Component technologies are perceived as an important means to keep software architectures flexible. Flexibility offered by componenttechnologies typically addresses software developers at design time. However, the design of software which should support socialsystems, such as work groups or...

Die Aneignung und Einbettung von Computersystemen in den Nutzungskontext stellt einen zentralen, nichtsdestotrotz von der bisherigen Forschung ungenügend adressierten Aspekt der Softwarenutzung dar. Es muss dabei klar sein, dass Aneignung ein kollektiver und kreativer Prozess gesehen werden...

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has become an important factor in ourpersonal lives as well as in our social organizations—at work, at home, in our hospitals, in thepolitical institutions and in the public media. While in work settings the dynamics of sharedbusiness goals,...

Classification schemes are an important issue in the collective use of large document collections. We have investigated the classification of technical documentations in two engineering domains: a steel mill and a sewerage plant company. In both cases we found a coexistence of different...

In fragmented work settings like networked organizations or virtual organizations, monolithic approaches to implement support for collaboration would require the actors involved to agree on the usage of the approach or tool under consideration. As the autonomy of actors in these settings makes...

The Answer Garden supports knowledge sharing in two intertwined ways: by making relevant information retrievable and by mediating access to people with knowledge. We present a case study in which the Answer Garden approach was applied to encourage knowledge sharing in maintenance engineering of...

Virtuelle Organisationen spielen eine zunehmend wichtigere Rolle bei derDienstleistungserstellung. Die effektive Gestaltung kollektiver Lernprozesse fördertdie Wettbewerbsfähigkeit solcher Organisationen entscheidend. Das OlViOProjektverfolgt das Ziel, neuartige Erkenntnisse hinsichtlich des...

Knowledge is an important resource in economy these days. It is typically distributed among different actors and embodied in various artefacts (cf. Saloman 1993; Hutchins 1995; Ackerman and Halverson 1998). So, on the level of national economies as well as on the level of an individual organizations, it...

Dieser Artikel beschreibt die Ergebnisse einer Langzeitstudie über Groupwa-reanwendungen im Verwaltungskontext, welche den gesamten Zyklus dieser An-wendungen von der Einführung, über den Gebrauch, bis zur Entfernung alter und Einführung neuer Groupware umfasst. Über einen Zeitraum von etwa...

In groupware tools, the activation of a function may affect other userswho might have conflicting interests. We developed technicalmechanisms to support users in resolving them. Contrary to currentimplementations of groupware tools, these mechanisms strengthen theposition of the users who are...