Computer Supported Cooperative Work

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Computer Supported Cooperative Work or Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW, or computational group work) refers to an interdisciplinary field of research from computer science, sociology, psychology, anthropology, business informatics, economics, media studies and various other disciplines, dealing with group work and information and communication technologies supporting intra-group collaboration; The central research topics of the CSCW are the cooperation between people and their supportability with computers.

Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) is the name of the research area, which examines on an interdisciplinary basis how individuals work together in working groups or teams and how the work can be supported by information and communication technology. The aim of all efforts in the field of CSCW is to investigate group processes using all available means of information and communication technology, while increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of group work. The term e-collaboration focuses on company-specific cooperation processes, while the term smart collaboration focuses on knowledge-intensive cooperation processes. The latter establishes a connection to the interdisciplinary field of knowledge management. In recent developments, the discipline has also turned to communication and cooperation scenarios beyond the world of work (e.g. online communities in the leisure and home sectors).

The tools for cooperation within groups and teams are called groupware (for weakly structured work processes) or workflow management systems (for highly structured work processes); This includes both hardware (such as cameras, displays) and software.

Research on CSCW distinguishes three closely related research areas (according to Hasenkamp 1994):
developing an understanding of cooperation and coordination
the development of concepts and tools to support work-sharing processes
Evaluation of these concepts and tools

Colloquially, the terms CSCW, groupware and workgroup computing are often used largely synonymously.

History
The term CSCW was coined in 1984 by a workshop in Endicott House (MA) by Irene Greif and Paul Cashman.

The first international conference was held in 1986 in Austin, Texas (CSCW '86). The event date and venue of the next CSCW are available on the official website.

In the odd years, the ECSCW (European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work) is organized in Europe:
2005 in Paris, France
2007 in Limerick, Ireland
2009 in Vienna, Austria
2011 in Århus, Denmark
2013 in Nicosia, Cyprus

The conference contributions are online