Remote Cooperation:
CSCW Issues for Mobile and Tele-Workers
Alan Dix and Russell Beale (eds.)


Contents

Introduction

full text of chapter

Alan Dix and Russell Beale

So Near Yet So Far
The Structure of This Book
Framing the Problem
Future Directions and Further Information

1 Working in the Virtual Office

Lisa Neal

1.1. Introduction
1.2. Why Are People Working in Virtual Offices?
1.3. Technology for the Virtual Office
1.4. Advantages of Working in a Virtual Office
1.5. Disadvantages of Working in a Virtual Office
1.6. Addressing the Disadvantages of the Virtual Office

2 CSCW for the Mobile Teleworker

Horace Mitchell

2.1. Introduction
2.2. How Telework Concepts Affect Field Based Mobile Workers
2.3. How Telework Concepts Affect Intrinsically Mobile Workers
2.4. The Basic Technology for Mobile Telework
2.5. The Role of CSCW
2.6. The Basic Technology of CSCW for Mobile Workers
2.7. The Interaction Between CSCW and Telework
2.8. Team Working Across Enterprise Boundaries

3 The Electronic Hard Hat - CSCW on the Construction Site

D. Madigan

3.1 Introduction
3.2 Review of Past Work
3.2.1 Effective Group Working over a Wide Geographical Area
3.2.2 Cyclops
3.2.3 Electronic Data Interchange
3.2.4 The Special Needs of the Construction Industry
3.3 Available Technology
3.3.1 Video Telephones
3.3.2 Wireless LANs
3.3.3 Pen Based Computers
3.3.4 ISDN
3.3.5 Miniature Cameras
3.3.6 Head-Up Displays
3.4 CSCW on the Construction Site: a Possible Scenario
3.5 The Electronic Hard Hat
3.5.1 The Totally Independent Hard Hat
3.5.2 The Two Part Hard Hat
3.5.3 Experience to Date
3.5.4 Usability Issues
3.6 Future scenarios
3.6.1 Real-Time Project Control
3.6.2 Human Centred Construction
3.7 Conclusion: A Plea to Communications Companies

4 Support for Community Care

Susan D James and Adrian W Savill

4.1 Introduction
4.2 Community Health Services and Community Care Workers
4.3 Community Care Systems
4.4 The Field Trial of System B
4.5 Some Results of the Evaluation Exercise
4.6 Comparison with System A
4.7 Conclusion

5 The 'Salesman's' Promise (CSCW in Sales)

A W S Ainger and R J Maher

5.1 Introduction
5.2 The Cell Based Factory
5.3 Sales Scenarios
5.3.1 Scenario 1
5.3.2 Scenario 2
5.4 Product Advisor
5.4.1 Automatic Product/Capacity Match
5.4.2 Customer Suggestion
5.5 Conculsions
Appendix A
Notes

6 Observations on Practically Perfect CSCW

Harold Thimbleby and David Pullinger

6.1. Introduction
6.2. General Requirements:
6.2.1. Transparency
6.2.2. Consistency
6.2.3. Gracefulness
6.2.4 Purely Technical Issues
6.3. Towards Observational Properties
6.3.1. On Formality
6.3.2. Why Use Mathematics?
6.3.3. User Models
6.3.4. Where is the User Model?
6.4. Using the Model
6.4.1. More on Modelling
6.4.2. Observational Properties
6.4.3. Task and Observational Property Fit
6.5. Towards Practically Perfect CSCW
6.5.1. Liveware
6.5.2. Problems with Liveware
6.6. Conclusions
Acknowledgements
Notes

7 Personal Information Management In The Context Of Collaborative Work

Peter Thomas

7.1 Introduction
7.2 Personal Information Management and the Representational Focus
7.3 TimeÐManagement: A Case for CSCW?
7.4 Personal Information Management and CSCW

8 Activity Coordination in Decentralized Working Environments

Uwe Busbach

8.1 Introduction
8.2 Some Aspects of Activity Coordination
8.2.1 The Personal Perspective
8.2.2 The GroupÕs Collaboration Perspective
8.2.3 The Intra-Organizational Perspective
8.2.4 The Inter-Organizational Perspective
8.3 The Task Manager: An Example for Activity Coordination
8.4 Consistency in an Asynchronous Environment
8.4.1 Linearizability
8.4.2 Transaction Mechanisms
8.4.3 Virtual Synchronism
8.5 Conflict Handling
8.5.1 Automatic Resolution Based on Commutativity
8.5.2 Resolution Involving the User
8.6 Mobility and Activity Coordination
8.7 Summary
8.8 Outlook
Acknowledgements
Notes

9 Information Requirements of Distributed Workers

Alan Dix and Russell Beale

9.1. Introduction
9.2. Background Ð The Workers and the Technology
9.2.1. Mobile Working
9.2.2. Tele-Working
9.2.3. Slow Networks
9.3. Principal Topics
9.4. Retrieval and Caching
9.4.1. Traditional Caching
9.4.2. Transparency
9.4.3. Caching for Distributed Work
9.4.4. Handling Failure
9.5. Synchronisation
9.5.1. Existing Solutions
9.5.2. Forms of Update
9.5.3. MSC Ð Concurrency
9.5.4. MSC Ð Distribution
9.5.5. Remaining Problems
9.6. Other Areas and Future Work
9.7. Summary
Notes

10 Mobile Open Systems Technology for the Utilities Industries

Nigel Davies, Gordon Blair, Adrian Friday, Peter Raven and Andrew Cross

10.1 Introduction
10.2 Requirements of Mobile Utilities Workers
10.2.1 Network Maintenance
10.2.2 Related Applications
10.2.3 The Need for Integration
10.2.4 Application Characteristics
10.3 Integration Technologies
10.3.1 Open Systems Standards
10.3.2 The ANSA Architecture
10.4 Mobile Computing Technologies
10.4.1 Mobile Computing Technology
10.4.2 Local Area Communications Technologies
10.4.3 Wide Area Communications Technologies
10.4.4 Network Interfaces
10.5 The Impact of Mobility on Distributed Systems Platforms
10.5.1 Computational Issues
10.5.2 Engineering Issues
10.6 The MOST Approach
10.7 Concluding Remarks
Acknowledgements
Notes

11 The Distributed Home Environment and the New Oikos

Andy Sloane

11.1 Introduction
11.2 The Oikos Concept
11.2.1 The Shape of the New Oikos
11.2.2 Activities in the New Oikos
11.3 The Distributed Home and Telework
11.3.1 The Virtual Distributed Home
11.3.2 Telework
11.4 The Homelink Project
11.5 Future Directions
11.6 Summary
Notes

12 Teaching, Learning, and Collaborating at a Virtual Summer School

Marc Eisenstadt, Mike Brayshaw, Tony Hasemer, and Kim Issroff

12.1 Introduction
12.1.1 Motivation
12.1.2 Open University Context
12.1.3 This Paper
12.2 Design Issues.
12.2.1 Pedagogical Goals
12.2.2 Practical Design
12.2.3 Technical Design
12.3 Teaching and Learning at a VSS
12.3.1 Timetable
12.3.2 Warm Up Period
12.3.3 Week 1: Language Understanding
12.3.4 The Guest Lecture.
12.3.5 Week 2: Artificial Intelligence
12.4 Evaluation and Discussion
12.4.1 The 'warm up' period
12.4.2 The Language Project Evaluation
12.4.3 The Artificial Intelligence Project Evaluation
12.4.3 Comparing the Two Projects
12.4.5 Overall
12.5 Discussion and Conclusions.
Acknowledgements
Appendix A: A Detailed Profile of VSS Students

maintained by Alan Dix