research-article

DiscoTech: a plug-in toolkit to improve handling of disconnection and reconnection in real-time groupware

Authors:

Nicholas Graham,

Carl GutwinAuthors Info & Claims

CSCW '12: Proceedings of the ACM 2012 conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work

Pages 1287 - 1296

https://doi.org/10.1145/2145204.2145397

Published: 11 February 2012 Publication History

Abstract

Disconnection and reconnection are common problems for users of synchronous groupware, but these problems are not easy for developers to handle because of the wide range of scenarios and timeframes that must be considered. We have developed a new toolkit called DiscoTech that helps programmers deal with disconnection. The toolkit is based on five design dimensions that determine how stored information can be manipulated as the system waits for an absent user to rejoin, and how information should be replayed upon reconnection. DiscoTech provides a plug-in architecture to handle a wide variety of behaviours that developers may need during disconnection; these plug-ins range from fully generic tools to customized strategies with full knowledge of the groupware application. We present the design of the DiscoTech toolkit, show examples of its use, and provide evidence that it covers a broad range of situations, imposes minimal performance overhead, and is easy for programmers to learn. DiscoTech handles a wider range of issues than previous toolkits, without requiring undue effort, and provides a practical way to improve the real-world usability of synchronous groupware.

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Cited By

Vellis GKotsalis DAkoumianakis D(2016)Multi-device interactions for teamwork in ubiquitous, collaborative and distributed contextsProceedings of the 20th Pan-Hellenic Conference on Informatics10.1145/3003733.3003810(1-6)Online publication date: 10-Nov-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3003733.3003810
Ardini AHosseini MAlrobai AShahri APhalp KAli R(2014)Social computing for software engineeringComputer Science Review10.1016/j.cosrev.2014.08.00213:C(75-93)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.cosrev.2014.08.002
Pichiliani MHirata C(2014)Adaptation of Single-user Multi-touch Components to Support Synchronous Mobile CollaborationMobile Networks and Applications10.1007/s11036-014-0512-019:5(660-679)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s11036-014-0512-0

Index Terms

DiscoTech: a plug-in toolkit to improve handling of disconnection and reconnection in real-time groupware
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing
    1. Collaborative and social computing theory, concepts and paradigms
      1. Computer supported cooperative work
2. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing and business
      1. Computer supported cooperative work

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

CSCW '12: Proceedings of the ACM 2012 conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work

February 2012

1460 pages

ISBN:9781450310864

DOI:10.1145/2145204

General Chairs:
Steven Poltrock
Boeing Research & Technology
,
Carla Simone
University of Milano-Biccoca
,
Program Chairs:
Jonathan Grudin
Microsoft Research
,
Gloria Mark
University of California, Irvine
,
John Riedl
University of Minnesota

Copyright © 2012 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 11 February 2012

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CSCW '12: Computer Supported Cooperative Work

February 11 - 15, 2012

Washington, Seattle, USA

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Cited By

Vellis GKotsalis DAkoumianakis D(2016)Multi-device interactions for teamwork in ubiquitous, collaborative and distributed contextsProceedings of the 20th Pan-Hellenic Conference on Informatics10.1145/3003733.3003810(1-6)Online publication date: 10-Nov-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3003733.3003810
Ardini AHosseini MAlrobai AShahri APhalp KAli R(2014)Social computing for software engineeringComputer Science Review10.1016/j.cosrev.2014.08.00213:C(75-93)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.cosrev.2014.08.002
Pichiliani MHirata C(2014)Adaptation of Single-user Multi-touch Components to Support Synchronous Mobile CollaborationMobile Networks and Applications10.1007/s11036-014-0512-019:5(660-679)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s11036-014-0512-0

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