A collaborative working environment (CWE) supports people, such as

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 remote work: working at a distance using information technology and communications technology, as well as ...

s, in their individual and cooperative work. Research in CWE involves focusing on organizational, technical, and social issues.

Background

Working practices in a collaborative working environment evolved from the traditional or geographical co-location paradigm. In a CWE, professionals work together regardless of their geographical location. In this context,

s use a collaborative working environment to provide and share information and exchange views in order to reach a common understanding. Such practices enable an effective and efficient collaboration among different proficiencies.

Description

The following applications or services are considered elements of a CWE: *

E-mail Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...

Instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of synchronous computer-mediated communication involving the immediate ( real-time) transmission of messages between two or more parties over the Internet or another computer network. Originally involv ...

* Application sharing *

Video conferencing Videotelephony (also known as videoconferencing or video calling) is the use of audio signal, audio and video for simultaneous two-way communication. Today, videotelephony is widespread. There are many terms to refer to videotelephony. ''Vide ...

Web conferencing Web conferencing is used as an umbrella term for various types of online conferencing and collaborative services including webinars (web seminars), webcasts, and web meetings. Sometimes it may be used also in the more narrow sense of the peer-l ...

Virtual workplace A virtual workplace is a work environment where employees can perform their duties remotely, using technology such as laptops, smartphones, and video conferencing tools. A virtual workplace is not located in any one physical space. It is usually a ...

document management A document management system (DMS) is usually a computerized system used to store, share, track and manage files or documents. Some systems include history tracking where a log of the various versions created and modified by different users is r ...

and

version control system Version control (also known as revision control, source control, and source code management) is the software engineering practice of controlling, organizing, and tracking different versions in history of computer files; primarily source code ...

* Task and

workflow Workflow is a generic term for orchestrated and repeatable patterns of activity, enabled by the systematic organization of resources into processes that transform materials, provide services, or process information. It can be depicted as a seque ...

management (

Task management Task management is the process of overseeing a task through its lifecycle. It involves planning, testing, tracking, and reporting. Task management can help individuals achieve goals or enable groups of individuals to collaborate and share know ...

and

Workflow management Workflow is a generic term for orchestrated and repeatable patterns of activity, enabled by the systematic organization of resources into processes that transform materials, provide services, or process information. It can be depicted as a sequen ...

) *

Wiki A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or l ...

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 A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

where entries are categorized by groups or communities or other concepts supporting collaboration

Overview

The concept of CWE is derived from the idea of virtual work-spaces, and is related to the concept of

remote work Remote work (also called telecommuting, telework, work from or at home, WFH as an initialism, hybrid work, and other terms) is the practice of work (human activity), working at or from one's home or Third place, another space rather than from ...

. It extends the traditional concept of the

professional A professional is a member of a profession or any person who work (human activity), works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the partic ...

to include any type of

knowledge worker Knowledge workers are workers whose main capital is knowledge. Examples include ICT professionals, physicians, pharmacists, architects, engineers, scientists, designers, public accountants, lawyers, librarians, archivists, editors, and ...

who intensively uses

information and communications technology Information and communications technology (ICT) is an extensional term for information technology (IT) that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications (telephone lines and wireless signals) and computer ...

(ICT) environments and tools in their working practices. Typically, a group of e-professionals conduct their collaborative work through the use of collaborative working environments (CWE). CWE includes online

collaboration Collaboration (from Latin ''com-'' "with" + ''laborare'' "to labor", "to work") is the process of two or more people, entities or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. Collaboration is similar to cooperation. The ...

(such as

virtual team A virtual team (also known as a geographically dispersed team, distributed team, or remote team) usually refers to a group of individuals who work together from different geographic locations and rely on communication technology such as email, ins ...

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. Such projects typically take place on the internet using social software and computer-s ...

, and massively distributed collaboration), online

communities of practice A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who "share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly". The concept was first proposed by Cognitive anthropology, cognitive anthropolo ...

(such as the

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

community), and

open innovation Open innovation is a term used to promote an Information Age mindset toward innovation that runs counter to the secrecy and silo mentality of traditional corporate research labs. The benefits and driving forces behind increased openness have b ...

principles.

Collaborative work systems

A collaborative working system (CWS) is an organizational unit that emerges any time when collaboration takes place, whether it is formal or informal, intentional or unintentional.Beyerlein, M; Freedman, S.; McGee, G.; Moran, L. (2002). ''Beyond Teams: Building the Collaborative Organization''. The Collaborative Work Systems series. Wiley. Collaborative work systems are those in which conscious efforts have been made to create strategies, policies, and structures in order to institutionalize values, behaviors, and practices that promote cooperation among different parties in an organization so as to achieve organizational goals. A high level of collaborative capacity will enable more effective work both at the local and daily levels, and at the global and long-term levels. Collaboration is the collective work of two or more individuals where the work is undertaken with a sense of shared purpose and direction, and is attentive and responsive to the environment. In most organizations collaboration occurs naturally, but ill-defined work practices may create barriers to natural collaboration. The result is a loss of both decision-making quality and valuable time. Well-designed collaborative working systems not only overcome these natural barriers to communication, they also establish a cooperative work culture that becomes an integral part of the organization's structure.

Differences from CWS

A collaborative work system is related to the collaborative working environment. The latter notion is more focused on technology and was issued from the concept of collaborative workspaces,Hans Schaffers, Torsten Brodt, Marc Pallot, Wolfgang Prinz (ed.) (March 2006)
''The Future Workspace: Perspectives on Mobile and Collaborative Working''
; AMI Communities at The Netherlands: Telematica Instituut.; retrieved ? driven from research within the MOSAIC Project. The concept of 'system' in 'collaborative work system' has a self-explanatory power that is different from ' environment'. The former pertains to an integrated whole, including collaborative work conceived as a purposeful activity, whilst the later stresses the surroundings of an object – the collaborative working practices. A collaborative work system generally includes a collaborative working environment, but it should be conceived primarily as a set of human activities, intentional or not, that emerge every time a collaboration occurs. This enables focus on the work practices that are necessary for human collaboration and draws attention to important behavioral variables such as

leadership Leadership, is defined as the ability of an individual, group, or organization to "", influence, or guide other individuals, teams, or organizations. "Leadership" is a contested term. Specialist literature debates various viewpoints on the co ...

and

motivation Motivation is an mental state, internal state that propels individuals to engage in goal-directed behavior. It is often understood as a force that explains why people or animals initiate, continue, or terminate a certain behavior at a particul ...

outside the CWE.

CWS and collaborative software (or groupware)

Besides participatory leadership, another key element of a successful collaborative work system is the availability of group collaboration technology or groupware – hardware and software tools that help groups to access and share the information the professionals need to meet, train or teach. However, a collaborative work system (CWS) does not necessarily require groupware support. A simple way to conceptualize the relation between the two concepts is to consider computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) as a whole consisting of a collaborative work system (CWS) supported by

collaborative software Collaborative software or groupware is application software designed to help people working on a common task to attain their goals. One of the earliest definitions of groupware is "intentional group processes plus software to support them." Regar ...

or groupware. On the other hand, a collaborative working environment which supports people in both their ''individual'' and ''cooperative'' work, whatever their geographical location, transcends the notion of CSCW which deals specifically with cooperative work.

References

{{reflist, 2 Telecommuting Collaboration Groupware Multimodal interaction Meetings