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Coordination mechanisms: Towards a conceptual foundation of CSCW systems design

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Abstract

The paper outlines an approach to CSCW systems design based on the concept of ‘coordination mechanisms.’ The concept of coordination mechanisms has been developed as a generalization of phenomena described in empirical investigations of the use of artifacts for the purpose of coordinating cooperative activities in different work domains. On the basis of the evidence of this corpus of empirical studies, the paper outlines a theory of the use of artifacts for coordination purposes in cooperative work settings, derives a set of general requirements for computational coordination mechanisms, and sketches the architecture of Ariadne, a CSCW infrastructure for constructing and running such malleable and linkable computational coordination mechanisms.

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  1. Risø National Laboratory, Systems Analysis Department, Roskilde, Denmark

    Kjeld Schmidt

  2. Department of Computer Sciences, University of Torino, Torino

    Carla Simonee

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The first version of this paper was written while Carla Simone was with the University of Milano.

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Schmidt, K., Simonee, C. Coordination mechanisms: Towards a conceptual foundation of CSCW systems design. Comput Supported Coop Work 5, 155–200 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00133655

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