, C. Lima
Proc. 2nd World Congress on Intelligent Manufacturing Processes and Systems, Springer, Budapest, Hungary, June 1997, pp. 531-541.

An approach to the design of an architecture for industrial virtual enterprises (VE), with special emphasis on the... more An approach to the design of an architecture for industrial virtual enterprises (VE), with special emphasis on the identification of main functional requirements, is presented. First, a discussion of the various types of virtual enterprises is provided. Some classification scenarios and discussions of the modeling and reengineering tools and methodologies are described. Due to the importance of the information flows and management in the VE, one chapter is merely devoted to the analysis of the appropriateness of a federated information management approach. This work is based on and represents the on going activities in two European Union funded projects; the Esprit Prodnet II and the INCO-DC SCM+ projects.

New Models for Collaborative Textual Scholarship

by Anna Jordanous

Co-authored with Mark Hedges (lead author), Stuart Dunn, Charlotte Roueche, Marc W. Küster, Thomas Selig, Michael Bittorf, Waldemar Artes.

Accepted for 6th IEEE Int. Conf. on Digital Ecosystems and Technologies for Complex Systems, Environment, and Service Engineering IEEE-DEST 2012.

Final version will be uploaded after editing is finished.

Researchers in digital humanities have for many years been producing online editions of texts based on TEI XML, a... more Researchers in digital humanities have for many years been producing online editions of texts based on TEI XML, a widely-adopted standard for marking up textual resources with semantic content. However, this has led to a certain isolation of information, the so-called ‘digital silo', and such modes of digital publication have not always made best use of the possibilities of digital technologies. The model is also challenged by the need to model texts that are by their very nature interconnected. The paper describes a collaborative environment of tools and techniques for working with texts that allows scholars to work with such highly- interconnected material.

Barriers to Appropriate Technology Growth in Sustainable Development

by Joshua Pearce

I. Zelenika  and J.M. Pearce, “Barriers to Appropriate Technology Growth in Sustainable Development”, Journal of Sustainable Development 4(6), 12-22 (2011).

Given the urgency of development problems world-wide, as well as the opportunities of open source appropriate... more Given the urgency of development problems world-wide, as well as the opportunities of open source appropriate technology (OSAT) to help expedite sustainable development goals, a better understanding of the barriers limiting the scaling of OSAT is needed. In this study, key organizations and researchers working in the field of appropriate technology (AT) were interviewed to identify barriers to OSAT. The data was analyzed via pattern coding and content analysis. Results reveal that among the most pressing problems for those working in the field of AT were the need for better communication and collaboration between the agencies and communities to share the knowledge and resources, and to work in partnership. Specific barriers include: i) AT seen as inferior or “poor person's” technology, ii) technical transferability and robustness of AT, iii) insufficient funding, iv) weak institutional support, and v) the challenges of distance and time in tackling rural poverty. Finally, future work is outlined to better understand and overcome these barriers.

Active Aging with Collaborative Networks

by Luis M. Camarinha-Matos

Luis M. Camarinha-Matos, Hamideh Afsarmanesh
IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE, Winter 2011

A tool to support Interaction and Collaboration Analysis of learning activities

by Nikolaos Tselios

N. Avouris, V. Komis, G. Fiotakis, M. Margaritis, N. Tselios, A tool to support Interaction and Collaboration Analysis of learning activities, Proc. of 6th Conf. Computer Based Learning in Science (CBLIS), 2003, pp. 215-225, Nicosia, Cyprus.

An increasing amount of data is collected today during studies in which students and educators are engaged in learning... more An increasing amount of data is collected today during studies in which students and educators are engaged in learning activities using information technology and other tools. These data are indispensable for analysis and evaluation of learning activities, for evaluation of new tools and for students’ meta-cognitive activities. The data can take various forms, including video and audio recordings, log files of computing-related activity, field notes, results of students work in electronic or other forms, activity sheets etc. The need for analysis tools, which can annotate these data, classify them, process them and facilitate their inspection, is of increased importance especially for science education, since the latter involves experimentation and use of laboratory and other equipment that necessitate thorough off-line analysis and evaluation.
In this paper we discuss first the key requirements of a new generation of interaction and collaboration analysis tools. We then present how these requirements have lead to the design of a prototype tool, recently developed. This tool can relate and synchronize various streams of field data. An important characteristic of the tool is its support for a multi-layer structure of annotations of various levels of abstraction, through which the activity can be interpreted and presented. This multi-layer representation can be inter-related to the raw field data, and can drive the navigation of the researcher in the activity data. An example of use of this tool for analysis and evaluation of a collaborative problem solving activity is also included.

Online versus face-to-face collaboration in the context of a computer-supported modeling task

by Nikolaos Tselios

Siambou, F., Komis, V., & Tselios, N. (2012). Online versus face-to-face collaboration in the context of a computer-supported modeling task, Computers in Human Behavior, special issue ‘Web-2.0 technologies in support of open, team-based learning and innovation’ (to appear).

In this paper, the differences between face-to-face and synchronous online collaboration in the context of a... more In this paper, the differences between face-to-face and synchronous online collaboration in the context of a computer-supported modeling task are examined. A mathematical problem was designed and given to the participants. Their modeling process using ModellingSpace, a collaborative computer-supported educational environment, was closely monitored. 16 ninth grade students participated in the study, who worked in groups of two. Half of the groups worked face-to-face, whereas the rest collaborated online. The analysis focused on the identification of students’ cognitive modeling strategies, their interactions and the learning for each type of collaboration. Towards this end, both qualitative and quantitative approaches were adopted; as well two complementary coding schemes to better investigate the peers’ interactions. The obtained results suggest that pairs who worked online emphasized on analysis and synthesis and demonstrated a higher learning gain, whereas face-to-face pairs needed the teacher’s support and demonstrated stronger social interaction. Moreover, despite the fact that the actions of face-to-face dyads were more in number, the dyads that worked online seemed to present more task oriented actions. Regarding the interactions, in both groups a mutual exploration of the problem is observed as well as few disagreements across the participants. It is argued that the findings, which are discussed in detail through comparison with other related studies, could inform design of learning programs and the facilitation of collaborative tasks.

Strategies that support collaborative learning in distance education

by Norma I. Scagnoli

Technology Use in the Virtual R&D Teams

by Nader Ale Ebrahim نادر آل ابراهیم

ALE EBRAHIM, N., AHMED, S., ABDUL RASHID, S. H. & TAHA, Z. 2012. Technology Use in the Virtual R&D Teams. American Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 5, 9-14.

Problem statement: Although, literature proves the importance of the technology role in the effectiveness of virtual... more Problem statement: Although, literature proves the importance of the technology role in the effectiveness of virtual Research and Development (R&D) teams for new product development. However, the factors that make technology construct in a virtual R&D team are still ambiguous. The manager of virtual R&D teams for new product development does not know which type of technology should be used. Approach: To address the gap and answer the question, the study presents a set of factors that make a technology construct. The proposed construct modified by finding of the field survey (N = 240). We empirically examine the relationship between construct and its factors by employing the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). A measurement model built base on the 19 preliminary factors that extracted from literature review. The result shows 10 factors out of 19 factors maintaining to make technology construct. Results: These 10 technology factors can be grouped into two constructs namely Web base communication and Web base data sharing. The findings can help new product development managers of enterprises to concentrate in the main factors for leading an effective virtual R&D team. In addition, it provides a guideline for software developers as well. Conclusion: The second and third generation technologies are now more suitable for developing new products through virtual R&D teams.

The design exchange: A collaborative online community for designers based on shared construction of design knowledge

by Muzaffer Ozakca

Argumentation support: from technologies to tools

by Mark Aakhus

Moor, A. D., & Aakhus, M. (2003). Argumentation support: from technologies to tools. In H. Weigand, G. Goldkuhl, & A. de Moor (Eds.), Proceedings of the 8th International Working Conference on the Language-Action Perspective on Communication Modelling (Vol. 49, pp. 93-98). Tilburg, The Netherlands: Working Conference on the Language Action Perspective.

A revised and updated version was published as:

Moor, A. de, & Aakhus, M. (2006). Argumentation Support: From technologies to tools. Communications of the ACM, 49(3), 93-98.

Electronic argumentation support is increasingly important in today’s networked society. Virtual research... more Electronic argumentation support is increasingly important in today’s networked society. Virtual research collaboration, e-business, and many other domains of professional life critically depend on adequate support of tools for productive argumentative interactions. However, a plethora of technologies exist that are not necessarily tools. A technology only is a tool if it serves the purposes of the community in which it is used. In this paper, we outline an approach to diagnose to what extent a particular argumentation technology is a tool. We do this by combining a socio- technical view on technologies with a pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation analysis. We argue that for technologies to become a tool, argumentation routines and design need to co-evolve. We illustrate our approach by applying it to a case on group report authoring.

COLLABORATION ACROSS THE ENTERPRISE

by Aggelos Liapis

Liapis, A., Christiaens, S., (2009) " Collaboration Across the Enterprise: An Ontology Based Approach for Enterprise Interoperability" In Gregoris Mentzas, G., Panagiotis Gouvas, P., Thanassis Bouras, T., and Friesen, T. (Eds.), Semantic Enterprise Application Integration for Business
Processes: Service-Oriented Frameworks, IGI Global, Harrisburg, PA

In the current competitive industrial context, enterprises must react swiftly to market changes. In order to face this... more In the current competitive industrial context, enterprises must react swiftly to market changes. In order to face this problem, enterprises must increase their collaborative activities. This implies at one hand high communication between their information systems and at the other hand the compatibility of their practices. An important amount of work must be performed towards proper practices of standardization and harmonization. This is the concept of Interoperability. Interoperability of enterprises is a strategic issue, caused as well as enabled by the continuously growing ability of integration of new legacy and evolving systems, in particular in the context of networked organisations. of the reconciliation of the communicated business semantics is crucial to success. For this, non-disruptive re-use of existing business data stored in “legacy” production information systems is an evident prerequisite. In addition the integration of a methodology as well as the scalability of any proposed semantic technological solution are equally evident prerequisites. Yet on all accounts current semantic technologies as researched and developed for the so- called Semantic Web may be found lacking. Still, semantic technology is claimed about to become mainstream, as it is pused by enterprise interoperation needs and increasing availability of domain specific content (for example ontologies) rather than pulled by basic technology (for example OWL) providers. In this paper we present a methodology which has resulted in the implementation of a highly customizable collaborative environment focussed to support ontology-based enterprise interoperability. The main benefit of this environment is its ability to integrate with legacy systems, rescuing enterprises from having to adapt or upgrade their existing systems in order to interoperate with their partners.

Leveraging collaborative technologies to build a knowledge sharing culture at HP Analytics

by rohit nishant

Paper Spaces: Visualizing the Future

by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang

Advancing professional learning pedagogies with collaborative knowledge creation technologies

by Robert Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald, R.N. (2007). ACT Report on the Partnerships in ICT Learning Study: Advancing professional learning pedagogies with collaborative knowledge creation technologies. In Chris Reading (Ed). Partnerships in ICT Learning Study Case studies. Department of Science, Education and Training, Canberra, ISBN: 978-1-875864-59-1

This final report details the ACT component of the Partnerships in ICT Learning (PICTL) study — Advancing professional... more This final report details the ACT component of the Partnerships in ICT Learning (PICTL) study — Advancing professional learning pedagogies with collaborative knowledge creation technologies. The project resulted in a redevelopment of a Secondary Teaching Studies unit to support pre-service teachers’ use of collaborative technologies such as wikis, blogs and team-learning systems. Even though these teachers were limited in the time they could spend with these technologies they appeared to be able recognise their pedagogical potential.

Rich design: Engaging students as capable designers and co-creators in auto-catalytic learning contexts

by Robert Fitzgerald

Findlay, J. & Fitzgerald, R. (2006). Rich design: Engaging students as capable designers and co-creators in auto-catalytic learning contexts. In E. Pearson & P. Bohman (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2006 (pp. 500-506). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.
Retrieved from http://www.editlib.org/p/23056.

This paper offers a cultural-historical explanation for the large gap that has developed between the home and school... more This paper offers a cultural-historical explanation for the large gap that has developed between the home and school experiences of young people of multimedia and other technologies. Multimedia developers now face a choice of creating instructional systems which are boring and irrelevant to learners, or to step into their world, and transfer to them the skills and tools to allow them to become either co-creators of their own knowledge, or creators of customisable, collaborative and autocatalytic learning worlds for themselves and others to experience.

Collaborative research tools: Using wikis and team learning systems to collectively create new knowledge.

by Robert Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald, R.N & Findlay, J. (2011). Collaborative research tools: Using wikis and team learning systems to collectively create new knowledge. Edited by Sharlene Hesse-Biber, Handbook of Emergent Technologies and Social Research. Oxford University Press, Boston.

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, technological and social change is accelerating faster than ever... more In the first decade of the twenty-first century, technological and social change is accelerating faster than ever before. Seemingly isolated and “under control” local or regional issues are now being transmitted throughout global economic, technological, and management systems in minutes and days rather than months and years. The global financial crisis is one recent example of this. Major differences between the experts (scientists and other researchers) about issues such as global warming, the use of nanotechnology or nuclear power often polarize the key debates producing conflict and little action. Decision theory has taught us that expertise is highly domain specific and therefore differences in opinion and strategy are understandable and to be expected. However, the real problem arises when experts move from their descriptive expertise to the normative activity of making predictions as to what constitutes ideal or optimal social practice. Many years ago, Rittel and Webber (1973) made the important distinction between wicked and tame problems. Tame problems are those that can be solved by the technical applications of expertise and knowledge. Wicked problems as those that are contentious and controversial with no clear solution—they are social problems such as welfare or poverty, requiring a social dialogue between experts and nonexperts. Wicked problems are not solved by information alone. In his 1980s best-selling book about the paradigm shift from the Industrial Age to the Information Age, futurist John Naisbitt noted, “We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge” (1982, p. 17). Three decades later, it could be argued that we are now drowning in knowledge, but starved of its wise application to the wicked problems that face us. We anticipate that a new generation of social tools will become necessary to support the democratization of the knowledge-creation process. It is often only when a new technology is used that we understand how it could develop in the future and what improvements would make the technology more useful and powerful. Our analysis of the use of wikis and team learning systems for the research process suggests that tools are required tosupport the process of knowledge integration and formation rather than just data collection and analysis. The knowledge-creation process has reached the stage where the most powerful new learning can only take place when we emphasize synthesis between people rather than objective analysis and truth alone. Wikis and the team learning system are examples of social research tools that can help us achieve this goal.

Knowledge management in cloud environments

by Dirk Langenberg

Langenberg, Dirk, Martin Dames, and Christian Kind. 2011. “Knowledge Management in Cloud Environments.” In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Technologies (i-KNOW ’11 ), eds. Stefanie Lindstaedt and Michael Granitzer. ACM New York, NY, USA.

Communication and sharing of knowledge are important challenges for virtual organizations (VO) in the globalized... more Communication and sharing of knowledge are important challenges for virtual organizations (VO) in the globalized economy. There are various tools available to virtually reduce geographical distances and to support collaboration. Also for the management of knowledge appropriate solutions are available. But VOs typically have limited time to setup the entire IT- infrastructure for their collaboration. Therefore the trend to buy ready-to-use products exists. This paper characterizes requests of VOs for SaaS products, proposes functionalities to support team work and describes challenges with their solutions in the cloud.

The Doubtful Guest? A Virtual Research Environment for Education

by Patrick Carmichael

Laterza, V., Carmichael, P., and Procter, R. (2007) The Doubtful Guest? A Virtual Research Environment for Education Technology, Pedagogy and Education 16(3) pp. 249-267 Online at: http://www.informaworld.com/10.1080/14759390701614363.

Digital Product Development in a Distributed Virtual Environment

by Dirk Langenberg

Cao, Weiqun; Gärtner, Hendrik; Conrad, Stefan; Kruijff, Ernst; Langenberg, Dirk; Schultz, Ralph

Virtual Reality leads Digital Product Development technology to a more effective and convenient way by presenting the... more Virtual Reality leads Digital Product Development technology to a more effective and convenient way by presenting the product model in an immersive real 3D environment. Distributed VR even gives the possibility for partners to discuss the design of the product independent of their locations. This paper introduces the ongoing work with a Digital Product Development System with Virtually Cooperating Teams Using Optical Networks-ProVit, which aims at building up immersive telepresence systems for design review running over high-bandwidth networks. Video and audio streams are integrated in the virtual environment to support teleconference aspects of the distributed design review sessions. A network management system has been developed for the supervision, maintenance and processing of distributed setups, and network security.

Technical Architecture for configurable working environments for SMEs

by Dirk Langenberg

Langenberg, D.; Dryndos, J. 2009. “Technical Architecture for configurable working environments for SMEs.” In 15th International Conference on Concurrent Enterprising (ICE) 2009.

Collaborations between SME are different than the traditional OEM-supplier chains. Here are other requirements in the... more Collaborations between SME are different than the traditional OEM-supplier chains. Here are other requirements in the focus of interest: Low costs are often more important than powerful and complex software products as well as flexibility to integrate with any kind of application is more necessary than already available integration solution for big enterprise application, which are only sporadic used in SMEs. Therefore the CoVES (Collaborative Virtual Engineering for SMEs) project followed a new approach for flexible integration of web applications in collaboration environments. The approach differs from the currently promoted service oriented architectures. This paper focuses on two technical aspects of the CoVES architecture: Mashup concept, which is a technology for a seamless integration of web applications, and Single Sign On for an easy access on the distributed data sources.