Traveling in Cyberspace

TIP ’s new editor, Allan Church, has asked me to stay on for another term as a TIP columnist, which I’m very happy to do. I’m taking this issue off, but wanted to let you, the reader, know that future installments of Traveling in Cyberspace will continue to involve topics regarding the synergy between humans and computers. In particular, in the next few installments I will discuss topics involving computer supported cooperative work (CSCW). CSCW is a field of computing that deals with designing and developing computer systems that support group work, collaboration, and communication. These systems are particularly important due to the changing nature of the way in which we perform work, and the subsequent need to support social computing.

These systems should be of interest to those in business as well as academia. To give you a sense of the uses (and potential abuses) of these systems I will discuss the capabilities of these systems, case studies, and where applicable, how I use these systems in my own work (including research and teaching). CSCW topics will include video conferencing, meeting and decision support systems, and virtual reality for training.