Collaboration technologies are difficult to design due to the complex myr-iad of social, cognitive, and communicative aspects of group interactions. New interaction technologies like multitouch sharable interfaces, such asdigital tabletops, have lead to a renewed interest in designing collaborativetechnologies. This thesis focuses on turn-taking protocols as a coordinat-ing mechanism during collaborative work with digital tabletops. The goalwas to develop new conceptual designs and interactive mechanisms to sup-port face-to-face collaborations of small groups. Inspired by ethnographicalstudies of collaborative work and theories in distributed cognition and re-lated theories of language and action a model of collaborative turn-takingwas developed. Moreover, the thesis presents five design concepts and in-teraction components for the digital tabletop that exemplifies the differentproperties of the model.

The intention of this study was to create an understanding of how multi-professional interaction could convert into inter-professional collaboration, which takes advantage of and acknowledges the individual professional identity. The intention was to understand the meaning of collaboration through the study of meetings between professionals who use different symbol systems. In particular, we wanted to study inter-professional interaction from a symbolic interactional perspective with a focus on Self, Identity, Symbols, Meaning and Professional community. The employed method was semi-structured interviews with ten questions. A convenience sample was used to identify working groups composed of different professions, such as teachers, social workers and therapy assistants. The results suggest that the working group believed that personality precedes the profession one is impending, and that participants preferred stability before communication and reflection. Our study also revealed that inter-professional collaboration cannot be pursued without cultivating awareness, active reflection and communication between the professionals involved. Keywords: Self ∙ Multi-professional ∙ Inter-professional ∙ Identity ∙ Collaboration ∙ Symbols ∙ Qualitative rapport.

Vårdnadshavares föreställningar om skola, samarbete och informationsteknik beskrivs i en fenomenologisk analys i den här rapporten. I vilka sammanhang och med vilka begrepp uttrycks vårdnadshavares världsbild? Motsvarar vårdnadshavares förväntningar det faktiska och det planerade arbetet i skolan och samhället och finns det överensstämmelse med vad forskningen visar? Undersökningen har gjorts i Stockholms stad med vårdnadshavare till barn i kommunal grundskola. Resultatet visar att vårdnadshavare sätter omtanken om sitt barn framför allt. I ett samverkansperspektiv med skolan ser vårdnadshavaren sig främst som åskådare. Begränsningar i användningen av datorer bland lärare gör att vårdnadshavare har svårt att hitta adekvat information på ett samlat ställe, som också motsvarar behovet att kunna vara ett stöd och till hjälp för sitt barn. De nya kraven på skriftlig information är vårdnadshavare nöjda med även om de ännu inte riktigt har klart för sig alla dokuments olika betydelser. Synpunkter har också framkommit om nyttan med läxor och svårigheter att veta syftet med dessa. I ett socialt samspel värdesätter vårdnadshavare aktiviteter tillsammans med barnets klass.

Föreliggande studie syftar till att i en kommun undersöka förvaltningars allmänna upplevelser och åsikter kring samverkan och kommunikation som sker mellan dem och arbetsgivarenheten. Vi har i studien valt att med en kvalitativ ansats inhämta empiriskt material genom att genomföra intervjuer med nio respondenter fördelat på olika förvaltningar inom organisationen.Genom kvalitativa intervjuer har fyra frågeställningar besvarats. För det första vilka åsikter och uppfattningar förvaltningarna har på samverkan mellan dem och arbetsgivarenheten. För det andra vilka åsikter och uppfattningar förvaltningarna har på kommunikationen mellan dem och arbetsgivarenheten. Det tredje vilka positiva samt negativa faktorer som förvaltningarna upplever att det finns kring samverkan och kommunikation mellan dem och arbetsgivarenheten. För det fjärde vilka faktorer som påverkar förvaltningarnas behov av samverkan och kommunikation med arbetsgivarenheten.Studiens resultat visar att kommunikation är en stor del av arbetet som samverkan sker kring i organisationen. Förvaltningarna anser att det är viktigt med en gemensam dialog kring de beslut som fattas inom organisationen för att känna delaktighet och få insyn i organisationen. Varför det är viktigt med en god dialog mellan förvaltningar och arbetsgivarenheten har även till stor del att göra med att arbetsgivarenheten i många ärenden sitter på spetskompetensen. Att förvaltningarna måste kommunicera med arbetsgivarenheten för att få del av arbetsgivarenheten kompetens ses generellt inte som ett hinder i arbetet. Intervjudata ger intryck av att detta kan bero på att organisationens har goda strukturella förutsättningar för att skapa en god samverkan. / This present study aims to within a public sector investigate a public management’s general experiences and opinions about collaboration and communication that occurs between them and the employer unit. We have chosen to study with a qualitative approach to obtain empirical data by conducting interviews using eight respondents broken down by different public managements within the organization.Through our interviews four questions were answered. Firstly experiences regarding views and opinions on the collaboration between the public managements and the employer unit. Secondly from the public managements point of view, the views and opinions that the public management might have on the communication that occurs between them and the employer unit. Thirdly the positive and negative factors experienced by the public management regarding collaboration and communication between them and the employer unit. Fourthly what factors affect the public management’s needs regarding collaboration and communication towards the employer unit.Our results demonstrate that communication is a major part of the work that involves the need of collaboration. The public management’s opinion is that it is important to have a dialogue about the decisions taken within the organization to feel involved and gain an insight into the organization. It’s also important for the public managements to have a good dialogue with the employer unit because the employer unit in many cases has the excellence of specific knowledge. This study shows that the public managements generally don’t look at the requirement of collaborating and communication with the employer unit as an obstacle. Why that is might be because of the organization has good structural conditions, which seems to have a good formula if you look to the interview responses.

Three experiments examine how collaboration influences visual search performance. Working with a partner or on their own, participants reported whether a target was present or absent in briefly presented search displays. The search performance of individuals working together (collaborative pairs) was compared to the pooled responses of the individuals working alone (nominal pairs). Collaborative pairs were less likely than nominal pairs to correctly detect a target and they were less likely to make false alarms. Signal detection analyses revealed that collaborative pairs were more sensitive to the presence of the target and had a more conservative response bias than the nominal pairs. This pattern was observed when the search difficulty was increased and when the presence of another individual was matched across pairs. The results are discussed in the context of task sharing, social loafing and current theories of visual search.

One of the most significant developments in cockpit technology over the past several years is the emergence of a new cockpit architecture that uses cursor control devices and keyboards for interaction with individual and shared displays. This architecture has allowed for the design of cockpit interfaces with many advantages compared to traditional designs. However, there are a number of challenges associated with these new cockpits that should be addressed so that pilots will be able to take full advantage of the performance improvements available from the new designs. This thesis describes three of the major challenges associated with the new architecture: supporting awareness, assisting interruption recovery, and mitigating interaction conflicts. It also describes the analysis process used to identify these challenges and proposes an interface augmentation with the potential to address them. The proposed design uses visualizations of the history of operator interactions with the interface to provide cues to the pilots about where each of them has been (and is currently) interacting. This interaction data includes both visual (sourced from a gaze tracking system) and input (from the keyboard or cursor control device) information, and was communicated on the interface using dynamic borders around the relevant areas of the interface. This augmentation aimed to address the three identified challenges by providing pilots with: improved awareness of each other’s actions, visual cues of where they were working prior to an interruption and what has changed since, and clear indications of where each is working to allow them to avoid conflicts. A two-stage evaluation process was used to determine the utility of the interface concept in a cockpit context by developing a non-interactive video prototype and showing it to pilots. The results of the evaluation indicated that the design has sufficient potential to warrant further study, as evaluation in higher fidelity environments would help provide further evidence of its potential utility for live cockpit operations. Therefore, future work should include the development and evaluation of a fully interactive prototype for live cockpit operations, as well as further examination of the design concept’s potential for use as a training tool.

Climate change threatens the integrity of many parks and protected areas worldwide. Mountain parks are amongst the most vulnerable, facing changes in temperature, hydrology, glaciation, fire frequency, and pest and disease outbreaks. Species migration is a key tool in climate change adaptation, but often physical and jurisdictional fragmentation makes it impossible for species to migrate, putting species at risk of extirpation or extinction. Transboundary collaboration and regional planning are tools that can help physically connected parks and protected areas overcome jurisdictional fragmentation and allow for species migration, giving species a greater chance at being able to adapt to climate change. However, there are many barriers to transboundary collaboration and regional planning that makes this difficult to achieve. This research aims to address the challenges parks face with regards to transboundary collaboration and regional planning, and provide possible solutions for overcoming these challenges. A qualitative research project was conducted to determine the state of transboundary collaboration and regional planning in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, using Jasper National Park, Mount Robson Provincial Park, and Willmore Wilderness Park as the study area. A document review, questionnaire, and Importance-Performance Analysis were conducted to determine: the current policy within the Parks Canada Agency, British Columbia Parks, and Alberta Parks in regards to the management implications of climate change; the degree to which transboundary collaboration and regional planning are occurring in and around the study area with regard to climate change; the challenges parks face with regards to transboundary collaboration and regional planning; how these challenges should be addressed; and to determine what park agencies and managers need to be able to participate in transboundary collaboration and regional planning. Ultimately, it became clear that while transboundary collaboration is a potentially effective tool for climate change adaptation, little transboundary collaboration is occurring within the study area. In order for this to occur, all parks must have appropriate legislation, policies, and plans in place; British Columbia Parks has these, but both Parks Canada and Alberta Parks do not. Parks planners and managers are not able to put priority on transboundary collaboration until it is mandated within the management plans. However, parks managers are supportive of transboundary collaboration for climate change and it seems likely that the parks will use this tool as it becomes increasingly necessary over the next 25 years.

Logistics Transportation is an indispensable step that connects production, storage, and the final customers. Plenty of previous research has been done to achieve the goals such as low cost, high accuracy in timing, good customer service, and low damage rate, within the transportation system. However, most of those improvements are on the operational level. There are few supply chain collaborations that try to optimize logistics transportation from a strategic level. This thesis proposes a new collaboration policy, Carrier Managed Transportation (CMT). It is a coordinated relationship between the carrier and the clients in a supply chain. As opposed to the traditional approach, where the client decides when to request shipments of the products, in CMT, the carrier will make these decisions on their behalf through information sharing. Due to the complexity in relationships and responsibilities of chain members, we divide the business scenarios into four cases and discuss the impact of CMT on each case. Comparisons and numerical examples across cases are also provided, along with some conclusions regarding the implementation of CMT.

Government (state) command and control strategies for addressing the complexities, uncertainties, and conflicts associated with ecological issues are no longer adequate. This is particularly true when addressing water resources. Water resources are inherently complex as a result of demands related to (1) competition between multiple users of water resources; (2) multiple scales at which water is managed; and (3) the mismatch between administrative and hydrological boundaries. Collaborative strategies for environmental governance are increasingly essential for addressing water resource issues. New legislation in Ontario has specifically mandated that collaboration be used as a strategy for source water protection. Government involvement is important for successful collaboration. However, little research has been undertaken to understand what impact mandating collaboration has on the process and outcomes. This thesis explores the relationship between mandated collaboration, the process of collaboration, and its outcomes in order to critically assess the potential impacts of government-mandated collaboration. The research was guided by a conceptual framework developed from the literature concerning government involvement in collaboration. Evaluative criteria were used to assess processes and outcomes. The empirical work explored a case study of the Niagara Source Protection Area in Ontario. The case draws attention to how government affects the collaborative process and outcomes.

Large displays and information kiosks are becoming increasingly common installations in public venues to provide an efficient self-serve means for patrons to access information and/or services. They have evolved over a relatively short period of time from non-digital, non-interactive static displays to more elaborate media-rich digital interactive systems. While the content and purposes of kiosks have changed, they are still largely based on the traditional single-user-driven design paradigm despite the fact that people often venture to these venues in small social groups, i.e., with family and/or friends. This often limits how groups collaborate and forces transactions to be serialized. This thesis explores design constraints for interaction by multiple social groups in parallel on shared large vertical displays. To better understand design requirements for these systems, this research is separated into two parts: a preliminary observational field study and a follow-up controlled study. Using an observational field study, fundamental patterns of how people use existing public displays are studied: their orientation, positioning, group identification, and behaviour within and between social groups just-before, during, and just-after usage. These results are then used to motivate a controlled experiment where two individuals or two pairs of individuals complete tasks concurrently on a low-fidelity large vertical display. Results from the studies demonstrate that vertical surface territories are similar to those found in horizontal tabletops in function, but their definitions and social conventions are different. In addition, the nature of use-while-standing systems results in more complex and dynamic physical territories around the display. We show that the anthropological notion of personal space must be slightly refined for application to vertical displays.