skip to main content
10.1145/1718918.1718951acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagescscwConference Proceedingsconference-collections
research-article

Gone but not forgotten: designing for disconnection in synchronous groupware

Published: 06 February 2010 Publication History

Abstract

Synchronous groupware depends on the assumption that people are fully connected to the others in the group, but there are many situations (network delay, network outage, or explicit departure) where users are disconnected for various periods. There is little research dealing with disconnection in synchronous groupware from a user and application perspective; as a result, most current groupware systems do not handle disconnection events well, and several user-level problems occur. To address this limitation, we developed the Disco framework, a model for handling several types of disconnection in synchronous groupware. The framework considers how disconnections are identified, what senders and receivers should do during an absence, and what should be done with accumulated data upon reconnection. We have implemented the framework in three applications that show the feasibility, generality, and functionality of our ideas. Our framework is the first to deal with a full range of disconnection issues for synchronous groupware, and shows how groupware can better support the realities of distributed collaboration.

Supplementary Material

JPG File (p179-gutwin.jpg)
MP4 File (p179-gutwin.mp4)

References

[1]
Bettner, P., and Terrano, M. 1500 archers on a 28.8: Network programming in Age of Empires and beyond. Proc. GDC 2001 (www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/ 3094/1500_archers_on_a_288_network_.php).
[2]
Bezerianos, A., Dragicevic, P., Balakrishnan, R. Mnemonic rendering: An image-based approach for exposing hidden changes in dynamic displays. Proc. UIST 2006, 159--168.
[3]
Buszko, D., Lee, W., and Helal, A. Decentralized ad-hoc groupware API and framework for mobile collaboration. Proc. Group 2001, 5--14.
[4]
Chung, G., Dewan, P., and Rajaram, S. Generic and composable latecomer accommodation service for centralized shared systems. Proc. EHCI 1998, 129--148.
[5]
Dewan, P., and Hegde, R. Semi-Synchronous Conflict Detection and Resolution in Asynchronous Software Development, Proc. ECSCW 2007, 159--178.
[6]
Dix, A. Cooperation without (reliable) communication: Interfaces for mobile applications. Dist. Sys. Eng., 2, 1994, 171--181.
[7]
Edwards, K. Flexible conflict detection and management in collaborative applications. Proc. UIST 2007, 139--148.
[8]
Greenberg S. and Roseman, M. Using a Room Metaphor to Ease Transitions in Groupware. In Sharing Expertise: Beyond Knowledge Management. (M. Ackerman et al, eds). Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2003, 203--256.
[9]
Gutwin, C. and Penner, R. Improving interpretation of remote gestures with telepointer traces. Proc. CSCW 2002, 49--57.
[10]
Hall, R., Mathur, A., Jahanian, F., Prakash, A., and Rassmussen, C. Corona: a communication service for scalable, reliable group collaboration systems. Proc. CSCW 1996, 140--149.
[11]
Hill, W., Hollan, J., Wroblewski, D., and McCandless, T. Edit wear and read wear. Proc. CHI 1992, 3--9.
[12]
Ionescu, M., and I. Marsic. Latecomer and Crash Recovery Support in Fault Tolerant Groupware. IEEE Distributed Systems Online, 2, 7, 2001.
[13]
Karsenty, A. and Beaudouin-Lafon, M., An algorithm for distributed groupware applications, Proc. Distributed Computing Systems, 195--202, 1993.
[14]
Long, B., Dingel, J., and Graham, T.C.N. Experience applying the SPIN model checker to an industrial telecommunications system. Proc. ICSE 2008, 693--702.
[15]
Munson, J. P. and Dewan, P. A flexible object merging framework. Proc. CSCW 1994, 231--242.
[16]
Navarre, D., Palanque, P., Basnyat, S., Usability Service Continuation through Reconfiguration of Input and Output Devices in Safety Critical Interactive Systems, Proc. SAFECOMP 2008, LNCS 5219, 373--386.
[17]
Pantel, L. and Wolf, L.C., On the suitability of dead reckoning schemes for games, Proc. NetGames, 79--84, 2002.
[18]
Pinelle, D., Dyck, J., and Gutwin, C. Aligning Work Practices and Mobile Technologies: Design for Loosely-Coupled Mobile Groups, Proc. Mobile HCI 2003.
[19]
Preguica, N., Martins, L., Domingos, H., and Duarte, S. Integrating Synchronous and Asynchronous Interactions in Groupware Applications, Proc. CRIWG'05, 809--104.
[20]
C. Sun and C. Ellis. Operational transformation in real-time group editors: issues, algorithms, and achievements. Proc. CSCW 1998, 59--68.
[21]
Tam, J., Greenberg, S. A Framework for Asynchronous Change Awareness in Collaborative Documents and Workspaces. IJHCS, 64, 7, 2006, 583--598.
[22]
Vogel, W. Object Oriented GroupWare using the Ensemble System, Proc. OOGP, 1997.
[23]
Wolfe, C., Graham, T.C.N., Phillips, W.G., and Roy, B., Fiia: User-Centered Development of Adaptive Groupware Systems, Proc. EICS 2009, 275--284.

Cited By

View all
  • (2019)Away and (Dis)connectionProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/33611113:GROUP(1-20)Online publication date: 5-Dec-2019
  • (2017)Looking Away and Catching UpProceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing10.1145/2998181.2998226(2221-2235)Online publication date: 25-Feb-2017
  • (2014)Participatory and Collaborative Design in the Creation of Applications for Societal DevelopmentInformatics and Communication Technologies for Societal Development10.1007/978-81-322-1916-3_3(17-28)Online publication date: 4-Jul-2014
  • Show More Cited By

Recommendations

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences
CSCW '10: Proceedings of the 2010 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work
February 2010
468 pages
ISBN:9781605587950
DOI:10.1145/1718918
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Sponsors

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 06 February 2010

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Check for updates

Author Tags

  1. disconnection
  2. groupware design
  3. network connectivity

Qualifiers

  • Research-article

Conference

CSCW '10
Sponsor:
CSCW '10: Computer Supported Cooperative Work
February 6 - 10, 2010
Georgia, Savannah, USA

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 2,235 of 8,521 submissions, 26%

Upcoming Conference

CSCW '25

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

  • Downloads (Last 12 months)7
  • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
Reflects downloads up to 13 Feb 2025

Other Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all
  • (2019)Away and (Dis)connectionProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/33611113:GROUP(1-20)Online publication date: 5-Dec-2019
  • (2017)Looking Away and Catching UpProceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing10.1145/2998181.2998226(2221-2235)Online publication date: 25-Feb-2017
  • (2014)Participatory and Collaborative Design in the Creation of Applications for Societal DevelopmentInformatics and Communication Technologies for Societal Development10.1007/978-81-322-1916-3_3(17-28)Online publication date: 4-Jul-2014
  • (2013)Supporting Offline Interaction with Web Sites Resilient to Interruptions Applied to E-learning EnvironmentsRevised Selected Papers of the ICWE 2013 International Workshops on Current Trends in Web Engineering - Volume 829510.1007/978-3-319-04244-2_28(310-314)Online publication date: 8-Jul-2013
  • (2013)A Model-Based Approach for Supporting Offline Interaction with Web Sites Resilient to InterruptionsRevised Selected Papers of the ICWE 2013 International Workshops on Current Trends in Web Engineering - Volume 829510.1007/978-3-319-04244-2_15(156-171)Online publication date: 8-Jul-2013
  • (2012)Visualizing history to improve users' location and comprehension of collaborative workProceedings of the 2012 ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work10.1145/2389176.2389179(11-20)Online publication date: 27-Oct-2012
  • (2012)DiscoTechProceedings of the ACM 2012 conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work10.1145/2145204.2145397(1287-1296)Online publication date: 11-Feb-2012
  • (2012)Leveraging the engagement of games to change energy behavior2012 International Conference on Collaboration Technologies and Systems (CTS)10.1109/CTS.2012.6261074(354-358)Online publication date: May-2012
  • (2012)The Case for Smartphones as an Urgent Computing Client PlatformProcedia Computer Science10.1016/j.procs.2012.04.1849(1667-1676)Online publication date: 2012
  • (2012)Interdroid Versioned Databases: Decentralized Collaborative Authoring of Arbitrary Relational Data for Android Powered Mobile DevicesMobile Computing, Applications, and Services10.1007/978-3-642-32320-1_24(349-354)Online publication date: 2012
  • Show More Cited By

View Options

Login options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

Figures

Tables

Media

Share

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media