Asynchronous Learning Networks (ALN)

Asynchronous Learning Networks (ALNs) use computer-mediated communication to support online courses of study, in which anytime, anywhere access to interactions among the students and the teacher/facilitator is a key element. In addition to asynchronous class discussions and group projects, other elements frequently incorporated are use of the World Wide Web and of web-based tutorials or simulations, and/or synchronous web-mediated communication sessions . The asynchronous nature of the primary mode of class interaction leads to new paradigms for teaching and learning, with both unique problems of coordination and unique opportunities to support active, collaborative (group or team-based) learning.

Topics for the mini-track papers include:

1. Theoretical frameworks appropriate for ALN research that integrate aspects of theory from the fields of education or cognitive psychology (learning theories), social impacts of computing, and/or communication media.
2. Qualitative or quantitative evaluations
3. Innovative software to support ALN or "computer-supported collaborative learning" in an anytime/anywhere format, which has actually been used and evaluated in one or more courses.
4. Innovative pedagogy using collaborative learning for ALN's in new ways (with some empirical evaluation reported to assess its effectiveness)
5. Research on social or policy issues that are related to "virtual universities."

Starr Roxanne Hiltz (primary contact)
Distinguished Professor of Computer and Information Science
New Jersey Institute of Technology
Newark, NJ 07102
Preferred mailing address: 19 Meadowbrook
Randolph NJ 07102
Hiltz@adm.njit.edu

David Spencer
Management Program
Rutgers University, Newark, NJ
(908-213-8908)
Preferred mailing address: P.O. Box 173
 Lebanon, NJ 08833-0173
dspencer@pegasus.rutgers.edu
 
 

Computer Supported Collaborative Learning Requiring Immersive Presence

The minitrack will focus on but not be limited to the following areas:

• CSCLIP: Learning Theories, Processes, and Objectives
• Instructional Design, Instructional Effectiveness, CSCL, eLearning, Group Dynamics, Tasks, and the Learning Process
• Cross Cultural Issues, Virtual Teamwork and Trust Enabling Technologies
• Virtual Reality, Bandwidth Issues, QoS, Artificial InTelligence, System Development for Web-based Learning, Hardware and Software Development for Virtual Learning Environments

Nicholas C. Romano, Jr.
Department of Management Science and Information Systems
Oklahoma State University
700 North Greenwood Avenue
Tulsa OK 74112
Tel: 918-594-8506
Fax: 918- 594-8281
Nicholas-Romano@MSTM.OKState.EDU

Joyce Lucca
Department of Management Science and Information Systems
Oklahoma State University
Stillwater, Oklahoma 74078
ljoyce@okstate.edu

Ramesh Sharda
Department of Management Science and Information Systems
Oklahoma State University
Stillwater, Oklahoma 74078
Tel: 405-744-8850
Fax:  405-744-5180
sharda@mstm.okstate.edu
 
 

Collaborative Environments for Value Creation

This minitrack addresses how organisations may improve their ability to create value through judicious application of integrated knowledge and collaboration technologies. The use of networking and collaborative technologies to support groups as they create shared understanding and work to attain their goals fosters new kinds of collective work. Goal of minitrack this minitrack is to bring to life emerging research that considers the way in which organisations create value through the use of collaborative technologies. It aims to attacht quality submissions that define and measure value creation, use knowledge (business inTelligence tools, datamining, search engines) and collaboration technologies to enable organisations to create value.

Processes of Collaboration

1. Repeateable processes and thinklets - organisational problems requiring repeatable solutions
2. data/ metrics for collecting data on level of collaboration{ maturity model}
3. Problem based learning stuff
4. Inter-organisational collaboration
5. Work process methodology

1. Communities of practise
2. Understanding: data, information (patterns), wisdom (causes and consequences. why pattern occurred)
3. Information assimilation: extent to which information is used, databases and websites looked into.

1. Active methods needed for Application Specific tools
2. middleware

Robert O. Briggs
GroupSystems.com
1430 E. Ft. Lowell Rd. Suite 301.
Tucson, AZ 85719
Tel: 520-322-7179
Fax: 520-325-8319
bbriggs@GroupSystems.com

Jay Nunamaker
Center for the Management of Information
McClelland Hall, Room 430GG
University of Aziona
Tucson, AZ 85721
Tel: (520) 621-4105
Fax: (520) 621-3918
jnunamaker@cmi.arizona.edu
 
 

Collaborative Vision Development

This minitrack is to discuss the support for groups to participatively develop shared understanding and vision regarding their organizational systems. It provides one of the key international platforms on which the following issues can be discussed:

 
1. Collaborative approaches to create a vision for organizational systems.
2. Collaborative approaches to model organizations as systems in order to operationalize this vision to organizational structure, processes, and performance.
3. Collaborative approaches to translate the system visualized into a system implemented.

Mariëlle den Hengst
Delft University of Technology
Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management
P.O. Box 5015, 2600 GA Delft
The Netherlands
Tel: +31.15.27-88542
Fax: +31.15.27-83429
m.den.hengst@tpm.tudelft.nl

John Kruse
The University of Arizona
Center for the Management of Information
P.O. Box 210108
 Tucson, AZ 85721-0108
Tel: +520-907-1864
Fax: +603-462-8020
john@kruser.org
 
 

Distributed Collaborative Project Management (Dcpm)

A number of business and technical forces are changing the fundamentals of project management. Advanced Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) such as groupware and videoconferencing enable cooperation in a distributed mode, whereas globalization of markets creates need for people to work from multiple distributed sites. As these strategies require intensive cooperation between the organizations involved in these exchanges, projects including professionals from multiple organizations frequently involve collaboration from sites in different time zones.

The focus of this minitrack is on collaborative projects within or between these organizations. These so-called "virtual projects" involve people collaborating from distributed sites and even different organizations in multi-cultural and cross-functional projects with a global focus. These virtual projects pose new challenges to project management practitioners and researchers.

Roberto Evaristo (Contact Person)
Information and Decision Sciences Department
University of Illinois, Chicago
601 S. Morgan Street MC 294
Chicago, IL 60607-7124
Tel: 312.996.8415
Fax: 312.413.0385
Evaristo@Uic.Edu

Bernhard R. Katzy
Cetim An Der Universität Bw München
Werner Heisenbergweg 39
85577 Neubiberg
Germany
Tel: +49 (179) 695 68 77
Fax +49 (179) 695 68 78
Prof.Katzy@Cetim.De

Nicholas C. Romano Jr.
Oklahoma State University
700 North Greenwood Avenue
Tulsa, OK 74112
Tel: (918) 594-8506
FAX: (918) 594-8281
Nicholas-Romano@MSTM.Okstate.EDU

Jay F. Nunamaker, Jr.
University Of Arizona
Karl Eller Graduate School Of Management
McClelland Hall, Room 430
Tucson, AZ 85721
Tel: (520) 621-4475
Fax: (520) 621-3918
nunamaker@bpa.arizona.edu
 
 

Distributed GSS

Past years have focused on such issues as groupware, desktop video-conferencing, media choice, distributed workgroups, Telework, intranets and workflow management. The methods used to study these topics have ranged from quantitative to qualitative; from field studies to theoretical descriptions; and from lab experiments to case studies.

Continuing this tradition of diversity, we would like to solicit papers on a broad range of issues including (but not limited to) the following:

- Managing and evaluating virtual teams
- Facilitating distributed work globally in contexts such as outsourcing
- Supporting geographically distributed and culturally diverse workgroups
- Examining media differences and their impact on group work
- Building, deploying and maintaining intranets
- Understanding the antecedents and consequences of Telecommuting
- Building trust and commitment in virtual teams
- Developing infrastructures for distributed teamwork
- Implementing tools such as desktop video conferencing and groupware to enable distributed collaboration
- Integrating distributed technologies to support traditional and online education
- Evaluating emerging tools for distributed collaboration including a variety of Web-enabled devices
- Examining the convergence of technologies and industries and its impact on collaboration tools
- Exploring the differences in supporting temporally and geographically distributed workgroups
- Using Web-based tools for organizing and controlling virtual project-teams
- Integrating distributed work across technological and organizational boundaries

Laku Chidambaram
The University of Oklahoma
Michael F. Price College of Business
Division of MIS
307 W. Brooks, Room 307E
Norman, OK 73019-4006
Tel: 405-325-8013
Fax: (405) 325-7482
laku@ou.edu

Kelly Burke
Management Information Systems
University of Hawaii at Hilo
200 W. Kawili St.
Hilo, HI 96720
Ph: 808-974-7554
Fax: 808-974-7685
http://www.uhh.hawaii.edu/~kburke
kellyb@hawaii.edu
 
 

Global Virtual Collaboration

Topics of relevance to this minitrack include, but are not limited to:

• Global aspects of virtual work
• Cross-cultural collaborative applications
• Organisational and inter-organisational case studies
• Theoretical frameworks
• Virtual team contexts
• Group authoring initiatives
• Video conferencing
• Synchronous & Asynchronous collaboration
• Multilingual systems that facilitate collaborative work
• Distributed software development
• Distributed education environments
• Distributed project management
• Conflict and culture
• Managing globally distributed knowledge

Gert-Jan de Vreede
Starting August 2002
University of Nebraska at Omaha
College of Information Science & Technology
Department of Information Systems & Quantitative Analysis
6001 Dodge Street
Omaha, NE 68182-0116
gertjanv@tbm.tudelft.nl (automatically forwarded until 12/31/02)

Karen Loch
Institute of International Business
Georgia State University
Atlanta GA 30303
Tel: +404-651-4095
Kloch@gsu.edu
 
 

Group Support Systems Patterns: Thinklets and Methodologies

Research shows that groups using GSS can be far more productive than teams using other means to accomplish their tasks. However, experience in the field suggests that organizations do not tend to become self-sustaining with GSS until they incorporate the technology into their daily work practices, in support of mission critical tasks that are conducted over and over again by the practitioners themselves, rather than under the guidance of an outside facilitator. This suggests a new, perhaps higher role for GSS facilitators: to create and leave behind well crafted, well tested repeatable processes for others to execute on their own.

We are looking for papers that focus on technology support for repeatable collaborative processes. The papers should describe repeatable collaborative processes and the technologies that support them.

Robert O. Briggs
GroupSystems.com
1430 E. Ft. Lowell Rd.
Tucson AZ 85719
Tel: 520-322-7179
Fax: 520-325-8319
bbriggs@GroupSystems.com

Gert-Jan deVreede
Delft University of Technology
Jaffalaan 5
2628 BX, Delft
The Netherlands
g.j.devreede@tbm.tudelft.nl or
devreede@sepa.tudelft.nl
 
 

Measuring the Effectiveness of Collaboration Technology

The mini-track examines the effectiveness of all types of collaboration technologies. Measures of effectiveness will vary from one technology to another but may include decision making quality, group productivity, group cohesiveness and end-user satisfaction, among many others. A variety of research approaches are welcome and may include experimental work that tests theoretical models or validate survey instruments, as well as case studies that report effective applications and interventions to improve effectiveness.

Bruce A. Reinig
Department of Information and Decision Systems
College of Business Administration
San Diego State University
San Diego CA 92182
Tel: 619-594-3032
Fax: 619-594-3675
breinig@mail.sdsu.edu

Donald L. Amoroso
Department of Information and Decision Systems
College of Business Administration
San Diego State University
San Diego CA 92182
Tel: 619-594-4397
Fax: 619-594-3675
amoroso@mail.sdsu.edu

Negotiation Support Systems

This minitrack explores research issues related to the design, implementation, use and evaluation of negotiation support systems in business. Topics of special interest include, but are not limited to:

- Negotiation support in electronic markets (auctions)
- Negotiation support system and software agents
- Distributed negotiation
- Human and artificial negotiation agents environmental negotiations
- Systems to support intercultural negotiation and emotions
- Use of game theory to understand e-actors' e-negotiation behaviors.

Tung Bui
College of Business Administration
University of Hawaii at Manoa
2404 Maile Way
Honolulu HI 96822
Tel: 808-956-5565
Fax: 808-956-9889
tbui@cba.hawaii.edu

Melvin F. Shakun
Stern School of Business
New York University
44 West 4 Street
New York NY 10012
Tel: 212-998-0440
Fax: 212-995-4003
mshakun@stern.nyu.edu
 
 

Next Generation Learning Platforms

The minitrack will highlight the need for integrated systems and investigate how they work best in a highly distributed web-based environment tackling problems such as

* collaborative computer aided authoring support,
* innovative design and usage of learning appliances,
* mobile devices and "learning-on-the move",
* work benches for international coverage of learning topics,
* reusability support for learning fragments,
* architectures and services for collaborative learning platforms,
* specialized search engines,
* personalization of learning environments,
* remote tutoring support,
* on-demand retrieval of learning material on-demand and
* certification of learners achievements / quality control.

The above-mentioned topics are just some of the major technical issues that needs to be solved, to create integrated architectures. The systems engineering approaches presented should also incorporate business models about how the intended infrastructures will work from an economic point of view.

Joachim Schaper
Director CEC Karlsruhe
Corporate Research
SAP AG Karlsruhe
76131 Karlsruhe
Germany
+49-721-6902-34
Joachim.schaper@sap.com

Max Muehlhaeuser
Darmstadt University of Technology
FB20 Telecooperation,
Alexanderstr. 6,
D-64283 Darmstadt
Germany
Tel [+49](6151)16-3709
max@informatik.tu-darmstadt.de

Joerg M. Haake
Computer Science VI - Distributed Systems
FernUniversitaet Hagen
Informatikzentrum
Universitaetsstr. 1
D-58084 Hagen
Tel. +49 2331 987 327
Fax. +49 2331 987 4896
joerg.haake@fernuni-hagen.de

Bob Dugan
Computer Science Department
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy, NY 12180
Tel: 508-358-3062
dugan@cs.rpi.edu
 
 

Technology Supported Learning

This mini-track focuses on the application of learning theories to the development, testing, and use of Information Technology (IT) to improve the learning process. As the Technology-Supported Learning (TSL) mini-track enters its ninth year, we are especially interested in papers that address the following topics for either facilities-based or distributed education programs:

- New software tool development that addresses XML, wireless, or other recent technologies
- Innovative, theoretically grounded course tools with demonstrable learning outcomes.
- Case studies or Action Research that investigates the effects of technology on learning
- Cases or qualitative accounts of TSL adoption/diffusion that identify cause and effect factors that contribute to the success or failure of diffusion across multiple courses, degree programs, or schools.
- Social, political, and ethical issues relating to TSL

Eric Santanen
Department of Management
206 Taylor Hall
Bucknell University
Lewisburg, Pennsylvania 17837
Tel: 570-577-3652
Fax: 570-577-1338
esantane@bucknell.edu
 
 

User Experience: Collaboration & Knowledge Management

This minitrack will focus on user experience from real organizations and real problems. The focus is technological and process advances gained through years of research and practical experience.

We are looking for papers concerned with User Experience: Collaboration Systems, Knowledge Management, Facilitation, Comparative Studies of Group Support Systems vs. Face-to-Face, InTelligent Agents, Tools, War Games and Ubiquitous Computing. The papers in this session should describe efforts in facilitation, ontology development, sharing information, experiments, field studies, work flow, process design, planning and development of practical guidelines for collaboration systems and knowledge management. The papers in these sessions should bring insight and lessons learned from their experiences with real world problems.

Jay Nunamaker
Center for the Management of Information
McClelland Hall, Room 430GG
University of Aziona
Tucson, AZ 85721
Tel: 520-621-4105
Fax: 520-621-3918
jnunamaker@cmi.arizona.edu
 
 

Wireless Mobile Collaboration

This mini-track will focus on the rapidly changing and evolving use of wireless mobile computing technologies for human-to-human and human-to-machine collaboration. A broad range of topics and research approaches will be examined within the WMC mini-track. We are particularly interested in those topics that are likely to promote discussion within the sessions. These topics include, but are not limited to:

• Conceptual/theory development papers that are well focused, logically argued, and have the potential to define the scope of WMC research and practice;
• Experimental papers that are theoretically motivated, yet whose findings have the potential to interest practitioners;
• Field studies that develop new insight that has the potential to change current practice or lead to new theories;
• System design and development papers that move beyond the description of systems and their use by building new concepts for the design and use of future systems in a variety of settings;
• User adoption, acceptance, and diffusion of WMC technology papers for specific environments and / or applications; and
• User experiences that describe the deployment and management of WMC technologies in education (e.g., wireless campus), organizations (e.g., mobile wireless workforce), and society (e.g., wireless shopping malls).

Len Jessup
College of Business and Economics
Washington State University
PO Box 644729
Pullman WA 99164-4729
Tel: 509-335-1183
Fax: 509-335-4275F
ljessup@wsu.edu