Design and Use of a Group Editor

Clarence A. Ellis, Simon J. Gibbs and Gail L. Rein

1990

Grove(GRoup Outline Viewing Editor)

• A simple outline-only editor for small groups, either distributed or local

• Based on the work on Listmaker Tool, Cognoter and various asynchronous outline editors(MIT CES and Bellcore Quilt)

• Works as a tightly-coupled synchronous editor• Almost WYSWIS, slight difference in cursor

position and permissions only

More on GROVE

• All current users have an identical view of the text of the outline and see all changes in real time(vs. Cognoter)

• Users can create three types views, public(visible by all) private(only visible locally) and shared(by invitation only)

• Text indicates by color and number the status of an element

• All text begins as world readable/writable to encourage group work, must be locked explicitly

Experience in using GROVE

• (during all sessions, collaborators had access to voice communications as well as GROVE)

• Positive– Increase access to personal reference material,

as workers were in offices– Encouraged workers to divide and conquer– Less off topic discussion

Negative GROVE Experience

• Less focus amoung group, requires more concentration to communicate when distributed, but face-to-face meetings feel shorter

• Vocal discussions are more difficult in distributed sessions(partly technological).

• Accidental deletion occures enough that Undo necessary

Commentary on GROVE testing

• Collisions are less frequent than imagined, even without consciously reading all comments

• Parallel tasks are taken on during work(such as moving a subtree).

• Tool works far better during early stages of a project(most ideas are short and fit well with the outline)

Current Work

• Commercial programs such as Microsoft NetMeeting, Lotus Notes and Netscape Cooltalk

• Research test program

Upper Atmosphere

Research Collaboratory

(UARC)

Current findings

• Both synchronous and asynchronous communication(ie. participate in one group while another progresses and then contributing to the second)

• Information Overload, methods to preven unnecessary information and preserve screen space

• Robust and fault tolerant(both to bandwidth and client failure)

More current findings

• Programs seem to fall into two groups, the general CSCW(NetMeeting, Notes…) with only basic tools: video and audio communication, file and whiteboard sharing(NetMeeting) or limited to group scheduling and communication(Notes)

• Highly specialized: UARC, more tools but tailored to one field of work