From I-Awareness to We-Awareness in CSCW: a Review Essay

Abstract

This paper considers the shared awareness perspective put forward by Tenenberg, Roth and Socha. Seeking to treat this view from its philosophical background in Quine, Davidson and Bratman, this paper offers a different approach to shared phenomena, one derived from Wittgenstein and Garfinkel. It explains how this view motivated one of my own study's of work, in particular the work of economists at the International Monetary Fund, and demonstrates how these individuals operated in a shared knowledge space constituted by and reflexively organised through documents, most especially Staff Reports. This perspective on shared phenomena focuses, thus, on cultural practice and its reasoning forms. It thus also eschews the 'mental phenomena' central to Tenenberg, Roth and Socha's perspective. The consequences of the Wittgenstein/Garfinkel view for systems design and CSCW are remarked upon.

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“…This favors an intentionality shared by all the members of the work group. Thus, the term we-awareness [25] arises to reflect this cooperative behavior, which must be provided by the awareness information.…”

Designing Tools for Collectively Solving Ill-Structured Problems

“…Such tools can take on many forms such as conceptual models, procedures, material artifacts, and information systems. Most contributions of these research strands resulted in collaborative tools and systems that facilitate the creation of a shared understand rising between diverse individuals (e.g., [16], [17], [18]) facilitate communication and information exchange [19] support synchronous and asynchronous coordination between individuals (e.g., [20], [21]), and enhance group creativity (e.g., [22], [23]).…”