Collaborative Software - Overview

Overview

Collaborative software is a broad concept that greatly overlaps with Computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW). Some authors argue they are equivalent. According to Carstensen and Schmidt (1999) groupware is part of CSCW. The authors claim that CSCW, and thereby groupware addresses "how collaborative activities and their coordination can be supported by means of computer systems". Software products such as email, calendaring, text chat, wiki, and bookmarking belong to this category, whenever used for group work, whereas the more general term social software applies to systems used outside the workplace, for example, online dating services and social networking sites like Friendster, Twitter and Facebook. It has been suggested that Metcalfe's law — the more people who use something, the more valuable it becomes — applies to these types of software.

The use of collaborative software in the workspace creates a collaborative working environment (CWE). A collaborative working environment supports people in both their individual and cooperative work thus giving birth to a new class of professionals, e-professionals, who can work together irrespective of their geographical location.

Finally collaborative software relates to the notion of collaborative work systems which are conceived as any form of human organization that emerges any time that collaboration takes place, whether it is formal or informal, intentional or unintentional. Whereas the groupware or collaborative software pertains to the technological elements of computer supported cooperative work, collaborative work systems become a useful analytical tool to understand the behavioral and organizational variables that are associated to the broader concept of CSCW.