BEING THERE - AND GOING BEYOND
Ivan Tomek, Rick Giles, Li Di and Hai Zhang
Jodrey School of Computer Science, Acadia University, Wolfville, Canada
Keywords: Groupware, socialware, software framework, paradigm.
Abstract: As the use of information technology and Internet grows and as globalization of economy increases
geographical dislocation of work teams, electronic support for collaboration (groupware) assumes
increasing importance. Yet, there is little agreement on the best direction of its design. One of the natural
approaches is partial emulation of physical work space by software but influential literature argues against
this and it appears that current groupware follows this opinion. This paper presents both sides of this debate,
argues that easily adaptable space-based groupware is the most powerful and fruitful underlying metaphor,
and describes the principles of an application built on this principle. It is also noted that because groupware
and socialware face similar challenges and have similar needs, a common framework could simplify their
development and improve their quality.
1 INTRODUCTION
The importance of applications supporting
collaborative work (groupware) grows
proportionally to the spread of information
technology, Internet accessibility, and geographical
distribution of work teams. All of these factors have,
in the last decade or two, grown much more
prominent and it is thus natural that the number of
groupware applications and tools supporting
spatially distributed collaboration is rapidly growing
as well. Yet the nature of groupware products still
varies widely and there is no single generally
accepted philosophy underlying their design.
Collaboration requires a variety of
functionalities, such as synchronous and
asynchronous communication, shared access to
documents, support for user groups, facilities
encouraging informal communication, and others.
Many specialized products support one or more of
these needs at the exclusion of others and are
successfully used; e-mail and chat are the most
obvious of them. However, there is a general
agreement that the best way to support collaboration
is to integrate all required functionalities into a
single product (Andriessen, 2003). In the rest of this
paper we will be mostly talking about such
integrated products, calling them groupware
environments.
As mentioned above, there is not much
consensus on the nature of software support of work
teams. Some environments are built on the principle
of artificial 2D or 3D worlds (Collaborative Virtual
Environments, or CVEs) (Greenhlag, 1999, Lea,
1997), while others are GUI-based. CVEs are most
useful for those applications that require
manipulation of geometrical objects, such as in
architectural design, whereas GUI-based
environments are widely used in areas where focus
is on verbalized concepts and text-based artifacts,
such as software design. This paper focuses on GUI-
based environments. Within this category, three
different metaphors have been used: document-
based, meeting-based, and virtual space-based. The
metaphor selected by the designer depends on the
intended application and on the developers' view of
what constitutes the focal point of collaboration.
Document-based groupware such as Foldera
(Foldera, 2007) and CURE (Haake, 2004) is based
on the fact that a major goal of computer-based
collaboration is creation and sharing of documents.
Foldera, for example, revolves around the concept of
a folder of project documents that also serves as the
basis for other activities. An e-mail created within a
Foldera project folder, for example, is kept within
the project context and propagated to project team
members.
Meeting-based groupware such as Marratech
(Marratech, 2005) stresses the importance of
461
Tomek I., Giles R., Di L. and Zhang H. (2008).
BEING THERE - AND GOING BEYOND.
In Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies, pages 461-466
DOI: 10.5220/0001529804610466
Copyright
c
 SciTePress

communication. In applications based on this
principle, collaboration revolves around meetings
held in virtual rooms, and powerful software
supports various forms of communication and
document sharing.
Virtual space- or room-based groupware, such
as CVW (Maybury, 2001) and EnCore (enCore,
2007), is based on the intuition that when physical
collocation is impossible, virtual collocation
provided by a virtual space consisting of
interconnected rooms and emulating those aspects of
the physical world that are important for
collaboration is the best metaphor. This approach
found support in several studies (Harrison, 1996,
Churchill, 1999), and various research projects in the
1990s explored the idea via prototypes and products
such as Orbit (Orbit, 199?), worlds (Fitzpatrick,
1995), and TeamRooms (Roseman, 1996). Recently,
however, interest in environments of this kind has
diminished and we are not aware of any new
research or products based on this metaphor. One of
the major reasons for this appears to be an influential
article published by Hollan and Stornetta in 1992
(Hollan, 1992), which argued that the assumption
that the assumption that the best approach to the use
of technology for collaboration based on emulation
of the real world is flawed.
This paper examines Hollan and Stornetta's
position and argues for its generalization. In the
following, we will first explain Hollan and
Stornetta's main points. We will then describe
several applications that explore or support this
position. The concluding section summarizes our
position and points out that the principles that we
propose apply not only to groupware but also to
socialware.
2 'BEYOND BEING THERE'
- THE ARGUMENTS
In an influential paper called 'Beyond Being There'
published by Hollan and Stornetta in 1992, the
authors begin by noting that groupware designers
use an unquestioned presupposition than when
physical collocation is not possible, its emulation
(creating an artificial sense of 'being there') is the
best groupware paradigm. According to authors,
such systems can never become as good as physical
collocation because imitation by its very nature
cannot be as good as 'the real thing'. Using
emulation, distant collaborators will thus always be
at a disadvantage with respect to their collocated
coworkers and the only viable approach to put
distant coworkers at an equal footing is to develop
tools that would be preferred over face-to-face
communication even by collocated workers. The
authors then note that modern communication media
can provide certain functionalities that exceed those
offered by physical collocation and that exploring
these and taking advantage of them can help us go
beyond the limits imposed by emulation. They point
the way by analyzing collaboration in terms of
collaboration needs, media available to realize them,
and mechanisms that allow meeting the needs in a
given medium.
Physical collocation is the traditional
collaboration medium and computationally-mediated
communication provides a new medium. While
collaboration needs are the same in both media, the
mechanisms may be different and their realization
more or less difficult in a particular medium. As an
example, eye contact and gaze awareness are an
natural and important mechanism of face-to-face
communication, but very difficult to achieve in
computationally-mediated communication.
However, assuming that certain mechanisms are
required for collaboration may be wrong because
they may be replaced by different and equally
effective mechanisms in another medium. To
support their position, the authors then discuss
examples of several electronic tools.
The first example is e-mail, perhaps the most
successful form of computationally-mediated
communication. Its success is due to the ability of
electronic communication to support asynchronous
communication, which is much less effectively
achievable in 'real world'.
The next example is their own tool supporting
'ephemeral interest groups' of people who find
shared interests around information objects and form
short lived groups engaging in informal
communication around these objects. This facility
can again be much more easily realized in an
electronic communication space where objects such
as documents can be equipped with hooks to which
such communications can be attached. Because of
the importance of informal communications for
work (Issacs, 1996, Whittaker, 1994), this facility
adds a new dimension to collaboration, one that even
collocated workers will like to use, where they will
not have any advantage over distant coworkers, and
where distance ceases to be a factor in collaboration.
The last example is the introduction of
'personas', information objects providing
instantaneous access to relevant information about
people such as participants in ephemeral
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communications. Because people seek out other
people more than anything else this tool again
provides something that collaborating individuals
will want to use, whether they are collocated or not.
Hollan and Stornetta anticipate that their
position will meet with criticism, select the most
important potential objections, and offer the
following arguments in defense:
 Advantage of imitation. Some mechanisms
available in real world cannot be implemented
by imitation. Moreover, limiting our interest to
only existing mechanisms prevents us from
finding better mechanisms.
 Culture. Conventional communication takes
place against a rich backdrop of cultural
characteristics. However, new media and new
tools always rapidly lead to the development of
new cultural mechanisms providing a best fit to
the new medium. Attempting to port
mechanisms optimal in one medium to another
medium is suboptimal and new mechanisms
may surpass those working in the old medium.
 Intersubjectivity. Face-to-face communication
takes advantage of the symmetrical status of the
communicating parties, such as the fact that
both see the same objects and one another.
Electronically mediated communication cannot
achieve this. However, controlled
intersubjectivity may be an advantage, for
example by allowing a user to redefine priorities
that would otherwise be dictated by collocation,
or by using non-intrusive awareness
mechanisms.
Ideas presented in this important paper have
several consequences. One was that they encouraged
researchers to explore new approaches that go
'beyond being there', taking advantage of
possibilities offered by electronic communication
and not available in the real world. The other was
that the paper discredited approaches based on
emulation of the real world, chief among them
groupware based on the virtual room metaphor.
To illustrate the first point and clarify what
'beyond being there' could mean, we will now give
several examples of tools that were at least partially
stimulated by the appeal to liberate design from its
grounding in physical reality.
3 BEYOND BEING THERE
- SELECTED PROJECTS
The following examples are selected from papers
that cite Hollan and Stornetta among their
motivating references.
3.1 Virtually Living Together
An important aspect of communication is its
emotional component. This is the issue addressed by
Tollmar and his coworkers (Tollmar, 2000) in
examples given in a paper largely dedicated to a
design process that the authors recommend for
creating and testing new media for interpersonal
communication. The thrust of their experiments with
'telematic emotional communication' is to explore
'sensorial modalities that provide richer and subtler
forms of telepresence than text, sound, and image',
particularly in close relationships. In this sense, their
work is aimed more at social communication but has
relevance to groupware as well
Tollmar's examples include several simple but
innovative devices including The Frame, The White
Stone, and 6th Sense. The Frame is an indicator of a
person's presence at a distant location. It consists of
a display showing a photo of the person of interest,
raised or dimmed depending on whether the person
is or is not present. The purpose of the White Stone
is to support a feeling of emotional awareness of
another person. It consists of a pair of devices, each
equipped with a heat or touch sensor and a beeper.
When one of the persons activates the device by
touching or holding it, the other device beeps and
can be used to respond in the same way. The 6-th
Sense is a 'Light Sculpture', an assembly of several
individually controlled lamps. The person remotely
controlling the sculpture can vary the intensity of
individual lights creating a choreographed display
communicating emotional presence of the other
person.
How do these experiments relate to Hollan and
Stornetta's ideas and to groupware? Hollan and
Stornetta suggest that technology is best utilized by
finding uses that go beyond imitation of physical
reality and these three devices explore this concept.
3.2 Mutually-Immersive Mobile
Telepresence
Jouppi's paper (Jouppi, 2002) describes an
experimental system that allows users to visit remote
locations using a robotic surrogate. The work was
BEING THERE - AND GOING BEYOND
463

motivated by the recognition that face-to-face
meetings cannot be successfully replaced by existing
technology and that business travel is expensive.
The authors identify difficult to imitate aspects of
collocation, including the width of the visual field,
high resolution, identification of gaze (eye contact),
directional sound, spatial mobility, and ability to
manipulate objects. Mobility is identified as the key
parameter because it enables casual encounters and
autonomous exploration of remote space. Virtual
space solutions have not achieved expected results
and the authors thus explored encounters mediated
by a remotely controlled robot usable by technically
non-sophisticated users, unobtrusive and natural to
use, focused on essential aspects of collocation, and
inexpensive. An essential design criterion was to
provide an immersive experience for both the remote
user and the visited users.
Because immersive experience can only be
achieved by relatively sophisticated technical
parameters, the researchers spent much effort on
technical issues: The navigation system has been
designed for obstacle avoidance (multiple sensors
and custom software), teleoperated robotic arms are
equipped with haptic feedback for object
manipulation, and multiple displays mounted on the
robotic platform provide approximate physical
presence of the remote user. Signals from eight
cameras on the robot are combined to approximate
human vision of the surrounding space. Sound
captured by several microphones and played back by
multiple speakers can be controlled with respect to
the relative volume of the four audio channels and is
digitally processed to deal with problems such as
echo of the sound transmitted between from one
location and replayed at the other end.
Authors report that while reaction to the first
encounter with the robot is a surprise, users soon
start to interact with the remote person much as if
they were collocated. The experiment is considered
a success and authors conclude that the concept has
the potential of an economical substitute for many
types of business travel.
How does this research relate to the philosophy
of groupware design based on the concept of going
'beyond being there'? Instead of imitating physical
world, MIMT uses technology to create an
intermediate layer that provides a feeling close to
collocation. However, MIMT does not satisfy
Hollan and Stornetta's condition that the technology
should put the remote user at the same level as
collocated team members. Robot-mediated co-
presence may be satisfying but is only second best to
real co-presence.
3.3 The Swisshouse
Swisshouse (Huang, 2004) is an 'inhabitable
interface', an experimental building constructed to
explore support for various forms of co-presence of
'unsophisticated users' distributed across continents.
The prototype is a combination of a physical
environment and computer support designed not
only for collaboration but for general multi-modal
communication across distance. The building
combines built-in video and audio components with
RFID tags worn by users and purpose-designed
reconfigurable architecture. Some of the activities
considered in the design were information finding
and browsing via inhabitable interfaces, teaching
and learning involving both collocated and distant
participants, art exhibitions, and meeting and
brainstorming across distance. The design provides
several axes of variability: reconfigurability of
physical space, modularity and adaptability of
embedded hardware, and software programmability.
The building consists of easily reconfigurable
spaces divided into places such as a semi-private
Knowledge Cafe with a small kitchen, media spaces
used for break-out sessions and private
conversations, Personal Spaces, and a Digital Wall
with rear projection for information sharing, distance
learning, interactive presentations, exhibitions, etc.
Events at one node are visible at other virtual sites
and vice versa. Thus, for example, identities of
current visitors, their locations, and time zones are
displayed on the basis of RFID tags and stored
information. The prototype building had been in use
for two years and used for activities such as virtual
cocktail parties, remote lectures, brainstorming
sessions, and cultural exhibitions. It is in daily use.
How does this work relate to 'beyond being
there'? Whereas Hollan and Stornetta focus of going
beyond imitation of existing real world structures,
Swisshouse transcends conventional architectural
typologies in which new media technologies are
added to existing architecture, and offers
architecture in which both the inhabitable and the
media technology are primary building blocks.
Although the project does not emulate real world but
includes and extends it, one could argue that
Swisshouse builds on the real world and thus departs
from the original spirit of Hollan and Stornetta's
paper.
3.4 Chit Chat Club
This project (Karahalios, 2005) explores a 'social
virtual-physical hybrid' media space. It brings
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together physically- and virtually present individuals
by means of a schematic human-like sculpture
equipped with networked multi-media interfaces. Its
goal is to explore whether relatively simple means
can minimize the disadvantage of physical
separation and provide the benefits of on-line
communication such as low risk interaction. The
assumption is that a physical interface (the
sculpture) can provide a focus for communication,
become an interaction catalyst, and alleviate
difficulties of conventional interfaces, such as
restricted visual interaction.
The face area of the simple sculpture serves as a
display for a projector placed in the hands of the
sculpture whose remotely controlled signal can
express a small range of schematic facial
expressions. The sculpture's camera is aimed at the
live neighbors and carries their images to the distant
user who can thus see the Club environment from
the perspective of the physical avatar. The sculpture
and the participants sit around a table in a cafe
setting. When remote participants connect to the
Club they first choose the face type of the avatar
sculpture. They can then converse with cafe
participants via audio, view the Club environment
on their display, and control avatar's projected
emotional facial expression. A significant effort was
spent on devising effective remote control to ensure
that the cognitive load does not interfere with
communication.
Chit Chat Club was used by hundreds of users
and their interactions recorded and analyzed. The
paper reports that the human-scale nature of the
interface creates a new type of space that is neither
computer-like nor conventionally physical. It was
observed that user experience is one of 'asymmetric
togetherness' - while the distant user has a fuller
view of participants at a smaller scale and on a flat
2D surface, the local participants perceive more of
the catalytic effect and the physicality of the avatar.
How does the project relate to Hollan and
Stornetta's position? The researchers went beyond
the obvious use of video to portray the two sides of
the communication and blended the user interface
with a semblance of a human physical presence. It
can again be argued that the result is a form of
emulation of real world and that it does not put
present and remote participants on the same level. It
thus does not fully reflect Hollan and Stornetta's
vision.
3.5 Conclusions
We described several projects whose authors
accepted Hollan and Stornetta's challenge and
attempted to use electronic technologies in
innovative ways that go beyond improving technical
parameters of emulation of physical reality. None of
them attempted to include the tools in an integrated
environment and all of them remained isolated. This
is, of course, to be expected given the research
nature of the work. More interestingly, most of the
tools in some way emulated collocated physical
reality and thus contradicted the essence of Hollan
and Stornetta's position.
4 BEING THERE - AND BEYOND
Let us summarize:
 The most effective way to provide support for
collaboration is by integrating all required
functions into one application - an environment.
 Groupware can only be useful if it is widely
accepted (Grudin, 1994) and this directly leads
to the conclusion that groupware users must
perceive it as useful, easy to learn, and easy to
use. Intuitive environments thus have an
advantage over artificial ones.
 Due to differences among various work
domains and teams, hard-coded groupware
cannot satisfy the needs of all users at all times.
Because technology rapidly evolves and work
processes change, even a single work team's
requirements are not fixed. Groupware must be
easily adaptable, customizable, and modifiable.
 Collaborative environments are built on the
basis of a paradigm reflecting the designers'
view of what constitutes the most effective
representation of the work process and
environment. Three paradigms are prominent -
work as activity centered on documents, work
as activity revolving around communication
(meetings), and work environments emulating
conventional physical work space. The first two
paradigms are prevalent among today's
groupware.
 There is a widely held position (largely based
on Hollan and Stornetta's paper) that the best
support for collaboration can be achieved by
'thinking outside the box' and developing tools
that make the most of available technology,
rather than by emulating physical environments.
This leads to diminished interest in groupware
based on virtual-space-based environments.
BEING THERE - AND GOING BEYOND
465

• Research stimulated or influenced by Hollan and
Stornetta's position resulted in interesting tools
that may play a useful role in groupware and
socialware applications, but has not yet led to a
theory of complete groupware environments. It is
interesting that many of the projects in fact
attempt to recreate collocation and in this sense
emulate real world, contradicting Hollan and
Stornetta's basic position.
These points lead us to believe that the best
approach to groupware design is to develop a
framework based on the most powerful, most
general, and most intuitive paradigm and to provide
means for its easy extension, modification, and
adaptation via modular design, built-in programming
support for easy extension and modification, and
utilization of modern technological constructs. This
approach satisfies the requirements listed above,
allows enrichment of the basic paradigm by
modeling other paradigms, and opens the way for
technological innovation. This modifies the 'beyond
being there' vision to a 'being there and beyond'
position that takes advantage of the intuitive nature
of collocated physical work environments and
allows going beyond them in Hollan and Stornetta's
sense.
We have currently developed a skeleton of such
a framework called FVE (Federated Virtual
Environment). FVE is based on the virtual space
paradigm, is is implemented on a pluggable software
platform (Eclipse, 2004), and provides users with a
range of widely used tools for program-based
modification via scripting, using interpreted forms of
widely known programming languages including
Java, Ruby, and Python.
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