Hypermedia Structures and the Division of Labor in Meeting Room Collaboration

The type of collaboration for a group, whether working in parallel or collectively, is a style for a group influenced by many factors, among them the technology that the group works with. In an empirical study using the DOLPHIN system, we focused on the effect that using hypermedia structures in an electronic meeting room had on collaborative style. We found that groups who created documents using hypermedia were: 1) more likely to divide up their labor and work in parallel, and 2) to have a slower frequency of switching between the task phases of planning and developing ideas. We present a model to explain this effect of hypermedia on task division which suggests the involvement of mechanical and semantic components. We also discuss how DOLPHIN supports awareness of others people's activities for a parallel collaborative style. Keywords collaborative work, collaborative style, electronic meeting room, electronic whiteboard, hypermedia user-interface, group process, task division...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1996
• Where: CSCW
• Authors: Gloria Mark, Jörg M. Haake, Norbert A. Streitz
• Keywords: Collaborative Style, CSCW 1996, Electronic Meeting Room, Hypermedia, Social Sciences