Approaches for Utilising 'Work Contexts' in CSCW Systems

When working together using CSCW tools, people have a “work context” within which they perform their work. A work context includes the tools they are using to perform the work, the work artefacts being modified, the tools used to communicate with collaborators, and the other people they are collaborating with.We describe our recent work with trying to represent work context information in a workflow system. We then describe our current work which tries to determine work context information, rather than requiring it to be explicitly specified, by monitoring user activities. We describe how both approaches allow work context information to be communicated between collaborating users, allowing users to better coordinate their work and understand why others have done certain things or are doing certain things. We claim such facilities are necessary in order to enable the next generation of workflow-based CSCW systems to better support work coordination amoung multiple users.