Sharing Processes: Team Coordination in Design Repositories

Abstract

Information systems support for design environments emphasizes object management and tends to neglect the growing demand for team support. Process management is often tackled by rigid technological protocols which are likely to get in the way of group productivity and quality. Group tools must be introduced in an unobtrusive way which extends current practice yet provides structure and documentation of development experiences. The concept of sharing processes allows agents to coordinate the sharing of ideas, tasks, and results by interacting protocol automata which can be dynamically adapted to situational requirements. Inconsistency is managed with equal emphasis as consistency. The sharing process approach has been implemented in a system called ConceptTalk which has been experimentally integrated with design environments for information and hypertext systems.

Publication
International Journal of Intelligent and Cooperative Information Systems