Supporting Distributed Communities through Groupware Carl Gutwin University of Saskatchewan hc i

Outline Case studies Support for loose coupling Keeping it simple

Case Studies Home care teams –Saskatoon District Health Distributed software development –Open source projects NetBSD Subversion

Home care teams Patients in the community receive services from several different people –Occupational therapists, physical therapists, nurses, home health aides, nutritionists, case managers

Service providers Professional disciplines: –Work from different offices –Community based (mobile) –Face-to-face meetings difficult –Autonomous

Loose coupling in home care Discretionary collaboration Interest in others’ plans and activities –Scheduling –Treatment plans Traces of activity in shared spaces

Designing for loose coupling Preserve autonomy and flexibility Consolidate information buffers Support loose coordination Support asynchronous communication

Case study 2

Open source development Widely distributed Few if any face-to-face meetings Freedom to contribute where needed Strong interdependence

Study sites NetBSD –Unix-like operating system –170 developers in 12 countries Subversion –Revision control system –32 developers in 3 countries

Problem How to coordinate activities to: –Avoid duplication of work –Avoid working at cross purposes

Solution Maintain awareness of: –Identity –Interests –Current activities –Intentions How was this done?

Solution No sophisticated tools! –Mailing list –Text chat How could these be enough?

Mailing lists By far the most important mechanism for communication on the projects –Read before joining the project –Read extensively by developers –High participation level –“Lurkers”

Mailing lists How do lists support awareness? –1. Stating your activity –2. Finding the right people to talk to –3. Overhearing

Usability issues Keep it simple to start with! Critical mass –Both readers & writers Commitment to keeping it public –“if it’s not on the list, it didn’t happen”

Thanks to: –David Pinelle, Reagan Penner For more information, visit: –hci.usask.ca hc i