Studies of Computer Supported Collaborative Writing. Implications for System Design

This paper analyses transformations in collaborative activities that a computersupported collaborative writing system introduces into co-authors’ practices, and, discusses implications for the design of collaborative tools for writing. The analysis is grounded in user studies of four different groups of co-authors writing an academic report during two different collaborative situations. Two groups collaborate face-to-face using a word processor and the other two groups collaborate at a distance using a synchronous collaborative writing system. The study analyses differences between the activities of the groups and focuses on transformations that the CSCW system introduces into the organization of the co-authors’ collaboration. The results show that the use of a CSCW system presents constraints in the collaborative activity; in particular we observed a cleavage that makes co-authors write different parts of a common document independently, i.e. without collaborating. This result opens up important issues related to the design of writing technologies for collaboration: how collaborative can collaborative writing be when it is supported by CSCW systems? How can the design of collaborative tools support organized and integrative collaborative activities such as writing? We discuss these issues and some of the alternatives that collaborative tools should offer for writing.