Groupware packages are increasingly being used to support content delivery, class discussion, student to student and student to faculty interactions and group work on projects. This research focused on groupware packages that are used to support students who are located in different places, but who are assigned group projects as part of their coursework requirements. In many cases, students are being asked to use unfamiliar technologies that are very different from those that support personal productivity. For example, computer-assisted cooperative work (CSCW) technology is different from other more traditional, stand-alone software applications because it requires the user to interact with the computer as well as other users. However, familiarity with the technology is not the only requirement for successful completion of a group assigned project. For a group to be successful, it must also have a desire to work together on the project. If this pre-requisite is not present within the group, then the technology will only create additional communication and coordination barriers. How much of an impact does each of these factors have on the acceptance of CSCW technology? The significance of this study is threefold. First, this research contributed to how a user's predisposition toward group work affects their acceptance of CSCW technology. Second, it helped identify ways to overcome some of the obstacles associated with group work and the use of CSCW technology in an academic online environment. Finally, it helped identify early adopters of CSCW software and how these users can form the critical mass required to diffuse the technology. This dissertation reports the impact of predisposition toward group work and prior computer experience on the intention to use synchronous CSCW. It was found that predisposition toward group work was not only positively associated to perceived usefulness; it was also related to intention to use. It also found that perceived ease of use, at least in this study, had a direct and positive impact on intention, and was not mediated through perceived usefulness. These findings hold implications for academia and how it uses complex collaborative software. Avenues for further research are identified.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether the style of a user interface (i.e., its look and feel) has an effect on the usability of a synchronous computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) environment for delivering Internet-based collaborative content. The problem motivating this study is that people who are located in different places need to be able to communicate with one another. One way to do this is by using complex computer tools that allow users to share information, documents, programs, etc. As an increasing number of business organizations require workers to use these types of complex communication tools, it is important to determine how users regard these types of tools and whether they are perceived to be useful. If a tool, or interface, is not perceived to be useful then it is often not used, or used ineffectively. As organizations strive to improve communication with and among users by providing more Internet-based collaborative environments, the users' experience in this form of delivery may be tied to a style of user interface look and feel that could negatively affect their overall acceptance and satisfaction of the collaborative environment. The significance of this study is that it applies the technology acceptance model (TAM) as a tool for evaluating style of user interface look and feel in a collaborative environment, and attempts to predict which factors of that model, perceived ease of use and/or perceived usefulness, could lead to better acceptance of collaborative tools within an organization.

Learning Content Management Systeme (LCMS) unterstützen die professionelle Erstellung, Verwaltung und Auslieferung von Lernmaterialien [BHMH02]. Die Speicherung der hierfür verarbeiteten Lerninhalte in einem zentralen Repository ermöglicht neben deren Wiederverwendung auch den Zugriff für mehrere Nutzer und somit das Zusammenführen der verschiedenen Kompetenzen, die während der Erstellung benötigt werden: Die mithilfe der Lernmaterialien zu vermittelnden Inhalte müssen nicht nur fachlich richtig, sondern auch didaktisch, gestalterisch und technisch für ein oder mehrere Zielgruppen individuell aufbereitet worden sein. Dabei reichen die Zielgruppen von verschiedenen Abteilungen bis hin zu Lernern mit verschiedenen Muttersprachen und Kulturen in international agierenden Unternehmen und Bildungseinrichtungen. Die Arbeit der Nutzer mit dem LCMS wird durch verschiedene Mechanismen und Funktionalitäten erheblich vereinfacht, ihre Zusammenarbeit untereinander blieb bisher aber weitestgehend unbeachtet. Das Promotionsvorhaben, das in Kooperation mit der chemmedia AG erfolgt, setzt an diesem Punkt an. Als Vorbild und somit zur Identifikation von Kommunikations- und Kooperationskonzepten werden Social- Software-Anwendungen herangezogen, bei denen die gemeinsame Content-Erstellung scheinbar unproblematisch stattfindet. Als methodische Klammer wird die DIN EN ISO/IEC 19796 [Deu09] herangezogen. Sie gibt einerseits die für die Analyse nötige Strukturierung der Prozesse bei der Lernangebotserstellung vor und liefert außerdem die für die Evaluation benötigten Qualitätskriterien.

Web applications offering real-time collaboration support (e.g. Google Docs) allow geographically dispersed users to edit the very same document simultaneously, which is appealing to end-users mainly because of two application characteristics. On the one hand, provided real-time capabilities supersede traditional document merging and document locking techniques that distract users from the content creation process. On the other hand, web applications free end-users from lengthy setup procedures and allow for instant application access. However, implementing collaborative web applications is a time-consuming and complex endeavor since offering real-time collaboration support requires two specific collaboration services. First, a concurrency control service has to ensure that documents are synchronized in real-time and that emerging editing conicts (e.g. if two users change the very same word concurrently) are resolved automatically. Second, a workspace awareness service has to inform the local user about actions and activities of other participants (e.g. who joined the session or where are other participants working). Implementing and integrating these two collaboration services is largely ine cient due to (1) the lack of necessary collaboration functionality in existing libraries, (2) incompatibilities of collaboration frameworks with widespread web development approaches as well as (3) the need for massive source code changes to anchor collaboration support. Therefore, we propose a Generic Collaboration Infrastructure (GCI) that supports the e cient development of web-based groupware in various ways. First, the GCI provides reusable concurrency control functionality and generic workspace awareness support. Second, the GCI exposes numerous interfaces to consume these collaboration services in a exible manner and without requiring invasive source code changes. And third, the GCI is linked to a development methodology that e ciently guides developers through the development of web-based groupware. To demonstrate the improved development e ciency induced by the GCI, we conducted three user studies encompassing developers and end-users. We show that the development e ciency can be increased in terms of development time when adopting the GCI. Moreover, we also demonstrate that implemented collaborative web applications satisfy end-user needs with respect to established software quality characteristics (e.g. usability, reliability, etc.). / Webbasierte, kollaborative Echtzeitanwendungen (z.B. Google Docs) erlauben es geografisch verteilten Nutzern, Dokumente gemeinschaftlich und simultan zu bearbeiten. Die Implementierung kollaborativer Echtzeitanwendungen ist allerdings aufwendig und komplex, da einerseits eine Nebenläufigkeitskontrolle von Nöten ist und andererseits die Nachvollziehbarkeit von nicht-lokalen Interaktionen mit dem gemeinsamen virtuellen Arbeitsraum gewährleistet sein muss (z.B. wer editiert wo). Um die Entwicklung kollaborativer Echtzeitanwendungen effizient zu gestalten, wurde eine Generische Kollaborationsinfrastruktur (GKI) entwickelt. Diese GKI stellt sowohl eine Nebenläufigkeitskontrolle als auch Komponenten zur Nachvollziehbarkeit von nicht-lokalen Interaktionen auf eine wiederverwendbare und nicht-invasive Art und Weise zur Verfügung. In drei dedizierten Studien, die sowohl Entwickler als auch Endanwender umfassten, wurde die Entwicklungseffizienz der GKI nachgewiesen. Dabei wurde die Entwicklungszeit, der Umfang des Quelltextes als auch die Gebrauchstauglichkeit analysiert.

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Nowadays, the hybrid working model has prevailed as the new working model for many organizations, which combines working remotely and onsite. Although the hybrid working model is not new, the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the transition from traditional working model to hybrid one, which results in greater use of technology, especially for the employees’ collaboration. Collaboration is at the core of agile development team members’ daily hybrid work, and it is achieved through the support of technology tools, such as Microsoft Teams. The hybrid working model, due to its complexity, creates opportunities and challenges to the way agile development team members’ work and collaborate. Therefore, it is important to examine the collaboration of agile development team members that follow the hybrid working model, as well as benefits and challenges that may arise. Thus, this master thesis examines, the technology-supported collaboration of agile development team members, that follow the hybrid working model, taking as an example Microsoft Teams (MS Teams). For this, an interpretive qualitative ethnographic research was conducted. The data was collected through participant observations, focus groups discussions, and semi-structured interviews from purposively selected team members of three agile development teams. The collected data was analyzed thematically and generated six themes. These six themes represent the findings of the master’s thesis research and are interpreted and discussed with the help of the theoretical framework, which includes the concepts of agile project management, computer-supported cooperative work, collaboration, cooperation, coordination, information sharing, communication and hybrid working model.   The research findings show that it is vital for the members of the agile development teams to use a collaboration tool in their daily hybrid work to assure close and frequent collaboration, which in the traditional working model was mainly achieved face-to-face on-site. Their collaboration includes communication, information sharing, and coordination activities, which are supported and facilitated by the technological tool of MS Teams. However, the hybrid working model has given rise to challenges in the collaboration among the agile development team members, which can be overcome if the technological tool of MS Teams is used properly by everyone. This research contributes to the existing knowledge of the informatics research field and the body of research of computer-supported cooperative work by providing a better understanding of how technological tools are used to support collaborating team members that follow the hybrid working model, including benefits and challenges experienced. It also contributes to agile development team members and other practitioners that use MS Teams through improved understanding of aspects that can be taken into consideration for the use of a collaboration technological tool, and the generation of guidelines for such technology in order to make the use of it most efficient.

Mixed richness communications occur when a participant in a conversation receives a different media or combination of media than they transmit. Mixed richness communications occur in the workplace when technical, physiological or practical limitations prevent the use of the same media on both ends of a conversation. Prior research in CMC has focused on same-richness communications, and the design guidelines that are available for same-richness communications may not be applicable to mixed-richness communications. This study attempts to establish a basis for understanding mixed-richness communications by evaluating same-richness communications using concepts and measures previously applied to mixed-richness communications Media Richness Theory (Daft & Lengel, 1984, 1986) defines the richness of a communication medium in terms of its ability to reduce uncertainty and equivocality. According to Daft and Lengel's task-media fit hypothesis, communications are most effective and satisfying when the media richness matches the level of uncertainty and equivocality in a task. Social presence is the perceived ability of a medium to transmit the social cues that lead to a sense that the medium is "warm, personal, sensitive, and sociable" (Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976). Social presence has been suggested to be a predictor of user satisfaction for computer-mediated communications (CMC), and has been used as measure of media richness in previous studies (Rice, 1993; Yoo & Alavi, 2001). This study examined the effects of communication medium and task equivocality on task performance, communication effectiveness and sense of social presence. Pairs of participants were required to complete high and low equivocality collaborative tasks while communicating with each other using CMC. The communication media varied between participants. During some sessions, participants received and transmitted the same media (video-only or text-only). In other cases, participants transmitted text and received video or vice-versa. From the recorded transcripts of each user session was extracted task performance in terms of task time-to-complete and communication effectiveness in terms of the frequency of communication breakdowns. Based on the task-media fit hypothesis, it was expected that task performance and communication effectiveness would be affected by the interaction between communication medium and task equivocality. For the most part, task-media fitness was not confirmed. Only one of the four hypotheses supporting task-media fitness was confirmed for time-to-complete, and none of the four hypotheses supporting task-media-fitness was confirmed for communication breakdown frequency. In the overall analysis of time to complete, Medium was found to have had a significant effect. Sending and receiving text was significantly slower than all other tested media. Sending and receiving video was significantly faster than all other tested media combinations. After completing each task, participants completed a short questionnaire designed to measure the sense of social presence using the original scales developed by Short and Christie. The sense of social presence reported in video communications was significantly higher for all scales than the sense of social presence reported in mixed-richness environments. The sense of social presence reported in text communications was only significantly lower than mixed-richness environments for one scale, with no significant difference for all other scales. / Master of Science

Neue Organisationsformen, wie evolutionäre Organisationen, bilden in vielen Kooperationsszenarien sozio-technische Konstrukte mit modernen CSCW Anwendungen aus. Daher erfordern Veränderungen dieser sozialen Systeme eine kontinuierliche Anpassung der technischen Tools an die neuen sozialen Konfigurationen. Diese Dissertation ist als Design Science Research (DSR) Projekt konzipiert und addressiert die folgende Forschungsfrage (RQ): “Wie können soziotechnische, evolutionäre Organisationen die Herausforderungen der joint optimization und des organizational choice während ihrer autopoietischen Veränderungsprozesse addressieren?” Die Fallstudie Viva con Agua de St. Pauli e.V. wurde mittels qualitativer und ethnographischer Methoden im Rahmen der entsprechenden DSR Zyklen untersucht. Das Forschungsprojekt fokussiert die Entwicklung von Artefakten indem sowohl eine technische, als auch eine soziale Perspektive eingenommen wird. Aus der technische Perspektive wird die RQ durch eine Microservice-Plattform adressiert. Die Architektur dient der Verteilung von Verantwortlichkeit für die Software in einem heterogenen Netzwerk von Entwickler:innen. Dabei müssen diverse neue Herausforderungen beachtet werden, wie etwa die Verteilung des User Interface. Durch die Betrachtung der RQ aus der sozialen Perspektive wird der USMU Workshop entwickelt. Dieses Artefakt dient der Verbindung der Charakteristika evolutionärer Organisationen mit agiler Software Entwicklung und mit Methoden des partizipativen Designs. Die Studien zeigen, dass beide Artefakte die RQ adressieren. Zudem konnte ich für beide Artefakte wertvolle Verbesserungsmöglichkeiten aufzeigen. Somit motivieren die Ergebnisse den nächsten Schritt des Projekts und die vorliegende Thesis wird Bestandteil des zyklischen Ablaufs eines DSR Projekts. / The emergence of new types of organizational structures, such as evolutionary-teal organizations, almost always leads to the development of socio-technical constructs when it comes to working in collaboration with modern CSCW applications. A consequence of this is that the social system’s autopoietic change processes create challenges that compel one to adjust the implementation of the technical tool to the social system’s new configuration. This thesis is structured according to the design science research (DSR) approach and focuses on the research question (RQ): “How can socio-technical evolutionary-teal organizations address the challenges of joint optimization and organizational choice during their autopoietic processes?” For this purpose, the case study Viva con Agua de St. Pauli e.V. is investigated using a qualitative ethnographical approach during the DSR cycles. Addressing the RQ, two artifacts are designed from a technical as well as a social perspective. While the technical perspective primarily investigates the adjustments of technology, the social perspective focuses on the management of change in socio-technical evolutionary-teal organizations. I propose a microservice platform as an artifact that addresses the RQ from a technical perspective. The microservice architecture aims at spreading the responsibility for the software through a heterogeneous ecosystem of developers. The newly designed USMU workshop is addressing the RQ from the social perspective. It strives to intertwine the characteristics of evolutionary-teal organizations with agile software development and participatory design methods. In my studies, I examine the fact that both artifacts can be used to address the RQ. Additionally, I was able to identify valuable improvements for both of my artifacts. Hence, the project follows the lifecycle of a DSR project by reasoning through the results presented here for its next iteration.

Online creative collaboration is challenging our basic assumptions about how people can create together. Volunteers from around the world who meet and communicate over the Internet have written the world's largest encyclopedia, developed market-leading software products, solved important open problems in mathematics, and produced award-winning films, among many examples. A growing body of research refutes the popular myth that these projects succeed through "self-organization" and instead points to the critical importance of effective leadership. Yet, we know little about what these leaders actually do, the challenges they must manage, and how technology supports or hinders their efforts. In this dissertation, I investigated the role of leadership in online creative collaboration. I first conducted two empirical studies of existing leadership practices, focusing on the domain of online, collaborative animation projects called "collabs." In the first study, I identified the major challenges faced by collab leaders. In the second study, I identified leader traits and behaviors correlated with success. These initial findings suggested that many collab leaders, overburdened and lacking adequate technological support, respond by attempting less ambitious projects and adopting centralized leadership styles. Despite these efforts, leaders frequently become overburdened, and more than 80% of collabs fail. To ease the burden on leaders and encourage more complex, successful projects, I led the development of a web-based, open-source software tool called Pipeline. Pipeline can support leadership by reinforcing a traditional, top-down approach, or transform leadership by redistributing it across many members of a group. This latter approach relies on social processes, rather than technical constraints, to guide behavior. I evaluated Pipeline's ability to effectively support and transform leadership through a detailed case study of Holiday Flood, a six-week collaboration involving nearly 30 artists from around the world. The case study showed that formal leaders remained influential and Pipeline supported their traditional, centralized approach. However, there was also evidence that Pipeline transformed some leadership behaviors, such as clarifying, informing, and monitoring, by redistributing them beyond the project's formal leaders. The result was a significantly more ambitious project which attained its goals and earned high praise from the community. The main contributions of this dissertation include: (1) a rich description of existing leadership practices in online creative collaboration; (2) the development of redistributed leadership as a theoretical framework for analyzing the relationship between leadership and technological support; (3) design implications for supporting and transform leadership; (4) a case study illustrating how technology can support and transform leadership in the real world; and (5) the Pipeline collaboration tool itself, released as open-source software.

Das Internet ist ein riesiger Experimentierkasten für neue Anwendungssysteme. Potenziell enthält insbesondere das sogenannte Web 2.0 Ideen und Mechanismen, die auch im Organisationsumfeld die Zusammenarbeit zwischen Mitarbeitern unterstützen können. Ein jüngstes Beispiel hierfür sind die von Facebook bekannten Activity Streams. Fraglich ist nun, wie eine Adaption dieses Web 2.0-Vorbilds in Organisationen auszugestalten ist. Hierfür ist zu klären, welcher Anwendungsfall von Activity Streams abgedeckt werden kann, welche Anforderungen hieraus sowie aus dem allgemeinen organisationalen Kontext entstehen und wie schließlich ein entsprechendes Anwendungssystem zu konzipieren ist. Die Arbeit zielt auf die Beantwortung dieser Fragestellungen in Form eines Fachkonzepts, welches anschließend durch eine prototypische Implementierung sowie die Durchführung von Fallstudien in realen Einsatzszenarien Anwendung findet.