The Group Facilitator: A CSCW Perspective

What unites CSCW research is the need to help people work together (Greif, 1988) or, to be more precise, "...the support requirements of cooperative work." (Bannon & Schmidt, 1989). An important contribution to the understanding of these requirements, therefore, are the results from research into group working, its structure, and dynamics. A well recognised concept in group work is the role of the group facilitator; someone who's responsibility it is to assist the group in achieving its objectives. This recognition, however, is not yet reflected by work published under the CSCW banner. This paper aims to take a first step at addressing this omission.

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