Computer Supported Cooperative Work: New Challenges to Systems Design

“Collaborative work is the core of our society, wrought with difficulties and benefits. It is clear that technology can change group work, and there is a good possibility that it can result in major enhancements to productivity. But, there is a lot of work to do before we fully understand how to accomplish that. Trial and error from creative system builders is too slow a discovery process. What is required is a better understanding of the nature of group work, the extent of the possibilities of the design space of technology features, and evaluation of systems in use that leads to a theory of computer supported co-operative work, which in turn can help us direct subsequent invention of new ways to do group work” (Olson et al., 1993).