Computational Workspace Coordination: Design-in-Use of Collaborative Publishing Services for Computer-Mediated Collaborative Publishing
Spasser, Mark Aaron
This item is only available for download by members of the University of Illinois community. Students, faculty, and staff at the U of I may log in with your NetID and password to view the item. If you are trying to access an Illinois-restricted dissertation or thesis, you can request a copy through your library's Inter-Library Loan office or purchase a copy directly from ProQuest.
Permalink
https://hdl.handle.net/2142/81566
Description
Title
Computational Workspace Coordination: Design-in-Use of Collaborative Publishing Services for Computer-Mediated Collaborative Publishing
Author(s)
Spasser, Mark Aaron
Issue Date
1998
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Smith, Linda C.
Department of Study
Library and Information Science
Discipline
Library and Information Science
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Engineering, Industrial
Language
eng
Abstract
The goal of this research is to describe the design-in-use of a Web-enabled collaborative publishing prototype to manage the articulation of work practices in publishing in the Flora of North America (FNA). The FNA project gathers and makes available scientifically authoritative and current synoptic information on the approximately 20,000 species of vascular plants and bryophytes of North America north of Mexico. In terms of the number of participants (currently over 1,000) and their wide geographical distribution, FNA is one of the largest scientific collaborations currently funded by the National Science Foundation. FNA work processes represent an attempt to adapt traditional methods of small-scale print publishing to a large-scale database construction and electronic publishing effort. These methods are proving to be inefficient, inadequate, and unable to scale, and because FNA is falling increasingly behind its publication schedule and is running increasingly over its budget, the Web-based workspace coordination tool--Collaborative Publishing Services (CPS)--is being participatively prototyped to help reduce the complexity of articulating the massively interdependent activities of the geographically and logically distributed FNA work group. According to the coordination mechanism perspective, CPS is an agglomeration of two specialized component devices: (1) a common, shared workspace accessible to multiple interdependent actors and (2) a coordination mechanism, which articulates the flow of work among geographically and logically distributed actors with respect to the shared workspace. In addition to obtaining a general understanding of FNA work processes, the main objectives of this research are first, to identify and characterize mechanisms supporting coordination work within the FNA project, second, to study the design-in-use of CPS as a computer-based artifact articulating workflow, and mediating communication, within the collaborative publishing workspace of the FNA project, and finally to develop a conceptual vocabulary to better explicate the coordinative activities of such large-scale distributed knowledge work as FNA publishing.
Use this login method if you
don't
have an
@illinois.edu
email address.
(Oops, I do have one)
IDEALS migrated to a new platform on June 23, 2022. If you created
your account prior to this date, you will have to reset your password
using the forgot-password link below.
