Distributed Group Support Systems.

Author List: Turrof, Murray; Hiltz, Starr Roxanne; Bahgat, Ahmed N. F.; Rana, Ajaz R.;
MIS Quarterly, 1993, Volume 17, Issue 4, Page 399-417.
Distributed group support systems are likely to be widely used in the future as a means for dispersed groups of people to work together through computer networks. They combine the characteristics of computer-mediated communication systems with the specialized tools and processes developed in the context of group decision support systems, to provide communications, a group memory, and tools and structures to coordinate the group process and analyze data. These tools and structures can take a wide variety of forms in order to best support computer-mediated interaction for different types of tasks and groups. This article summarizes five case studies of different distributed group support systems developed by the authors and their colleagues over the last decade to support different types of tasks and to accommodate fairly large numbers of participants (tens to hundreds). The case studies are placed within conceptual frameworks that aid in classifying and comparing such systems. The results of the case studies demonstrate that design requirements and the associated research issues for group support systems can be very different in the distributed environment as compared to the decision room approach.
Keywords: computer-mediated communications; computerized conferencing; Group decision support systems
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List of Topics

#257 0.357 group support groups meeting gdss decision systems meetings technology study electronic ems task process communication computer-supported outcomes quality consensus face-to-face
#77 0.233 information systems paper use design case important used context provide presented authors concepts order number various underlying implementation framework nature
#220 0.109 research study different context findings types prior results focused studies empirical examine work previous little knowledge sources implications specifically provide
#154 0.087 memory support organizations information organizational requirements different complex require development provides resources organization paper transactive depth process outside difficult breadth
#277 0.080 structure organization structures organizational centralized decentralized study organizations forms decentralization processing communication sharing cbis activities appropriate provide identify organizing communications