Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/2401

Title

Cognitive analysis of collaboration as an activity

Author(s)

Dunstall, Simon;  Higgins, Peter G.;  Nezamirad, Kaveh

Abstract

When multiple distributed parties work together and coordinate activities towards a common purpose, they have common plans, tasks and goals, while they do not share individual tasks, goals and domain expertise. Hence, they need to cooperate to organise individual activities in a way so that individual as well as common goals are achieved. Therefore, all the activities must be harmonised in a holistic framework of true collaborative state. Using observations of a case study in project planning and scheduling, analysis of this collaboration is classified into three levels of organisational, collective and individual. The focus of this paper is on interconnecting the second and the third levels. While a cognitive approach is applied to explore human interaction in decision-making, the relationship between individual and group praxis is studied using the concepts of Activity Theory (AT). In fact, collaborative scenarios are where we need to use both viewpoints for a smooth movement between the layers of studying joint activities. This framework can be used to support collaborative work.

Publication type

Conference paper

Research centre

Swinburne University of Technology. Faculty of Engineering and Industrial Sciences

Source

Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the European Association of Cognitive Ergonomics, Chania, Greece, 29 September - 01 October 2005, pp. 131-138

Publication year

2005

Publisher

European Association of Cognitive Ergonomics

ISBN

960 254 656 5

Publisher URL

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1124684

Peer reviewed