Introduction: Computer-Mediated Collaborative Practices

This special thematic section of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication brings together seven articles that consider what it takes to collaborate around and through information and communication technologies. The authors consider how processes co-evolve between practices and technical systems, how knowledge is shared across organizational, cultural and geographic boundaries, how conversation via the informal medium of Instant Messaging is being adopted into organizational practices, what motivates participation in large distributed computing projects, and how computer media can change the nature of interactivity in classrooms. The articles cover a range of applications and settings; as a collection, they draw our attention to the broad interpretation that can be giving to the meaning of collaboration.

[1]  J. Brown,et al.  Bridging epistemologies: The generative dance between organizational knowledge and organizational knowing , 1999, STUDI ORGANIZZATIVI.

[2]  Bertram C. Bruce,et al.  Challenges for Research and Practice in Distributed, Interdisciplinary Collaboration , 2006 .

[3]  Susan Leigh Star,et al.  Layers of Silence, Arenas of Voice: The Ecology of Visible and Invisible Work , 1999, Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW).

[4]  Ray Oldenburg,et al.  The great good place : cafés, coffee shops, community centers, beauty parlors, general stores, bars, hangouts, and how they get you through the day , 1991 .

[5]  Caroline A. Haythornthwaite,et al.  Communicating Knowledge: Articulating Divides in Distributed Knowledge Practice , 2004 .

[6]  A. Hollingshead.  Cognitive interdependence and convergent expectations in transactive memory. , 2001, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[7]  Wanda J. Orlikowski,et al.  Knowing in practice: Enacting a collective capability in distributed organizing , 2002, STUDI ORGANIZZATIVI.

[8]  I. Nonaka,et al.  How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation , 1995 .

[9]  Kris D. Gutiérrez,et al.  Rethinking diversity: Hybridity and hybrid language practices in the third space , 1999 .

[10]  Caroline Haythornthwaite,et al.  The generative dance in pursuit of generative knowledge , 2003, 36th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2003. Proceedings of the.

[11]  R. Moreland.  Transactive memory: Learning who knows what in work groups and organizations. , 1999 .