A Transfer Approach for Facilitation Knowledge in Computer-Supported Collaboration

Collaboration is an important process for companies to combine the potential and expertise of their employees. Groupware can improve the productivity of collaboration by coordinating activities and improving group communication. Considering the possible complexity of a collaboration process, the faithful appropriation of a groupware technology is fundamental to design predictable and efficient collaboration. This paper presents ongoing research on how to improve technological support for collaboration by formalizing the workflow of a collaboration process into a machine-readable process description. We will present a knowledge transfer approach for the adaptation of a logical process design by an inexperienced user. This approach transfers facilitation knowledge for the selection and configuration of a collaboration process and provides rules for instructional writing to support an inexperienced user in defining clear and explicit instructions. A software application was used to evaluate the knowledge transfer approach in a quasiexperiment with inexperienced participants.