Abstract
In this paper we look at a situation in which email is not simply a channel for collaboration and communication but a site of collaboration itself, involving email inboxes that are jointly accessed by more than one person. We conducted two studies of shared email usage. We learned about a diversity of shared email practices in 14 schools, museums, and support centers through semi-structured interviews and (where feasible) site visits. We also explored in depth one type of shared email usage: executives and assistants sharing an emailbox. We describe the strategies that people use today to meet their collaborative needs by exploiting mailbox structures they currently have. We close with a discussion of email as a site of reinvention ’ i.e., where users’ work practices have given existing technology new meanings.
A brief report of this work appeared as a poster at CSCW 2002 (Muller & Gruen, 2002).
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Muller, M.J., Gruen, D.M. (2005). Working Together Inside an Emailbox. In: Gellersen, H., Schmidt, K., Beaudouin-Lafon, M., Mackay, W. (eds) ECSCW 2005. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-4023-7_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-4023-7_6
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-4022-1
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