Challenges for Cooperative Work on the Web:
An analytical approach

Abstract

This paper investigates some of the issues which will determine the viability of the world-wide web as an infrastructure for cooperative work. In fact, taking a weak definition of collaboration, the web is already a very successful collaborative environment. In addition, it is already being used as the basis for experimental and commercial groupware. The paper takes this as a starting point and uses analytic methods developed in the field of computer-supported cooperative work to investigate the reasons for the web’s present success, its strengths and weaknesses as a platform for CSCW, and prospects for future development.

Keywords: computer-supported cooperative work, world-wide web, client–server, cost–benefit, CSCW framework, user-interface architectures

Download draft paper (PDF, 267K)

This paper originally began as an invited talk and paper for an ERCIM workshop:

A. Dix (1996).
Challenges and Perspectives for Cooperative Work on the Web.
ERCIM workshop on CSCW and the Web, Eds. U. Busbach, D. Kerr and K. Sikkel. Sankt Augustin, Germany, Arbeitspapiere der GMD 984, GMD/FIT, GMD/FIT, 6th-9th February 1996. pp. 143-157
see talk outline (html) or full paper (html)

An extended version was subsequently published in the CSCW journal:

A. Dix (1997).
Challenges for Cooperative Work on the Web: An analytical approach.
Computer-Supported Cooperative Work: The Journal of Collaborative Computing, 6 pp. 135-156.

and reprinted as ...

A. Dix (1997).
Challenges for Cooperative Work on the Web: An analytical approach.
Groupware and the World Wide Web, Eds. R. Bentley, U. Busbach, D. Kerr and K. Sikkel. Dordrecht, Kluwer

For related work see Alan's pages on web architectures for collaborative systems