Cette thèse a pour objectif de concevoir un nouveau paradigme de navigation Web, permettant à un ensemble d'utilisateurs de naviguer de manière coopérative sur le Web. Ces utilisateurs, selon des règles de synchronisation simples mises à jour de manière dynamique, peuvent synchroniser l'affichage de pages Web dans leur navigateur. Nous avons modélisé les différentes primitives de synchronisation proposées au moyen d'automates étendus et avons formalisé le modèle global de synchronisation par des réseaux de Petri. Une vérification formelle de ce modèle, grâce aux outils TINA et ALDEBARAN, a montré que les primitives de synchronisation rendaient effectivement le service attendu. Partant d'une description informelle et intuitive de l'architecture du système de navigation coopérative, nous avons proposé une méthode pour la formaliser au moyen du profil UML/SDL supporté par l'outil TAU G2 de Telelogic. Nous avons détaillé l'architecture au moyen de différents diagrammes UML de ce profil et l'avons validé en comparant les traces de simulation obtenues avec les scénarios (diagrammes de séquences) élaborés au début de la phase de conception de notre système. Nous avons développé une implémentation du système de navigation coopérative en Java, appelée CoLab, qui est à ce jour opérationnelle et qui supporte les principales primitives de synchronisation. Cette implémentation s'appuie sur la présence d'un serveur Proxy centralisé qui synchronise les utilisateurs selon les relations de synchronisation établies entre eux. Elle s'appuie également sur une technique originale de traduction des pages Web qui permet de rendre les actions de navigation détectables par le serveur Proxy. Nous avons réalisé des campagnes de mesure du temps moyen de rapatriement de ressources Web, en fonction du nombre d'utilisateurs enregistrés dans une session et de la taille des ressources, qui ont montré les bonnes performances de la plate-forme jusqu'à plus d'une centaine d'utilisateurs par sessio n. S'appuyant sur ces résultats, nous avons proposé une solution pour répartir CoLab sur plusieurs serveurs Proxy. Finalement, nous avons montré comment rendre disponible le service de navigation coopérative sous la forme d'un service Web.

<p>På läkemedelsföretaget AstraZeneca finns ett webb-baserat system för fildelning, eRoom, som är tänkt att ge en delad, säker arbetsplats på Internet så att spridda projektgrupper kan genomföra gemensamma projekt. Detta examensarbete har sin grund i att flera användare i Sverige inte var helt nöjda med systemet, dess tillgänglighet, struktur och kognitiva aspekter. Jag vill, med eRoom som en fallstudie, undersöka vad det generellt kan finnas för faktorer som påverkar hur nöjda användare är med ett CSCW-system.</p><p>Arbetet grundar sig i teknometodologi och kommunikationsteori och tillämpas på domänen CSCW-system. De metoder som använts är en större enkätundersökning, intervjuer samt det kunskap sprunget ur det författarens medlemskap i gruppen som uppnåtts under arbetets gång.</p><p>Ett av de största problemen är att eRoom inte används till kommunikation och samarbete mellan spridda projektgrupper. Istället används det som arkiv och dokumenthanteringssystem av personer som befinner sig fysiskt nära varandra och har andra sätt att kommunicera och samarbeta. Detta beror på att systemet inte kan förmedla sin funktion och kommunicera med användarna på ett bra sätt, vilket gör att systemet inte heller stöder användaren i det som är systemets grundläggande funktion. System av den här typen måste även vara bättre än befintliga sätt att utföra liknande arbetsuppgifter, vilket eRoom är när det gäller dokumenthantering, men inte när det gäller kommunikation och samarbete.</p>

No description available.

<p>TOUCHE (Task-Oriented and User-Centered process model for developing interfaces for Human-Computer-Human Environments) is a process model for software development created to develop groupware. The creation of TOUCHE is part of a research project carried out at three Spanish universities. The aim of the project is to create a complete process model for the development of usable groupware. This thesis is part of this project and aims to further advance the TOUCHE process model so that it fulfills its aim on developing for usability. The thesis is based on research from the HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) and CSCW (Computer-Supported Cooperative Work) fields. In the thesis a new version of TOUCHE is created which has a strong focus on developing for usability.This is done by selecting four principles from the HCI field, incorporating what is considered to be most important when developing for usability. The principles are a strong focus on, and the involvement of users throughout the whole process, an iterative process, multidisciplinary design, and aim for groupware usability. TOUCHE is analyzed from these principles and missing elements are identified. The difficulties of integrating these elements into TOUCHE are discussed and finally elements are chosen to be integrated into TOUCHE. These elements include a usability guide, evaluation cycles, prototyping, pre-documentation and a multidisciplinary team.</p>

This thesis addresses the research question of how social awareness support in computer systems for groups and communities can be designed in a successful way. While the field of human-computer interaction has been working with similar questions for more than 20 years, many aspects of people’s cooperation and the way those should be considered in system design still need further consideration and research. The thesis presents a number of projects where systems for cooperation have been designed for different settings and different kinds of use with a particular interest in social awareness. Drawing from the experiences of the different projects, design sensitivities around awareness, as a central prerequisite for collaboration, are suggested. Another contribution of the thesis is the presentation of a theoretical model for awareness, called Aether, introduced by us a number of years ago. We will discuss the theoretical implications of the model as well as a number of applications of it based on our own work as well as based on the work of other researchers who used Aether, by this providing confirmation of our model. Based on the findings around awareness, the thesis argues for a ‘translucent’ approach to the issue of socio-technical balance that one has to consider in the design process. Instead of trying to understand and model human behaviour or the social organization of cooperation, in order to ‘code’ them into the computer system, this approach advocates for systems that mediate information in a ‘translucent’ way so that people can retain the control of the organization of cooperation in their given context. By using a ‘reflective practitioner’ approach, the thesis discusses how people-centred methods have been used throughout these projects and looks into how awareness could be considered by using these methods. The focus of this investigation is twofold: on one hand to understand how the used methods have influenced our discussion about awareness and on the other hand it aims to address the practitioners of the field by questioning some of the common beliefs in the field. By investigating social awareness support in collaborative systems, the thesis contributes to theoretical arguments in the field of humancomputer interaction, and the area of CSCW in particular, while at the same time it provides the interaction design practitioner with a number of considerations for practical use. / QC 20100913

Los entornos colaborativos educacionales, así como las herramientas educacionales están tomando grandes repercusiones en nuestra sociedad, llevándose a cabo en la actualidad numerosos proyectos de investigación acerca de su construcción y su uso en comunidades educacionales. Las investigaciones llevadas a cabo durante estos años han estado basadas en la creación de entornos colaborativos y su aplicación en entornos educacionales, a través de las cuales se han realizado una serie de estudios sobre las ventajas y desventajas que proporcionan dichos entornos, tanto a nivel de arquitectura como a nivel de herramientas.Con lo cual uno de los objetivos de nuestro trabajo de investigación es ofrecer una plataforma colaborativa genérica que puede ser aplicada a cualquier ámbito colaborativo incluyendo el aprendizaje por descubrimiento. Para ello se han estudiado las principales tecnologías y las distintas plataformas existentes obteniendo a partir de ello los elementos necesarios para la creación de un entorno colaborativo genérico. Con el fin de consolidar dichos elementos mostramos como se han aplicado al desarrollo de aplicaciones y plataformas dentro del ámbito de dos proyectos europeos, ITCOLE y COLAB. / Earning collaborative environments as well as learning tools have taken a prominent relevance in society, producing a growth of research projects regarding the building and the use of this system in education area. During the last years the research in this area has been focused on the building of different kinds of collaborative platforms and its usage in the educational arena, providing different kinds of studies which indicate the advantages and disadvantages of the use of them. These studies have covered the architecture of these systems and the use of them. Therefore, the aim of this research is to provide a generic collaborative environment which can be applied to any area, including discovery learning. For that reason, we have studied the main technologies and platforms for obtaining the elements needed in the building of a generic collaborative environment. Moreover, we have included these elements in the development regarding two European projects, ITCOLE and COLAB.

No description available.

TOUCHE (Task-Oriented and User-Centered process model for developing interfaces for Human-Computer-Human Environments) is a process model for software development created to develop groupware. The creation of TOUCHE is part of a research project carried out at three Spanish universities. The aim of the project is to create a complete process model for the development of usable groupware. This thesis is part of this project and aims to further advance the TOUCHE process model so that it fulfills its aim on developing for usability. The thesis is based on research from the HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) and CSCW (Computer-Supported Cooperative Work) fields. In the thesis a new version of TOUCHE is created which has a strong focus on developing for usability.This is done by selecting four principles from the HCI field, incorporating what is considered to be most important when developing for usability. The principles are a strong focus on, and the involvement of users throughout the whole process, an iterative process, multidisciplinary design, and aim for groupware usability. TOUCHE is analyzed from these principles and missing elements are identified. The difficulties of integrating these elements into TOUCHE are discussed and finally elements are chosen to be integrated into TOUCHE. These elements include a usability guide, evaluation cycles, prototyping, pre-documentation and a multidisciplinary team.

Delar av dagens samhälle fortsätter att datoriseras och nya möjligheter för interaktion med datoriserade produkter som stödjer social interaktion introduceras i ökad takt. Själva grunden för hur organisationer ser ut förändras och pekar mot ett allt mer distribuerat sätt där människor kan interagera med varandra utan att vara på samma plats, vid samma tidpunkt. Samtidigt visar forskning att det finns brister i användbarhet hos gruppverktyg. Kognitiva arbetsmiljöproblem (KAMP) kan uppstå när användbarhet brister men har hittills främst studerats ur ett enanvändarperspektiv. Syftet med den här rapporten är att identifiera samt klassificera socio-kognitiva arbetsmiljöproblem (SKAMP) inom datorstött samarbete för att bidra med kunskap som i förlängningen kan leda till en tydligare förståelse kring SKAMP. En arbetsplatsstudie utfördes där distribuerad kognition användes som analysverktyg. Studien genomfördes på en avdelning inom en organisation där förutsättningarna för att finna SKAMP ansågs som gynnsamma. Genom att anta ett distribuerat synsätt där observationer av avbrott och ”mismatches” i informationsflödet beaktats samt hur kognitiva processer implementeras i en grupp mynnade det analyserade materialet ut i fem kategorier av SKAMP: Problem med informationskoordinering, ”Bristande kommunikation”, ”gemensam lägesbildsaknas”, ”Brister i medierad kommunikation”, ”Otillräcklig kontroll och överblick”och ”Oklar holistisk helhetsmodell”. Dessa skall ses som komplement till de redan idag identifierade KAMP.

None