Developments in networked digital imaging promise to substantially affect the near-universal experience of personal photography. Designing technology for image capture and sharing requires an understanding of how people use photos as well as how they adapt emerging technology to their photographic practices, and vice versa. In this paper, we report on an empirical study of the uses made of a prototype context-aware cameraphone application for mobile media sharing, and relate them to prior work on photographic practices. By reducing many of the barriers to cameraphone use and image sharing (including increasing image quality, easing the sharing process, and removing cost barriers), we find that users quickly develop new uses for imaging. Their innovative communicative uses of imaging are understandable in terms of the social uses identified from prior photographic activity; new functional uses are developing as well.

Evaluating distributed CSCW applications is a difficult endeavor. Frameworks and methodologies for structuring this type of evaluation have become a central concern for CSCW researchers. In this paper we describe the problems involved in evaluating remote collaborations, and we review some of the more prominent conceptual frameworks of group interaction that have driven CSCW evaluation in the past. A multifaceted evaluation framework is presented that approaches the problem from the relationships underlying joint awareness, communication, collaboration, coordination, and work coupling. Finally, recommendations for carrying out multifaceted evaluations of remote interaction are provided.

As new communications media foster international collaborations, we would be remiss in overlooking cultural differences when assessing them. In this study, 24 pairs in three cultural groupings---American-American (AA), ChineseChinese (CC) and American-Chinese (AC) --worked on two decision-making tasks, one face-to-face and the other via IM. Drawing upon prior research, we predicted differences in conversational efficiency, conversational content, interaction quality, persuasion, and performance. The quantitative results combined with conversation analysis suggest that the groups viewed the task differently---AA pairs as an exercise in situation-specific compromise; CC as consensus-reaching. Cultural differences were reduced but not eliminated in the IM condition.

We present an empirical study investigating collaborative and individual decision-making about data using two different information visualization systems. Based on previous research, one system is considered more transparent than the other in terms of visual representation and functionality. We found that people who worked in groups were more correct in their answers for objective questions, based on searching a large dataset. These results held for the more transparent system, but not the less transparent system. In a second task, groups were more accurate in their results for a free data discovery task. Again, these results held for the more transparent system only. Subjects using this system also produced results that were higher in complexity but judged lower in importance. Groups and individuals did not differ. We suggest that given the right visualization system, groups do better than individuals in finding more accurate results, but not necessarily increased or more meaningful results.

The power of the unaided, individual mind is highly overrated: The Renaissance scholar no longer exists. Although creative individuals are often thought of as working in isolation, the role of interaction and collaboration with other individuals is critical to creativity. Creative activity grows out of the relationship between individuals and their work, and from the interactions between an individual and other human beings. Because complex problems require more knowledge than any single person possesses, it is necessary that all involved stakeholders participate, communicate, collaborate, and learn from each other. Distances (across spatial, temporal, and technological dimensions) and diversity (bringing stakeholders together from different cultures) are important sources for social creativity. This paper describes conceptual frameworks and sociotechnical environments (derived from the systems that we have developed over the last decade) in which social creativity can come alive. Keywords design, social creativity, spatial distance, temporal distance, technological distance, diversity, communities of practice, communities of interest, division of labor

As the Internet has changed communication, commerce, and the distribution of information, so too it is changing psychological research. Psychologists can observe new or rare phenomena online and can do research on traditional psychological topics more efficiently, enabling them to expand the scale and scope of their research. Yet these opportunities entail risk both to research quality and to human subjects. Internet research is inherently no more risky than traditional observational, survey, or experimental methods. Yet the risks and safeguards against them will differ from those characterizing traditional research and will themselves change over time. This article describes some benefits and challenges of conducting psychological research via the Internet and offers recommendations to both researchers and institutional review boards for dealing with them. The Internet and the widespread diffusion of personal computing have the potential for unparalleled impact on the conduct of psychological research, changing the way psychologists collaborate, collect data, and disseminate their results. In this article, we focus on the way the Internet is changing the process of empirical research, identifying both opportunities and challenges. The Internet presents empirical researchers with tremendous opportunities. It lowers many of the costs of collecting data on human behavior, allowing researchers, for example, to run online experiments involving thousands of subjects with minimal intervention on the part of experimenters (Nosek, Banaji, & Greenwald, 2002b). Internet chat rooms and bulletin boards provide a rich sample of human behavior that can be mined for studies of communication (Galegher, Sproull, & Kiesler, 1998), prejudice (Glaser, Dixit, &

It is widely believed that distributed software development is riskier and more challenging than collocated development. Prior literature on distributed development in software engineering and other fields discuss various challenges, including cultural barriers, expertise transfer difficulties, and communication and coordination overhead. We evaluate this conventional belief by examining the overall development of Windows Vista and comparing the postrelease failures of components that were developed in a distributed fashion with those that were developed by collocated teams. We found a negligible difference in failures. This difference becomes even less significant when controlling for the number of developers working on a binary. We also examine component characteristics such as code churn, complexity, dependency information, and test code coverage and find very little difference between distributed and collocated components. Further, we examine the software process and phenomena that occurred during the Vista development cycle and present ways in which the development process utilized may be insensitive to geography by mitigating the difficulties introduced in prior work in this area. 1.

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Abstract. Pair programming is a practice in which two programmers work together at one computer, collaborating on the same design, algorithm, code or test. Previous studies have shown that pair programmers produce higher quality code in essentially the same amount of time as solo programmers. Additional benefits include increased job satisfaction, improved team communication, and efficient tacit knowledge sharing. However, it may not always be possible for all team members to be collocated due to the rise in teleworking and geographically distributed teams. This paper analyzes the results of two distributed pair programming case studies done at UNC Chapel Hill and at NC State University. Participants used readily available off-the-shelf applications for collaborative software development. The results indicate that software development collaboratively “over the wire ” is feasible, effective, and pleasant for the participants; distributed development is better done as synchronous pairs than as individuals who integrate; and distributed pairs maintain many of the advantages of collocated pairs. 1.

Design is a ubiquitous activity. The complexity of design problems requires communities rather than individuals to address, frame, and solve them. These design communities have to cope with the following barriers: (1) spatial (across distance), (2) temporal (across time), (3) conceptual (across different communities of practice, and (4) technological (between persons and artifacts). Over the last decade, we have addressed these barriers and have tried to create sociotechnical environments to turn them into opportunities for enhancing the social creativity of design communities. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.5.3 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: Group and Organization Interfaces – computer supported cooperative