Computer supported cooperative work

The term computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) was first coined by Irene Greif and Paul M. Cashman in 1984, at a workshop attended by individuals interested in using technology to support people in their work. At about this same time, in 1987 Dr. Charles Findley presented the concept of collaborative learning-work. According to, CSCW addresses "how collaborative activities and their coordination can be supported by means of computer systems." On the one hand, many authors consider that CSCW and groupware are synonyms. On the other hand, different authors claim that while groupware refers to real computer-based systems, CSCW focuses on the study of tools and techniques of groupware as well as their psychological, social, and organizational effects. The definition of expresses the difference between these two concepts: CSCW [is] a generic term, which combines the understanding of the way people work in groups with the enabling technologies of computer networking, and associated hardware, software, services and techniques.

Issues with CSCW
CSCW (Computer- Supported Co-operative Work) is an enormous field of study, where psychologists, psychiatrists, sociologists, technologists etc have different interests according to their field of study. This among many other reasons creates a countless number of different reasons for CSCW to fail. Nevertheless, CSCW is an identifiable research field focused on the understanding of nature and characteristics of co-operative work with the objective of designing adequate computer based technology to support such cooperative work. CSCW examines competition, socialization and play; it draws on knowledge from a wide range of disciplines. Further considerations are necessary concerning the term “co-operation”. Within a single organization one can distinguish several types of co-operative works: according to them we will design different kind of systems and tools. The first type of co-operation is co-ordination: action of individuals gives meaning to the action of others and the others’ actions contribute to an individual action to achieve a final outcome. Co-ordination needs synchronization of persons, actions and the consistency of the individual actions with respect to the whole process. Another kind of co-operation is collaboration: is a process where individuals work together in the execution of a certain action to produce a final product. At the end of the process the single contribution cannot be isolated anymore because the final result is the sum of all the individual contribution. In collaboration processes common understanding of the objectives and shared knowledge are fundamental. The third type is co-decision: people contribute to take a joint decision. In co-decision context’s status consideration are relevant: all the participants may have the same qualification and position in the decision process or may give contributions on the basis of their specific role. Credibility, shared knowledge and common understanding are critical factors in these contexts as well. Of course, combinations of these co-operative processes might be needed to accomplish a task, involving a greater or lesser degree of shared knowledge or synchronization.

There have been great investments in CSCW tools in private and public sector during the last decade. Many of these implementations have been very successful, but some of them have been the opposite, even if the firms have been almost identical in structure and organization. Again one could identify several factors that make CSCW a success in one firm, but could lead to failure in other.

As mentioned there could be many reasons for CSCW to fail and stopping it for living up to its name, however at least there are three main causes: 1) the disparity of those who do the job and those who get the benefits; 2) the lack of management intuition for CSCW applications; 3) the extreme difficulty of evaluating these applications. Beyond this one can see several other critical factors that may fail the very nature of CSCW applications. Some of these are social reasons which again are an interesting factor for psychologists, awareness reasons which may be of interest for sociologists, functionality of the application which may interest technologists etc.

Traditionally the CSCW have been expensive applications that have been locked to a firm’s intranet or extranet. The trend to day for many CSCW applications is towards the internet, and for this there are several reasons. One of them is that internet is a medium which is accessible anywhere at anytime. This makes it easier for people to communicate, coordinate and do collaborative tasks independent of global boundaries. Nevertheless, internet gives an enormous opportunity for new vendors of CSCW applications to market and make people use their free trail versions. But, of course where there is a positive side, there always a negative side. The biggest drawback with internet as medium for CSCW to day is the security hazard. This risk is so big that many companies choose to use intranet solutions instead. This is a pity because the internet gives massive opportunities to interconnect the company’s value chain and suppliers by CSCW.

CSCW Matrix


The CSCW Matrix was introduced in 1988 by Johansen and appears in

Same time/same place
Face to face interaction


 * Roomware
 * shared tables, wall displays
 * Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS)
 * Single display groupware

Same time/different place
Remote interaction


 * Video-Conferencing,
 * Real-time groupware
 * Messaging (Instant messaging, Email)
 * Virtual worlds
 * Multi-User editors
 * Shared Screen (vnc)

Different time/same place
Continuous task


 * Team rooms,
 * Large displays

Different time/different place
Communication + Coordination


 * Wiki
 * Blogs
 * Workflow
 * Version Control

CSCW most cited papers

 * The 47 CSCW Handbook Papers . This paper list is the result of a citation graph analysis of the CSCW Conference. It has been established in 2006 and reviewed by  the CSCW Community.

The “CSCW handbook” papers were chosen as the overall most cited within the CSCW conference <...> It led to a list of 47 papers, corresponding to about 11% of all papers.