Supporting Collaborative Design

Collaborative systems provide a rich but potentially chaotic environment for their users. During the collaborative design process, when different users share a common object, concurrency control is necessary to keep the shared object consistent. In this paper, we have developed a model for supporting concurrency control in CSCW applications. We also include version control, allowing versions of both the design entities and their relationships. Consistency in collaborative design is important: the use of the RAISE formal method provides confidence that the transaction mechanism fulfils the consistency requirements. We also generate a prototype from the specification, with a graphical output to show the structure of the design, the entities available, and who is currently locking what.