Video Conferencing and Application Sharing: Routes to Awareness

There is little doubt that the creation and enhancement of awareness is a critical factor for the implementation and use of telecooperation systems. However, in a broader view, which includes the perspective on cooperative work processes, awareness turns out to be even more important. Awareness information-or the lack of awareness information-is also a crucial factor for the effectiveness and efficiency of cooperative work. Three projects are briefly described to show the broad spectrum of possible target groups and goal orientations: Teams and Tess inkontakt are projects of the Institute for Work and Technology in Gelsenkirchen with a task-oriented business-to-business and a business-to-customer focus, respectively; the Poliwork project represents an infrastructure-oriented approach for the support of cooperative work in public administration. To describe the crucial factors of projects like these, a perspective on awareness is needed that goes beyond the immediate communication situation and the use of computer applications. A set of awareness dimensions that focuses on organizational, functional, and personal awareness is proposed and discussed along with these 3 projects.