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Collaborative Computing at the University of Washington
1/30/2008
For now, the TeamSpot software requires that all members of the group be present; the software doesn't support remote collaboration, although Milne said his company is "working in that direction."
To make remote collaboration possible at UW beyond TeamSpot, Woody's group has created a tool called ShareSpace that allows online collaboration. Using both TeamSpot and ShareSpace, groups can begin the collaborative process together at one of the stations using TeamSpot, then load the shared content into ShareSpace and continue with the collaborative process later online. "We find that the two of these work really well together," Woody said, for students who want a combination of in person and remote collaboration capabilities. "The two tools complement each other quite well."
There are no software-based restrictions on how many students can participate and share information during a collaborative session, but the UW areas--some of them rooms, some simply partitioned-off spaces--generally aren't designed to accommodate more than six or eight people. That hasn't been a significant restriction, since group collaboration itself, Woody pointed out, becomes difficult beyond a certain number of participants.
The software idea originated with a research project at Stanford University several years ago, where Milne and Tidebreak co-founder Brad Johanson were working on their Ph.D.s. A previous job in which Milne was a consultant for architectural renovations got him thinking about the growing number of technologies available to present media content to groups. None of them, however, allowed the audience to truly engage with the content. "What happens when the room itself is the computer interface?" Milne wondered.
For Woody, the answer can be seen in the popularity of the six TeamSpot areas: "It's filled a real need. We had students who were crowded around [a single computer screen] and needed to find a more comfortable place to work." Also, she said, the university wanted to encourage more collaboration, something it has been able to do by offering TeamSpot.
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Linda L. Briggs is a freelance writer based in San Diego, Calif.
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