The thesis investigates the possibility to enrich standard mobile phone calls with cooperative web applications. Originating from the research field know as Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) this thesis report introduces and describes the implementation of several applications which can be used by the calling parties together during a phone call. Additionally, the report describes a proof-of-concept prototype for the Android platform, and discusses the performance of cooperative web application running on mobile devices in terms of network and CPU use. The conclusions of the thesis describe a prototype application addressing and implementing the requirements as described by the theory of computer supported collaborated work. The performance of the running application showed to be satisfactory, both regarding to network demand and processor use.

Traditionally, security has been conceptualized as rules, locks, and passwords. More recently, security research has explored how people interact in secure (or insecure) ways in part of a larger socio-technical system. Socio-technical systems are comprised of people, technology, relationships, and interactions that work together to create safe praxis. Because information systems are not just technical, but also social, the scope of privacy and security concerns must include social and technical factors. Clearly, computer security is enhanced by developments in the technical arena, where researchers are building ever more secure and robust systems to guard the privacy and confidentiality of information. However, when the definition of security is broadened to encompass both human and technical mechanisms, how security is managed with and through the day-to-day social work practices becomes increasingly important. In this dissertation I focus on how sensitive information is collaboratively managed in socio-technical systems by examining two domains: childcare centers and physicians' offices. In childcare centers, workers manage the enrolled children and also the enrolled child's personal information. In physicians' offices, workers manage the patients' health along with the patients' health information. My dissertation presents results from interviews and observations of these locations. The data collected consists of observation notes, interview transcriptions, pictures, and forms. The researchers identified breakdowns related to security and privacy. Using Activity Theory to first structure, categorize, and analyze the observed breakdowns, I used phenomenological methods to understand the context and experience of security and privacy. The outcomes from this work are three themes, along with corresponding future scenarios. The themes discussed are security embodiment, communities of security, and zones of ambiguity. Those themes extend the literature in the areas of usable security, human-computer interaction, and trust. The presentation will use future scenarios to examine the complexity of developing secure systems for the real world. / Ph. D.

Since the late twentieth century, open source software projects (e.g., the GNU/Linux operating system, the Apache web server, Perl and many others) have achieved phenomenal success. This success can be attributed to a new paradigm of productivity in which individuals voluntarily collaborate to produce knowledge, goods and services. Benkler claims this productivity paradigm is a “new, third mode of production” particularly suited for “the digitally networked environment” (2002). In addition to its application to open source software projects, the peer production model, in different forms, has been used in areas such as science/citizen science (Silvertown, 2009), library science (Weinberger, 2007), politics (Castells, 2007; Jenkins, 2006), education (Daniel, 2012), journalism (Gillmor, 2004), and culture (Jenkins, 2006; Lessig, 2004). As peer production has flourished, merely describing successful cases has become less useful. Instead, scholars must identify the dynamics, structures, and conditions that contribute to or impede that success. In this dissertation, I focus on three management challenges at three distinct levels that impede the success of peer production. At the individual level, one significant question is how to best organize individual contributors with differing goals, experience, and commitment to achieve a collective outcome. At the practice level, peer production communities, like corporations, must often transfer best practices from one unit to another to improve performance. This transfer process poses the challenge of how to adapt and modify an original practice to make it effective in the new context. At the community level, peer production communities must learn to survive and succeed in a large ecosystem of related communities. This dissertation combines theoretical approaches in organization science with in-depth empirical analysis on a range of peer production communities to examine the mechanisms that help the communities overcome these three management challenges and succeed in peer production. The contributions of my dissertation are twofold. For scholars and researchers, my dissertation advances the theoretical understanding of the underlying mechanisms of successful peer production systems. For practitioners, my dissertation offers practical advice to build more effective peer production projects and platforms.

<p>Denna forskningsrapport undersöker hur nya teknologier kan verka som stöd för visuellt informationsutbyte och koordination för kreativa arbeten på distans. Arbetsgruppen genomförde denna undersökning för att kunna utbyta prototyper och annat visuellt material på regelbunden basis med en beställare av ett projekt som har sitt säte i New York. Projektet använde sig av en så kallad projektblogg som kanal för att förmedla utfört arbete samt för att föra en diskussion och ge feedback på det. Eftersom detta projekt skulle genomföras inom ramen för detta examensarbete valde arbetsgruppen att även undersöka hur examensarbetet skulle kunna koordineras genom projektbloggen. Dessa två undersökningar skedde genom en fallstudie under 8 av examensarbetets totala 10 veckor. Samtidigt som fallstudien genomfördes gjordes även en litteraturstudie som undersökte om det fanns teori som kunde stödja användandet av en projektblogg på detta sätt. Efter fallstudien utvärderades resultatet och genom intervjuer med användare och enkätundersökningar med en referensgrupp framkom det att projektbloggen hade upplevts vara ett mycket användbart hjälpmedel för att förmedla visuell information samt för att ge feedback för det ena projektet. Det andra projektet (examensarbetet) hade mindre behov av visuellt informationsutbyte då arbetet huvudsakligen bestod av längre textdokument. Eftersom dessa dokument skulle editeras fann användaren inte projektbloggen som ett optimalt verktyg för detta, bloggen verkade i det projektet mer som samlingsställe för dessa dokument, där användarna kunde hämta informationen för att sedan editera på traditionellt vis. Litteraturstudien som genomfördes visade att det fanns gott om stöd som pekade på att en projektblogg skulle vara användbar för koordinering av kreativa projekt som skedde på distans, och en av de mest intressanta möjligheterna som beskrevs inom ämnet computer supported collaborative work(CSCW) var att den nya tekniken att genomföra distansarbeten framförallt öppnade dörrar för de yrkesgrupper som hade behov av att visa upp grafiskt material, en yrkesgrupp som normalt blir väldigt belastad om arbetsgruppen inte är närvarande.</p>

This thesis is concerned with shared virtual environmentsfor collaborative work. An important aspect of shared virtualenvironments is the avatar, the representation of the user inthe virtual world. The proper design of the avatar has been thesubject of considerable research, aimed at allowing the avatarsto express as much as possible of human non-verbalcommunication and, as it were, tie the user closer to thevirtual world. I will go through the historical development of sharedvirtual environments and how the design principles for avatarshave followed the available technology over time. I describeearlier research on extending avatars and environments in orderto better support collaboration in virtual spaces. I will thendescribe a user study where pairs of subjects cooperated on aconstruction task, and the implications for design ofcollaborative applications in VEs that can be drawn from thisstudy. In particular I show how the subjects used the availableresources in the environment to negotiate a sharedunderstanding of the environment and the task. Some of thesubjects had no visible avatars, but still solved the task byusing the environment itself to orient themselves and drawattention to important features of the environment. Following this, I and co-workers have designed virtualenvironments which have had no explicit avatars, nor have usedtraditional methods for navigation in 3D space, but ratherrelied on task-oriented features of the space, such asagglomerations of other users or interesting objects in orderto present a relevant view of the environment. A view positionmay be shared by several users, or be“unoccupied”,merely representing a potential site for interaction. Based on these experiences, I make the claim that atraditional anthropomorphic avatar is neither necessary norsuffcient for successful collaboration in virtual spaces, butthe design of navigation and user representation is contingenton the specific application, some reasonable applications notutilising a user representation at all. / <p>QC 20161027</p>

<p>This thesis is concerned with shared virtual environmentsfor collaborative work. An important aspect of shared virtualenvironments is the avatar, the representation of the user inthe virtual world. The proper design of the avatar has been thesubject of considerable research, aimed at allowing the avatarsto express as much as possible of human non-verbalcommunication and, as it were, tie the user closer to thevirtual world.</p><p>I will go through the historical development of sharedvirtual environments and how the design principles for avatarshave followed the available technology over time. I describeearlier research on extending avatars and environments in orderto better support collaboration in virtual spaces. I will thendescribe a user study where pairs of subjects cooperated on aconstruction task, and the implications for design ofcollaborative applications in VEs that can be drawn from thisstudy. In particular I show how the subjects used the availableresources in the environment to negotiate a sharedunderstanding of the environment and the task. Some of thesubjects had no visible avatars, but still solved the task byusing the environment itself to orient themselves and drawattention to important features of the environment.</p><p>Following this, I and co-workers have designed virtualenvironments which have had no explicit avatars, nor have usedtraditional methods for navigation in 3D space, but ratherrelied on task-oriented features of the space, such asagglomerations of other users or interesting objects in orderto present a relevant view of the environment. A view positionmay be shared by several users, or be“unoccupied”,merely representing a potential site for interaction.</p><p>Based on these experiences, I make the claim that atraditional anthropomorphic avatar is neither necessary norsuffcient for successful collaboration in virtual spaces, butthe design of navigation and user representation is contingenton the specific application, some reasonable applications notutilising a user representation at all.</p>

Denna forskningsrapport undersöker hur nya teknologier kan verka som stöd för visuellt informationsutbyte och koordination för kreativa arbeten på distans. Arbetsgruppen genomförde denna undersökning för att kunna utbyta prototyper och annat visuellt material på regelbunden basis med en beställare av ett projekt som har sitt säte i New York. Projektet använde sig av en så kallad projektblogg som kanal för att förmedla utfört arbete samt för att föra en diskussion och ge feedback på det. Eftersom detta projekt skulle genomföras inom ramen för detta examensarbete valde arbetsgruppen att även undersöka hur examensarbetet skulle kunna koordineras genom projektbloggen. Dessa två undersökningar skedde genom en fallstudie under 8 av examensarbetets totala 10 veckor. Samtidigt som fallstudien genomfördes gjordes även en litteraturstudie som undersökte om det fanns teori som kunde stödja användandet av en projektblogg på detta sätt. Efter fallstudien utvärderades resultatet och genom intervjuer med användare och enkätundersökningar med en referensgrupp framkom det att projektbloggen hade upplevts vara ett mycket användbart hjälpmedel för att förmedla visuell information samt för att ge feedback för det ena projektet. Det andra projektet (examensarbetet) hade mindre behov av visuellt informationsutbyte då arbetet huvudsakligen bestod av längre textdokument. Eftersom dessa dokument skulle editeras fann användaren inte projektbloggen som ett optimalt verktyg för detta, bloggen verkade i det projektet mer som samlingsställe för dessa dokument, där användarna kunde hämta informationen för att sedan editera på traditionellt vis. Litteraturstudien som genomfördes visade att det fanns gott om stöd som pekade på att en projektblogg skulle vara användbar för koordinering av kreativa projekt som skedde på distans, och en av de mest intressanta möjligheterna som beskrevs inom ämnet computer supported collaborative work(CSCW) var att den nya tekniken att genomföra distansarbeten framförallt öppnade dörrar för de yrkesgrupper som hade behov av att visa upp grafiskt material, en yrkesgrupp som normalt blir väldigt belastad om arbetsgruppen inte är närvarande.

Expert investigators leverage their advanced skills and deep experience to solve complex investigations, but they face limits on their time and attention. In contrast, crowds of novices can be highly scalable and parallelizable, but lack expertise and may engage in vigilante behavior. In this dissertation, I introduce and evaluate the framework of expert-led crowdsourcing through three studies across two domains, journalism and law enforcement. First, through an ethnographic study of two law enforcement murder investigations, I uncover tensions in a real-world crowdsourced investigation and introduce the expert-led crowdsourcing framework. Second, I instantiate expert-led crowdsourcing in two collaboration systems: GroundTruth and CuriOSINTy. GroundTruth is focused on one specific investigative task, image geolocation. CuriOSINTy expands the flexibility and scope of expert-led crowdsourcing to handle more complex and multiple investigative tasks: identifying and debunking misinformation. Third, I introduce a framework for understanding how expert-led crowdsourced investigations work and how to better support them. Finally, I conclude with a discussion of how expert-led crowdsourcing enables experts and crowds to do more than either could alone, as well as how it can be generalized to other domains. / Doctor of Philosophy / Expert investigators leverage their advanced skills and deep experience to solve complex investigations, but they face limits on their time and attention. In contrast, there is growing interest among non-professional members of the public to participate in investigations, but they lack the expertise or may engage in harmful behavior. In this dissertation, I introduce a new concept called, expert-led crowdsourcing, that allows professionals and non-professionals to work together on a high-stakes investigations in two domains: journalism and law enforcement. First, I explored how expert-led crowdsourcing played out in CrowdSolve, a real-world investigation of two decades-old murder cases. At CrowdSolve, over 250 amateur sleuths supported eight law enforcement experts to uncover new leads two for the two cases. Second, I build two software applications, GroundTruth and CuriOSINTy, to better support expert-led crowdsourced investigations. GroundTruth helps investigators work with a crowd to find the exact geographic location where a photo was taken. CuriOSINTy extends GroundTruth's capabilities to help investigators with more complex and multiple investigative tasks involved in identifying and debunking misinformation on social media. Third, I compared and contrasted the three prior studies to develop a more detailed understanding of expert-led crowdsourced investigations and how to better support them. Finally, I conclude with a discussion of how expert-led crowdsourcing enables experts and crowds to do more than either could alone, as well as how it can be used in other professions.

In modern healthcare organizations, work is increasingly team-oriented, which puts pressure on information technology to support staff collaborations. Healthcare organizations are lagging behind in the use of IT and often use outdated systems. A reason for this is the long and cumbersome process of IT-procurement. Stand-alone systems can help such organizations be more efficient, and receptive of the latest technologies, while conveying lower risks, and increased chances of successful implementation. Therefore, this study has investigated what problems can be expected, and how to manage them, when designing such systems. The study was conducted at the Department for Reconstructive Surgery at Karolinska University Hospital. Action research was used, and a system supporting the scheduling of doctors was deigned, implemented and evaluated. The study consists of an initial exploratory phase, a design and implementation phase, and an evaluation phase. The findings of this study indicate that the problems that can be expected when developing a stand-alone system at a small specialized healthcare department are: 1) that the hierarchies among staff may lead to failure to accept designs and the designs not taking all stakeholders into account, 2) that the complexity may lead to an inability to identify the real problems and define appropriate design-goals, and 3) that the combination of 1 and 2 hinders a mutual understanding of design-goals, problems, and solutions. To manage the problems, this study suggests the use of participatory design, user centered system design, and a computer supported collaborative work approach, and provides guidelines for using these to reach an effective implementation. / I moderna sjukhus arbetar man allt mer team-orienterat, vilket ställer krav på system och programvara att stödja samarbeten personalen emellan. Inom sjukvården sker anskaffandet av nya tekniker genom om offentlig upphandling, vilka är tungrodda processer som tar lång tid. Detta leder till att många sjukhus har utdaterade system som inte tjänar organisationernas bästa. Genom att anskaffa mindre, fristående system kan mottagligheten för de senaste teknikerna ökas, och med denna kan även en ökad effektivitet av administrativt arbete uppnås, till låg risk och med möjlighet till effektiv implementation. Av dessa anledningar har denna studie undersökt vilka problem som kan förväntas vid utveckling av sådana system, och hur dessa problem kan överbryggas. Studien utfördes på Kliniken för Rekonstruktiv Plastikkirurgi på Karolinska Sjukhuset i Solna. Vi använde oss av aktionsforskning, och utvecklade, implementerade samt utvärderade ett stödsystem för schemaläggningsprocessen på kliniken. Studien består av tre faser: en explorativ fas, en design- och implementationsfas, samt en utvärderingsfas. Resultaten visar på att de problem som kan förväntas när man utvecklar ett fristående system för en specialiserad kirurgklinik är: 1) att hierarkier inom personalstyrkan kan leda till att utformningen av system inte accepteras, och att system inte bistår alla intressenter, 2) att organisationens komplexitet gör det svårt att identifiera de underliggande problemen, och definiera ändamålsenliga målsättningar för utformningen av systemet, och 3) att kombinationen av 1 och 2 hindrar en ömsesidig förståelse för utformningen av systemet, de problem som finns, och hur man kan lösa dem. Vidare visar denna studie att problemen kan överbryggas genom att använda metoder för deltagande design, användarcentrerad design och en modell för synsätt kallad computer supported collaborative work under designprocessen. Vidare tillhandahåller studien riktlinjer för hur dessa metoder och synsätt kan användas för att uppnå en effektiv implementation.

On a daily basis humans interact with an increasing variety of personal electronic devices, ranging from laptops, tablets, smartphones, and e-readers to shared devices such as projected displays and interactive, digital tabletops. An emerging area of study focuses on understanding how these devices can be used together to support collaborative work. Where prior research has shown benefits of devices used individually, there is currently a lack of understanding of how devices should be used in conjunction to optimize a group's performance. In particular, the research presented in this dissertation combines qualitative and quantitative analyses of group work in three empirical studies to link the use of shared and personal devices to changes in group performance and process. In the first study, participants performed an optimization task with either a single, shared projected display or with the shared, projected display and personal laptops. Analyses of study data indicated that when personal displays were present, group performance was improved for the optimization task ($p = 0.025$). However, personal devices also reduced a group's ability to coordinate ($p = 0.016$). Additionally, when personal devices were present, individuals primarily used those devices instead of dividing time between their laptops and the shared display. To further investigate the support that shared displays provide groups, and in particular, how shared displays might support group work in multi-display settings, a follow-up study was conducted. The second study investigated how two different types of shared displays supported group work. In particular, shared workspaces, which allowed multiple users to simultaneously interact with shared content, and status displays, which provided awareness of the overall problem state to groups, were investigated. While no significant impact on group performance was observed between the two shared display types, qualitative analysis of groups working in these conditions provided insight into how the displays supported collaborative activities. Shared workspace displays provided a visual reference that aided individuals in grounding communication with their collaborators. On the other hand, status displays enabled the monitoring of a group's overall task progress. Regardless of which display was present, an individual's gaze and body position relative to the shared display supported the synchronization of group activities. Finally, where the previous two studies identified collaborative activities that were supported by the use of shared and personal displays, the experimental task performed by participants did not explore the transfer of task materials between shared and personal devices or alternative personal and shared devices. The third study addressed these limitations through the adoption of a new experimental task that enabled the exploration of how the manipulation of task artefacts supported collaborative activities, and alternative shared and personal devices in the form of interactive digital tabletops and tablet computers. In particular, the third study compared how personal and shared displays supported sensemaking groups working under three conditions: with shared, digital tables, with shared digital tables plus personal tablets, and with only personal tablets. Quantitative analyses revealed that the presence of the shared, digital tabletop significantly improved a group's ability to perform the sensemaking task ($p = 0.019$). Further, qualitative analyses revealed that the table supported key sensemaking activities: the prioritization of task materials, the ability to compare data, and the formation of group hypotheses. This dissertation makes four primary contributions to the field of Computer Supported Cooperative Work. First, it identifies cases where the presence of shared and personal displays provide performance benefits to groups, and through qualitative analyses links these performance benefits to group processes. Second, observed uses are grounded in an established process model, and used to identify collaborative activities that are supported by personal and shared devices. Third, equity of participation on shared displays is found to positively correlate ($p = 0.028$), and equity of participation on personal displays is found to negatively correlate ($p = 0.01$) with group performance for sensemaking tasks. Fourth, the method for studying group process and performance based on teamwork and taskwork provides a useful foundation for future studies of collaborative work.