Groupware System Design and the Context Concept

The concept of context can be advantageously applied to the Computer-Supported Cooperative Work field. The term awareness has traditionally been used in this area without explicit association to context. This paper attempts to clarify the relationship between these two concepts. In particular, a framework is proposed to understand context and awareness as connected to other concepts used in group work as well. The framework is useful to consider some groupware systems from the perspective of context and to obtain some insight on possible improvements for users. Two examples illustrate the application of the framework.