Collab4All: a method to foster inclusion in computer-supported collaborative work.

Abstract

During the last decades, the research field of Computer-Supported Collaborative Work has made impressive progress in proposing theories, techniques, and tools to support collaborative work in different settings. Nevertheless, despite the advances in the field and its branches, individuals with impairments still face inclusion challenges when performing computer-supported collaborative activities. In order to take part in such type of activities, individuals are expected to have skills and knowledge that may be affected by impairments. In the beginning of this PhD research, we studied means to include an individual with blindness in diagram-based activities conducted as part of software engineering lectures taught by the thesis author. As part of that, we noticed that researchers and practitioners generally did not follow any collaboration-oriented method to address accessibility issues when designing or redesigning collaboration supportive systems, also known as groupware. In this context, we decided to focus our attention on this gap. As a result, we developed Collab4All, a method to support the identification of potential challenges as well as alternative solutions that may arise when designing or redesigning accessible and inclusive groupware. As a proof of concept, we applied Collab4All to the aforementioned scenario of including individuals with blindness in diagram-related learning activities. Based on our findings, we documented some suggestions to researchers and developers working in this application scenario. The present document contains detailed information about this research process. We consider that the method proposed in this thesis, its application results and the groupware we developed, named Model2gether, are relevant contributions to the field of computer-supported collaborative work involving people with impairments.

Investigation of positive streamers by double-pulse experiments, effects of repetition rate and gas mixture

“…The list of species and reactions was automatically converted into the system of ordinary differential equations (1) and solved numerically using the ZDPlasKin tool. The QtPlaskin visualization software was used for the analysis of the results [23].…”

Learn-CIAM: A Model-Driven Approach for the Development of Collaborative Learning Tools

“…Hence, for instance, among the most relevant contributions we can highlight the ConcurTaskTrees (CTT) notation [19], which facilitates the specification of the most interactive aspects of cooperative tasks; the Groupware Task Analysis (GTA) approach [20], whose conceptual framework proposes a set of representations for the specification of the different groupwork aspects and the environment in which it is carried out; or the Collaborative Usability Analysis (CUA) approach [21], a task analysis technique designed to represent groupwork tasks and carry out the usability evaluations of groupware system. Regarding more recent works, we can also find in the literature other works such as the Model of Coordinated Action (MoCA) method [22], focused on the description of complex collaborative scenarios and environments such as those which have diverse, high-turnover memberships or emerging practices; Domino [23], a framework for hybrid collaboration that involves simultaneous co-located and remote collaboration with phases of both synchronous and asynchronous work that spans multiple groupware applications and devices; Collab4all [24], which addresses accessibility issues when designing accessible and inclusive groupware; the Groupware for Collaborative Virtual Environments (G4CVE) method [25], focused on the development of collaborative virtual environments; Tesperanto [26,27], a model-based methodology for authoring technical documents; the Designing for Awareness in Shared Systems (DASS) framework [28], which gives a structured and comprehensive overview of design considerations for awareness, thus introduc-ing interaction designers to awareness into a more generalizable and operational design knowledge; Unified Modeling Languages (UML) extensions such as the TOUCHE proposal [29][30][31], whose conceptual framework incorporates a series of requirement templates that include new information to record specific characteristics of groupware systems; and the Collaborative System Requirement Modeling Framework (CSRMF), inspired by the i* notation [32], which proposes the CSRML notation [9,33]. Nevertheless, most of these works deal with other domains or are focused on the technological aspects of the systems, without addressing the development of collaborative learning scenarios, neither incorporating an adequate and complete awareness support (only the CSRMF and the DASS frameworks do), nor pedagogical usability support (the CUA method only incorporates usability patterns, but not the pedagogical one).…”

Modeling the Chemical Impact and the Optical Emissions Produced by Lightning‐Induced Electromagnetic Fields in the Upper Atmosphere: The case of Halos and Elves Triggered by Different Lightning Discharges

“…Finally, we use the software QTPlaskin, developed by Luque (2011), to analyze the main processes that contribute to create or destroy each species as a function of time.…”