Academic literature on the topic 'Face to face collaboration'

This study adopted an action research approach to investigate the efficacy of Focus Theory, a general theory of group productivity, in the context of project team interactions supported by GSS. Focus Theory specifies that three processes consume attention resources to accomplish a group task: communication, information access, and deliberation. Guided by Focus Theory, the study examined the ways in which these processes were manifested, facilitated, and/or inhibited during group interactions, as well as how these processes and other Focus Theory constructs affected group productivity when teams engaged in FtF, synchronous-distributed, and asynchronous-distributed interactions. The objective of the study was to gain understanding of distributed team interactions through the lens of Focus Theory and to offer insights into the theory, the practice of geographically separated project teams, and collaboration technology design. Distributed groups using text for communication lost nonverbal cues that could have been used to interpret the meaning of a message. The study indicated that identification of the message sender and specification of the time and date of a message allowed more accurate interpretation of that message. It was found that distributed teams did not understand the team goals and interaction procedures as well as FtF teams. Group process structure support and interaction facilitation were more important for distributed interactions than for FtF interactions because of the need for explicit communication in distributed teams. Access to relevant information was important for keeping interactions moving forward, and a permanent group memory provided by GSS facilitated group activity tracking. Focus Theory had both explanatory power and theoretical limitations. The study indicated that three processes consumed attention resources, although it was difficult to separate their effects or to measure the attention resources allocated to each. Focus Theory does not differentiate between cognitive effort and cognitive load, making it difficult to test the theory's validity. The three processes may not be equally important in all group interaction scenarios, a possibility not specified by Focus Theory. This dissertation discusses the implications of the study for further development of the theory, insights for researchers of collaboration, guidelines for collaboration technology designers, and everyday tips for practitioners.

Construction projects are complex and organisationally characterised by a high degree of fragmentation. This results in a need for clear communication and collaboration between the project participants in order to ensure the success of a project. Advances in communication technologies have enabled construction project members to supplement face to face (FTF) communication with methods based on computer mediated communication (CMC). The latter has reduced the need for travelling and hence results in savings in aspects, such as cost and time. One aspect of this CMC based communication is the emergence of modern design software which, together with other communication tools enables designers to undertake collaborative design while being geographically remote from one another. The research in this thesis compares the effectiveness of FTF and CMC based collaboration for teams of two people at the design stage of a construction project. The comparison deals with many points that have been not addressed in previous studies and the analysis leads to the conclusion that CMC results in a more effective process than FTF in many aspects. For productivity, the results of this research reveal that team productivity for CMC is higher than for FTF and intriguingly further results show that the productivity score of two people collaborating is higher than for a single designer. Better time management has been found to occur with CMC than FTF. This research found a method of measuring degree of collaboration between users in a team, as well as the results prove that the degree of collaboration in CMC better than FTF. In terms of design quality, the results show that the design quality for FTF is nearly equal to that for CMC. Other aspects of this research examine the relationship between non-verbal and verbal communication as well as between non-verbal communication and team productivity plus the impact of emotional factors on productivity and quality is also examined.

Sociality is one of the most fundamental aspects of being human. The key to sociality is coordination, that is, the bringing of people "into a common action, movement or condition" [134]. Coordination is, at base, how social creatures get social things done in the world. Being social creatures, we engage in highly coordinative activities in everyday life"two girls play hopscotch together, a group of musicians play jazz in a jam session and a father teaches a son how to ride a bicycle. Even mundane actions such as greetings, answering a phone call, and asking a question to ask a question by saying "Can I ask you a question?" are complex and intricate. Actors not only need to plan and perform situated actions, but also need to process the responding actions----even unforeseen ones----from the other party in real time and adjust their own subsequent actions. Yet, we expertly coordinate with each other in performing highly intricate coordinative actions.<br />In this work, I look at how people coordinate joint activities at the moment of interaction and aim to unveil a range of coordinative issues, using "methodologies and approaches that fundamentally question the mainstream frameworks that define what counts as knowledge" (p.2, [80]) in the field of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). To investigate computer mediated interactions among co-located people, I examine different interactional choices people make in the course of carrying out their joint activities, and the consequences of their choices.<br />By investigating co-located groups as they played a collaborative, problem-solving game using distributed technologies in experimental settings, I (1) provide critical case reports which question and challenge non-discussed, often-taken-for-granted assumptions about face-to-face interactions and coordination, and (2) tie the observations to the creation of higher level constructs which, in turn, can affect subsequent design choices.<br />More specifically, I ran two studies to look at how co-located people coordinate and manage their attention, tasks at hand, and joint activities in an experimental setting. I asked triads to work on a Sudoku puzzle collectively as a team. I varied support for the deictic mechanism in the software as well as form factors of mediating technology.<br />My research findings show that:<br />(1) different tools support different deictic behaviors. Explicit support for pointing is desirable to support complex reference tasks, but may not be needed for simpler ones. On the other hand, users without sophisticated explicit support may give up the attempt to engaged in complex reference.<br />(2) talk is diagnostic of user satisfaction but lack of talk is not diagnostic of dissatisfaction. Therefore, designers must be careful in their use of talk as a measurement of collaboration.<br />(3) the more people talk about complex relationships in the puzzle, the higher their increase in positive emotion. Either engaging with the problem at hand is rewarding or having the ability to engage with the problem effectively enough to speak about it is engaging.<br />(4) amount of talk is related to form factor. People in both computer conditions talked less about the specifics oF the game board than people in the paper condition, but only people in the laptop condition experienced a significant decrease in positive emotion.<br />(5) different mediating technologies afford different types of non-response situations. The most common occurrences of non-responses were precipitated by speakers talking to themselves in the computer conditions. Participants did not talk to themselves much in the paper condition.<br />Differences in technology form factors may influence people\'s behaviors and emotion differently. These findings represent a portrait of how different technologies provide different interactional possibilities for people.<br />With my quantitative and qualitative analyses I do not make bold and futile claims such as "using a highlighter tool will make users collaborate more efficiently," or "making people talk more will make the group perform better." I, instead, illustrate the interactional choices people made in the presence of given technological conditions and how their choices eventuated in situ.<br />I then propose processlessness as an idea for preparing designs that are open to multiple interactional possibilities, and nudgers as an idea for enabling and aiding users to create and design their own situated experiences.<br>Ph. D.

Abstract This study focused on enriching collaborative learning through pedagogically scripted multiplayer games. Collaborative learning was examined in the synchronous discussions of small group problem-solving activities in face-to-face and virtual game settings. The theoretical approach is socio-cognitive and builds on the contextual and situated nature of learning. Interaction between group members in social situations is a key mechanism fostering students’ collaborative learning. In the field of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning the underlying aim is to stimulate and structure socially shared construction of knowledge and development of shared understanding among the collaborators. This thesis consisted of three empirical studies. The first study focused on analysing the macro-level elements of teacher education students’ face-to-face discussions in a context of an international web-based course. The focus of the second and third empirical studies was on how distributed collaboration can be enriched by scripting multiplayer game environments. The game environments were developed and tailored as part of the empirical studies. The main aim was to analyse small-group micro-level interactions and activities taking place during the game. Moreover, the particulars of a 3D voice-enhanced multiplayer game context for small-group shared collaborative activities were investigated. The focus of the last empirical study was on aspects of collaborative game activity and shared problem solving described from the perspective of individual players. The results indicated that the synchronous small-group discussions, on the macro-level, consisted of explaining, sharing knowledge, providing critiques, reflection, and joint engagement. The micro-level elements of the players’ discussions during the game were questions, content statements, social statements, suggestions, instructions or orders, encouragements, and responses. Both macro and micro level elements varied in random order during the discussion, forming a base for small-group discussion and joint problem-solving efforts. Not all problem-solving situations in the game data were shared, indicating that if shared collaborative activity was pursued, the scripting of the game tasks must require equal participation and teamwork during the game. The 3D game environment created a strong shared context for the distributed groups by engaging the players and reinforcing individual participation through the avatar activity. The findings of this thesis contribute to the future development of serious games and highlight the potential of multiplayer games as tools for supporting the social aspects of distributed teamwork<br>Tiivistelmä Väitöstutkimus tarkastelee yhteisöllisen oppimisen rikastamista pedagogisesti vaiheistettujen virtuaalipeliympäristöjen avulla. Tutkimuksessa on analysoitu pienryhmien sosiaalista vuorovaikutusta luokkahuonekeskusteluissa ja puhevälitteisissä peliympäristöissä. Teoreettisesti tutkimus pohjautuu sosiokognitiiviseen käsitykseen oppimisesta, jonka mukaan sosiaaliset tilanteet voivat käynnistää yksilöissä oppimisen kannalta keskeisiä mekanismeja, kuten esimerkiksi selittämistä ja tiedon jakamista. Yhteisöllisen oppimisen ytimeksi katsotaan jaetun ymmärryksen rakentaminen sosiaalisessa vuorovaikutuksessa, mitä tietokoneavusteisen yhteisöllisen oppimisen tutkimuslinjassa pyritään tukemaan vaiheistamalla oppimisympäristöjä. Tutkimus koostuu kolmesta eri osatutkimuksesta, joista ensimmäisessä analysoitiin korkeakouluopiskelijoiden pienryhmäkeskustelua luokkahuonetilanteessa. Lähitapaamiset toimivat kurssilla hajautetun kansainvälisen verkkotyöskentelyn tukena. Toisessa osatutkimuksessa tarkasteltiin, voiko hajautettua yhteisöllistä oppimista rikastaa puhevälitteisen monenpelaajan peliympäristön avulla. Pelin tehtävät suunniteltiin ja vaiheistettiin yhteisöllistä toimintaa vaativiksi sekä jaetun ymmärryksen rakentamista tukeviksi. Analyysi keskittyi korkeakouluopiskelijoiden pelinaikaisen keskustelun ja ongelmanratkaisutilanteiden tarkasteluun. Kolmannen osatutkimuksen tavoitteena oli tutkia, mitä osatekijöitä työelämäkontekstista tulleet osallistujat joutuivat hallitsemaan puhevälitteisessä monenpelaajan pelissä. Tutkimusten video- ja haastatteluaineistot analysoitiin laadullisen sisällönanalyysin menetelmin. Tutkimustulokset osoittivat, että pienryhmän vuorovaikutus koostuu makrotasolla mm. selittämisestä, tiedon jakamisesta ja reflektoinnista. Mikrotasolla mm. kysymykset, toteamukset, auttaminen ja ehdottaminen vaihtelivat puheenvuoroittain ja muodostivat yhteisen toiminnan pohjan pienryhmän pelaamisessa. Kaikki ongelmanratkaisutilanteet pelin aikana eivät kuitenkaan olleet jaettuja. Tulokset osoittavat, että kun tavoitellaan aidosti yhteisöllisiä tilanteita, pelin tehtävät täytyy vaiheistaa niin, että ne vaativat kaikkien osallistumista ja pitävät ryhmää virtuaalisesti yhdessä. Tässä tutkimuksessa käytetyt peliympäristöt muodostivat hajautetuille ryhmille vahvan jaetun tilan ja virtuaalisten ihmishahmojen eli avatarien kautta osallistuminen vahvisti yksilöiden toimijuutta pienryhmän osana. Tuloksia voidaan hyödyntää hajautetun tiimityön kontekstissa sekä käyttää tukena tulevaisuuden virtuaalisten tiimipelien suunnittelussa