Peripheral social awareness information in collaborative work

Abstract

People working in physical proximity have access to information about one another. Much of this information is unavailable when people collaborate remotely using groupware. Being aware of other members of a team in a collaborative environment involves knowing both what people are doing and what is happening to the shared information space or artifact. Increasing the amount of information about the group in a computer-mediated system may increase the group's ability to complete the task. This article reports on a study that examined group performance on a task that was computer mediated with and without awareness information. In particular, the study examined how an awareness tool impacts the quality of the work effort and the communications between group members in the completion of a collaborative authoring task. The study found that the use of an awareness tool decreased the quality of the work effort. The number of communications also decreased when the tool was used. Although the results contradict some of the theoretical predictions, an examination of the data suggests theoretical support for a more complex interaction. There was evidence that the awareness tool may have reduced the users' need to communicate and this reduction in communications may have caused the reduction in the quality of the work effort. There is also data to suggest that the existence of the awareness tool may have negatively influenced the effort of some participants, and it was that effort reduction that caused the reduction in the quality of the product.