The DKC Model: An Application Model for Collaborative Work

For many years, researchers and software developers have been seeking to develop systems and applications to enable efficient and effective group work and organizational memory. The systems proposed and developed have in many respects had little impact on the effectiveness of group activities outside the laboratory. Other researchers have identified many of the challenges that groupware systems face, but these insights have done little to structure subsequent research. We suggest that these difficulties are primarily due to an operating system model and a model of application development that has significantly restricted the ability of users to properly manage their own data and work products much less share them with others. Moreover, it is nearly impossible to effectively integrate collaborative activities with natural practices of work and communication. Instead, we propose an alternative system architecture, the DKC model, that places HCI, knowledge representation and management, and distributed, hypertext operating systems in a coordinated structure. We clearly delineate the roles of each of these aspects within the whole, collaborative environment. By adopting this model, we suggest that researchers and developers of both single-user and collaborative systems will be able to design effective, multi-platform, multi-application, and multi-workplace collaborative environments that may finally have some impact beyond the laboratory.