Technology Design to Foster Collaboration: A Multidisciplinary Approach

March 11, 2005
Jim Hudson | Georgia Institute of Technology

Collaboration is an important part of nearly all work and educational settings. In practice, however, collaboration is rarely perfect; numerous problems arise, ranging from social loafing to coordination losses. In this talk, I show how a multidisciplinary approach can help in the design of collaborative technologies. For example, in designing IRC Français, I drew on the educational literature to develop a chat-style environment for foreign language learning. Once placed in the classroom, however, surprising conversational patterns arose. Social psychology helped explain these patterns and offer guidelines for designing similar environments. However, questions still remained. I describe an empirical research study into questions of research ethics and initial results from a naturalistic study into the quality of interaction in online educational environments. I conclude by discussing open research questions and how a multidisciplinary approach that combines naturalistic inquiry with empirical studies can help to answer them.

Speaker Details

Jim Hudson is a Ph.D. Candidate in the College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Working with Amy Bruckman in the Electronic Learning Communities (ELC) Research Group, Jim’s research interests in human-computer interaction (HCI) fall at the intersection of two areas: computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) and computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW). His research focuses on understanding and promoting effective group collaboration through the design of socio-technical systems. Specifically, his dissertation work examines participation in learning environments. Other research projects include interruption in business and home environments and distributed collaboration in safety-critical environments. Recipient of the IBM Ph.D. Fellowship, Jim has interned at IBM Research with Wendy Kellogg and Pitney Bowes with Austin Henderson, where he continues to consult.