This paper addresses issues of user interface design, relating to ease of use, of handheld CSCW. In particular, we are concerned with the requirements that arise from situations in which a traditionally designed mobile computer with a small keyboard and screen, may not be easily used. This applies to many mobile use contexts, such as inspection work and engineering in the field. By examining two such settings, we assert that what is usually pointed to as severe shortcomings of mobile computing today, for example: awkward keyboard, small display and unreliable networks, are really implications from a conceptual HCI design that emphasise unstructured, unlimited input; a rich, continuous visual feedback channel and marginal use of sound. We introduce MOTILE, a small prototype that demonstrates some alternative ideas about HCI for mobile devices. We suggest that identifying complementing user interface paradigms for handheld CSCW may enhance our understanding not only of mobile computing o...

This paper reports fieldwork from the electrical utilities industry, examining the suitability of current knowledge management perspectives to the day-to-day work of mobile staff. Reporting the results of the empirical study, we make a distinction between four aspects of local and mobile "knowledge management" as it took place in the mobile work setting: sharing, i.e., several parties exchange knowledge; indexing, i.e., one party explains to another what knowledge to retrieve; diagnosing, i.e., two parties make sense of how to interpret a situation, and; foreseeing, i.e., one party (or more) uses knowledge to project the future. We compare and contrast the empirical findings with current knowledge management perspectives, and outline an initial sketch of a framework for "practical knowledge management."

This chapter is about methods for managing and analyzing qualitative data. By qualitative data we mean text: newspapers, movies, sitcoms, e-mail traffic, folktales, life histories. We also mean narratives—narratives about getting divorced, about being sick, about surviving hand-to-hand combat, about selling sex, about trying to quit smoking. In fact, most of the archaeologically recoverable information about human thought and human behavior is text, the good stuff of social science. Scholars in content analysis began using computers in the 1950s to do statistical analysis of texts (Pool, 1959), but recent advances in technology are changing the economics of the social

In this paper, we report the results of an empirical study of how people, as part of their daily work activities, go about to establish collaboration. We examine the empirical findings and relate them to existing research on CSCW session management models, i.e., the mechanisms in CSCW systems that define the way in which people can join together in collaboration. Existing models leave a lot to be desired, in particular because they tend to assume that indexical elements of interaction management are substitutable by objective representation of artifacts. Based on the empirical findings, we derive three principles to consider in the design of CSCW session management models.

The instructional technology community is in the midst of a philosophical shift from a behaviorist to a constructivist framework, a move that may begin to address the growing rift between formal school learning and real-life learning. One theory of learning that has the capacity to promote authentic learning is that of situated learning. The purpose of this three part study was firstly, to identify critical characteristics of a situated learning environment from the extensive literature base on the subject; secondly, to operationalise the critical characteristics of a situated learning environment by designing a multimedia program which incorporated the identified characteristics; and thirdly, to investigate students ’ perceptions of their experiences using an multimedia package based on a situated learning framework. The learning environment comprised a multimedia program for preservice teachers on assessment in mathematics, together with recommended implementation conditions in the classroom. Eight students were observed and interviewed to explore their perceptions of the situated learning environment. Findings suggest that the use of the situated learning framework appeared to provide effective instructional design guidelines for the design of an environment for the acquisition of advanced knowledge.

Over the past several years, a community of researchers has been using and refining a particular framework for research and curriculum development in undergraduate mathematics education. The purpose of this paper is to share the results of this work with the mathematics education community at large by describing the current version of the framework and giving some examples of its application. Our framework utilizes qualitative methods for research and is based on a very specific theoretical perspective that is being developed through attempts to understand the ideas of Piaget concerning reflective abstraction and reconstruct them in the context of college level mathematics. Our approach has three components. It begins with an initial theoretical analysis of what it means to understand a concept and how that understanding can be constructed by the learner. This leads to the design of an instructional treatment that focuses directly on trying to get students to make the constructions cal...

Abstract- This paper presents the results from a multiplecase study of knowledge management systems (KM-systems) in practical use. A set of general problem areas concerning the investigated KM-systems has been identified. These problem areas constitute the starting point of the discussion regarding design implications of KM-systems. One conclusion is that significant functions are missing in the KM-systems. Most of them can be described as traditional personnel administration systems, complemented with features that file competencies. A final conclusion is that the KM-systems ’ functions have to be developed and improved, if the organizations ’ KM-efforts shall ‘survive’. I.

We are becoming more and more dependent upon a broad range of more or less ubiquitous communication technologies, and these are increasingly integrated with our PCs. The more connected we become, the more important it is that we pro-actively manage our communication patterns. If not, we risk being forced to either temporarily disconnecting ourselves from communicating, or spend all our time trying to catch up with the demand for communication. None of these two scenarios are desirable. The aim of this paper is to investigate how people manage communication patterns as an integral part of their daily work. Empirical investigation of complex work in a Swedish pharmaceutical company showed a variety of means for managing communication patterns. Based on the fieldwork we present SwitchIT, an application for pro-actively managing communication modes, and discuss the theoretical implications of applying the concepts of communication overflow and communication deficiency to describe communication patterns. It is concluded that there is a need for collaborative technology supporting the negotiation of communication. 1.

The predominant business model for Web search engines is sponsored search, which generates billions in yearly revenue. But are sponsored links providing online consumers with relevant choices for products and services? We address this and related issues by investigating the relevance of sponsored and nonsponsored links for e-commerce queries on the major search engines. The results show that average relevance ratings for sponsored and nonsponsored links are practically the same, although the relevance ratings for sponsored links are statistically higher. We used 108 ecommerce queries and 8,256 retrieved links for these queries from three major Web search engines: Yahoo!, Google, and MSN. In addition to relevance measures, we qualitatively analyzed the e-commerce queries, deriving five categorizations of underlying information needs. Product-specific queries are the most prevalent (48%). Title (62%) and summary (33%) are the primary basis for evaluating sponsored links with URL a distant third (2%). To gauge the effectiveness of sponsored search campaigns, we analyzed the sponsored links from various viewpoints. It appears that links from organizations with large sponsored search campaigns are more relevant than the average sponsored link. We discuss the implications for Web search engines and sponsored search as a long-term business model and as a mechanism for finding relevant information for searchers.

Proxy Lady is a mobile system for informal, opportunistic face-to-face communication, running on a PDA equipped with a radio transceiver. "Opportunistic communication" is anticipated by one party but it only occurs when the parties happen to meet each other. Proxy Lady supports such communication by providing notifications about possible "candidates for interaction" in the environment. The user specifies "candidates for interaction" by associating "people" with an "information item" (currently an email or a task). When "candidates for interaction" enter the proximity of the user, Proxy Lady notifies and makes the "information item" accessible. According to our fieldwork, formative evaluation sessions, and a literature survey, "opportunistic communication" is an important type of communication that has not been supported previously. This paper describes the interface and use of Proxy Lady and the results from three formative evaluation sessions of the system.