Two well-known groupware taxonomies were introduced during our first lecture [1], [2]. Jarmo discussed the taxonomies in his blog post, and pointed out that there's need for more categories or refinement in order to get a better insight to GW. Jarno referred to a new expansion to the original taxonomies by Penichet et al [3].
So, these matrices help us to characterize the nature of groupware by their time, place, function, and also by the aspect of know or unknown. The question I've been wondering is: How about the members of the group? And their identity – or anonimity? How does that affect the use of GW?
Does a persons behaviour change while using groupware anonymously? Surely it does. A quick example of this is the edit wars in Wikipedia (the example was easy to find after reading TuomasH's blog post). Wikipedia also has protected articles which are typically protected because of vandalism. Semi-protected sites are blocked from anonymous users and protection is usually used for articles that have a pattern of heavy sustained vandalism [4].
Grudin's Challenge 3 for groupware is: Disruption of Social Processes [5]. I'd like to point out that groupware can also change the social processes and taboos. Social norms can be different between interaction of know and unknown users. Anonymity gives new freedom and people can, if they want to, take less responsibility for their doings. The only thing that can be done to a malevolent Wikipedia user is to block their ip-address or account. There is no fear of personal embarrassment nor any further sanctions. (Of course, anonymity can also have advantages in other groupware cases.) Consequently maybe a fourth dimension could be added to time-space-function matrix; are the persons using the groupware known or unknown to each other.
References:
1. Clarence A. Ellis, Simon J. Gibbs, Gail L. Rein. Groupware: some issues and experiences. Comm. ACM 34, 1 (Jan. 1991), 38-58.
2. Jonathan Grudin. CSCW: History and Focus, IEEE Computer 27, 5, 19-26.
3. V.M.R. Penichet, I. Marin, J.A. Gallud, M.D. Lozano, R. Tesoriero. A Classification Method for CSCW Systems. Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, 168 (2007), 237–247.
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Protection_policy
5. Grudin, J. 1994. Groupware and social dynamics: eight challenges for developers. In CACM vol 37. No. 1
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