Introduction

Abstract

The preparation of Solomon for the construction of the Temple is recorded in II Chronicles. It was, like most great ventures, an act of collaboration. The development of networked computing and the globalization of industry in our own day has vastly amplified the opportunities for collaboration of the computer-supported kind, efforts that fall under the umbrella category of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work [CSCW]. This book reviews in detail the theory of collaborative groups, examining a broad array of factors and ideas that can be used to understand collaboration, both face-to-face and computer-supported, with particular reference to collaborative software development. The ideas we consider derive from diverse sources: social psychology and cognitive psychology, from research on the impact of media characteristics on collaboration, the basic theory of problem-solving in groups, computer-supported process management issues, effects related to how groups exchange, recall, and process information, and the impact of organizational context on the design, use and acceptance of groupware. We also survey the results of empirical and statistical studies on computer-supported problem solving.

“He conscripted seventy thousand men to carry stone and eighty thousand to cut the stone in the mountains, and over these he placed three thousand six hundred overseers.” The Second Book of Chronicles