Collaborative Working Environment
Encyclopedia
A collaborative working environment (CWE) supports people (e.g., e-professional
s) in their individual and cooperative work. Research in CWE involves organisational, technical, and social issues.
The following applications or services are considered elements of a CWE:
s use a collaborative working environment which provides the capabilities to share information and exchange views in order to reach a common understanding. Such a level of common understanding enables an effective and efficient collaboration among different expertises.
The concept of CWE is derived from the concept of virtual workspaces, and is related to the concept of ework; it extends the traditional concept of the professional
to include any type of knowledge worker
who intensively uses information and communications technology
(ICT) environments and tools in their working practices. Typically a group of eprofessionals conducts their collaborative work through the use of collaborative working environments (CWE).
The CWE concept refers to online collaboration
(i.e. virtual team
s, mass collaboration
, massively distributed collaboration), online communities of practice
, such as the open source
community, and open innovation
principles.
E-professional
E-professional or "eprofessional" or even "eProfessional" is a term used in Europe to describe a professional whose work relies on concepts of telework or telecommuting: working at a distance using information and communication technologies, as well as online Collaboration E-professional or...
s) in their individual and cooperative work. Research in CWE involves organisational, technical, and social issues.
The following applications or services are considered elements of a CWE:
- E-mailE-mailElectronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
- Instant messagingInstant messagingInstant Messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based chatting communication in push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet...
- Application sharingApplication sharingApplication sharing is an element of remote access, falling under the collaborative software umbrella, that enables two or more users to access a shared application or document from their respective computers simultaneously in real time...
- VideoconferencingVideoconferencingVideoconferencing is the conduct of a videoconference by a set of telecommunication technologies which allow two or more locations to interact via two-way video and audio transmissions simultaneously...
- Collaborative workspaceCollaborative workspaceA collaborative workspace or shared workspace is an inter-connected environment in which all the participants in dispersed locations can access and interact with each other just as inside a single entity....
and document management - Task- and workflowWorkflowA workflow consists of a sequence of connected steps. It is a depiction of a sequence of operations, declared as work of a person, a group of persons, an organization of staff, or one or more simple or complex mechanisms. Workflow may be seen as any abstraction of real work...
-management - WikiWikiA wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
group or community effort to edit wiki pages (e.g. wiki pages describing concepts to enable a common understanding within a group or community) - Blogging where entries are categorised by groups or communities or other concepts supporting collaboration
Description
Working practices are evolving from the traditional proximity or geographical collocation paradigm to a virtual collocation paradigm where professionals work together whatever their geographical location. In this context, e-professionalE-professional
E-professional or "eprofessional" or even "eProfessional" is a term used in Europe to describe a professional whose work relies on concepts of telework or telecommuting: working at a distance using information and communication technologies, as well as online Collaboration E-professional or...
s use a collaborative working environment which provides the capabilities to share information and exchange views in order to reach a common understanding. Such a level of common understanding enables an effective and efficient collaboration among different expertises.
The concept of CWE is derived from the concept of virtual workspaces, and is related to the concept of ework; it extends the traditional concept of the professional
Professional
A professional is a person who is paid to undertake a specialised set of tasks and to complete them for a fee. The traditional professions were doctors, lawyers, clergymen, and commissioned military officers. Today, the term is applied to estate agents, surveyors , environmental scientists,...
to include any type of knowledge worker
Knowledge worker
Knowledge workers in today's workforce are individuals who are valued for their ability to act and communicate with knowledge within a specific subject area. They will often advance the overall understanding of that subject through focused analysis, design and/or development. They use research...
who intensively uses information and communications technology
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
(ICT) environments and tools in their working practices. Typically a group of eprofessionals conducts their collaborative work through the use of collaborative working environments (CWE).
The CWE concept refers to online collaboration
Collaboration
Collaboration is working together to achieve a goal. It is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together to realize shared goals, — for example, an intriguing endeavor that is creative in nature—by sharing...
(i.e. virtual team
Virtual team
A virtual team is a group of individuals who work across time, space and organizational boundaries with links strengthened by webs of communication technology...
s, mass collaboration
Mass collaboration
Mass collaboration is a form of collective action that occurs when large numbers of people work independently on a single project, often modular in its nature...
, massively distributed collaboration), online communities of practice
Community of practice
A community of practice is, according to cognitive anthropologists Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, a group of people who share an interest, a craft, and/or a profession. The group can evolve naturally because of the members' common interest in a particular domain or area, or it can be created...
, such as the open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
community, and open innovation
Open Innovation
Although the idea and discussion about some consequences date back at least to the 60s, open innovation is a term promoted by Henry Chesbrough, a professor and executive director at the Center for Open Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley, in his book Open Innovation: The new...
principles.
External links
- ECOSPACE: eProfessionals Collaboration Space
- European Commission "New Working Environments" website for the wide public
- POPEYE (Peer to Peer Collaborative Working Environments over Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks) European project. http://srvweb01.softeco.it/IST-Popeye/Portals/_Rainbow/Documents/new_collab_environments_2020.pdf
- AMI@Work on-line Communities
- eWorkforum: Online discussion forum on e-working
- Gangplank: Collaborative Work Space in Chandler Az