Collaborative Writing Across Multiple Artifact Ecologies

Abstract

Research focusing on how collaborative writing takes place across multiple applications and devices and over longer projects is sparse. We respond to this gap by presenting the results of a qualitative study of longer-term academic writing projects, showing how co-writers employ multiple tools when working on a common text. We identify three patterns of multi-application collaboration as well as four common types of motivations for transitions between applications. We also extend existing taxonomies of collaborative writing by proposing a categorization of the functions served by the text as object and backbone of the collaboration. Together, these contributions offer a framing for understanding transitions within and across artifact ecologies in work around a common object. Our findings highlight ways in which features like concurrent editing may in fact challenge the collaborative writing process, and we point to opportunities for alternative application models.

Generative Theories of Interaction

“…They are also multiple, heterogeneous and potentially conflictual. Bardram [10], Sørgaard [146] as well as Bødker & Lyle [33] and Larsen-Ledet et al [101,102] have characterized cooperation as happening through interactive objects, as coordination around the object and co-construction of future use with the object.…”

What’s in an Ecology? A Review of Artifact, Communicative, Device and Information Ecologies

“…Examples of where artifact ecology concepts have been applied include understanding personal ownership and use [63,67,90,105], and groups of people (e.g. local communities [20] or research collaborators [103]), the intersection between [21], or in specific activity domains, such as personal calendar management [38,39] or collaborative writing [80]. The concept has been used with a basis in activity theory [16] and more recently with distributed cognition [136].…”

“…how residents [45] or community groups [21] interact in/through communicative ecologies, web of artifacts in and across work settings, e.g. disperse physical plants, [12], research [123] or hospital/medical work [9], and closing in on a micro level analysis, how students negotiate the collaborative tools around academic work [80,116], or how remote collaborators coordinate [88].…”

“…A few positions discuss nuances on what is in the ecology based on functional and situational needs: Oulasvirta and Sumari [105] make a few useful distinctions between the active subset, the artifacts (devices and non-computational support) in momentary use, and the passive subset, those physically available, but not currently used. Similarly, Rossitto et al [116] and Larsen-Ledet et al [80] discuss the aligned part of the ecology as the tools agreed upon among collaborators and the potential part of the ecology as those familiar and available to the sum of collaborators, if needed.…”

Adqda

“…Many additional factors may come into play: whether the analyst is working alone or collaborating with others; what kinds of analytic methods they prefer; whether they are working in the same location or from remote work sites; the tasks they are engaged in; or available devices. When working on a common analysis project, different collaborators might adopt different tools, methods, and data representations, and they might tackle the analysis from different perspectives [41,61]. Even a single user often needs to adopt different conceptual methods or transition between different contexts, such as when appropriating different devices in the office and from home, etc.…”