Overview
"Distributed Group Support Systems" embed Group Decision Support System (GDSS)-type tools and procedures within a computer-mediated communication system, to support asynchronous (different time/different place) collaborative work among groups of people. This long-term, integrated program of research includes three types of activities: theory building, empirical studies, and improvements to the technological platform (EIES2) that support our research program.
"Distributed" has several meanings: temporal, spatial and technological. The central interest of the program of study is "asynchronous" groups, in which interaction is distributed in time as well as in space. The group members use the system to work together to reach a decision or complete their cooperative work over a period of time, with each person working at whatever time and place is convenient. Distributed systems raise special problems of social and technical coordination. The project investigates the effectiveness of different types of tools and procedures for various types of tasks and groups, within the distributed environment.
As DeSanctis and Gallupe (1987) have stated, a common perspective regarding the purpose and characteristics of these systems is required. In the previous year, we developed a comprehensive theoretical framework, which is guiding and integrating all of our empirical research efforts. (see CHART 1) Subsequently, we worked on attempts to integrate all previous theoretical frameworks of other researchers, in order to be able to provide a framework to compare results of different studies, and to compare our results with those of other researchers. The ultimate objective of the theoretical work is a comprehensive general theory.
One completed paper (Fjermestad, Hiltz, & Turoff, 1993; see also, Fjermestad, in press, 1996) reviews the major research models that have been used for studying GDSS's and derives and presents an integrated, comprehensive model of the factors that are utilized for their investigation. In the short time since the publication of the DeSanctis and Gallupe (1987) foundation paper, the number of research dimensions included in various models has more than doubled (from three to seven). There has also been a shift in research emphasis from the technology to the process of interaction of the technology, the task, and the group to produce outcomes. The model proposed offers a control system type interpretation of four factor dimensions: contextual, intervening, adaptation, and outcomes.
Another major aspect of this effort is a theoretical integration and empirical meta-analysis of all of the approximately 120 different controlled experiments on group support systems that have been published to date. We now have all the variables and methodologies and other aspects of this summary of prior research in a data base and have begun analysis. The lead researcher on this effort is Jerry Fjermestad, who is now an Assistant Professor at NJIT, who is working with PI Starr Roxanne Hiltz. We feel that this analysis will greatly aid in determining what is "known" and "unknown" about computer based group support systems at present.
Another major activity is a meta-analysis of the combined data bases from all of the experiments included in the prior and current experiments on Distributed Group Support Systems at NJIT. Fjermestad and Hiltz are also taking the lead in this effort. We have collected all but one of the data sets and are still in the process of combining them.
References
DeSanctis, G., and Gallupe, R.B., "A Foundation for the Study of Group Decision Support Systems," Management Science, 33(2), 1987, 589-609.
Poole, M.S., and DeSanctis, G., "Understanding the Use of Group Decision Support Systems: The Theory of Adaptive Structuration," in Fulk, J. & Steinfield, C. (Eds.), Organizations and Communication Technology, 1990, Sage. Newbury Park, CA.
NJIT's EIES 2 is a computer-mediated communication system that provides the foundation that allows continued evolution and the incorporation of additional functionality. EIES 2 is based upon an object-oriented data base and a compiler for the X.409 communication data base specification language. This allows the evolution of new object types as they are needed.
One of the necessities for a CMC system to service group oriented objectives is the integration of other computer resources within the CMC environment. This means the following types of available capabilities:
* Decision Support tools collect and process and display "votes," such as weighting, ranking or yes-no "straw votes" on options.
* Members of a CMC system should be able to bring data from other data bases into the communication environment.
* One must be able to trigger the execution of programs that support the group process and obtain the results of those programs within the conferencing environment.
There are many approaches to integration with the underlying technology. We utilize the metaphor of an "activity" that can be attached to any communication item, such as a comment or message. This activity, when triggered or done, will execute a program or procedure on the host computer or the network of computers.
During the second year of the research program, work was completed on development and testing and implementation of two sets of "activities." One , List and Vote, replicates the GDSS functionality provided by SAMM and many other GDSSs for a group to create and revise a common list of alternatives, and then to be able to apply several types of voting procedures to this list: vote for one, vote yes or no on each alternative, and rate or weight each alternative. The second set, Poll, allows the construction, response to, and display of results from a poll or survey, within the CMC environment. It is being utilized in our controlled experiment on the peer review process.
Current development focuses on completing a Web-based interface to the system (accessible through browsers such as Netscape TM).
The empirical studies investigate the effectiveness of different types of tools and procedures for various types of tasks and groups, within the distributed environment.
Controlled Experiments
These are summarized in Charts 2 and 3.
Each of these experiments represents an attempt to find appropriate tools and processes to support four different types of task in the McGrath "task circumplex;" they examined:. Voting tools and sequential procedures for a preference task;
. Conflict vs. Consensus structures plus experience for a planning task;
. The effects of FtF vs. distributed asynchronous CMC as it interacts with a structured design procedure, for a creative task, software design
. Question-Response tool and the Polling tool for an intellective task (peer review)
. Designated leadership and sequential vs. parallel procedures for a mixed task, choosing a stock portfolio.
Each group had one or two weeks to complete each decision (depending on the experiment). This is a relatively long time period, compared to the 10 or 15 minutes that some experimental tasks used in decision room GDSS experiments have taken. Unless otherwise noted, all used as subjects undergraduate and graduate students from the Computer Science and Management degree programs at NJIT and Rutgers. Students participated as a course assignment, and were graded; alternate assignments were offered for those who chose not to participate. It should be noted that in asynchronous groups interacting over a week or more, group size cannot be truly controlled. Despite the grade incentive, some students "dropped out" of the group interaction, perhaps because of illness or computer problems, and thus decreased group size below the starting number. When "group size" is reported, it refers to the "ending" group size, not the number who were trained and began a task. In all experiments, if this "effective group size" fell below two, the group was dropped from the analysis.
We are following up on the Ocker study by adding an additional condition, face to face meetings PLUS the use of DGSS in between the two meetings, two weeks apart. Though this mixed media condition is very likely to be used in "real life," there actually are no controlled experiments using it, in contrast to solely face to face or solely online conditions. In the future, it is planned to extend this research in new directions, by using a more equivocal and complex software design task; using larger group sizes to see if different coordination modes improve group performance, etc.
Field Studies
Enrico Hsu (1992), Management Games for Management Education: A Case Study, Dissertation submitted to the Graduate School of Business, Newark, Rutgers, written under the direction of Starr Roxanne Hiltz.
The effectiveness of two forms of computer support for strategic decision making were tested in a quasi-experimental study employing a semester-long strategic decision making game. Control groups played the game without any computer support. Experimental groups had either a basic computer conferencing system, or the system plus a set of advanced tools. Over a three year period, fourteen sections of students in a management course participated in this study. The computer-supported groups demonstrated superior performance in strategic decision making, produced better written reports, were more satisfied and interested in the task, and evidenced greater collaboration and group cohesion. Those with the advanced tools, including the ability to integrate PC-based tools with their use of a conferencing system, expended the greatest level of effort, achieved the best performances on the strategic planning game, and produced the best group reports.
A paper drawn from the study won a "best paper" award at the July 1992 annual meeting of IBSCUG (the International Business Schools Computer Users Group).
Teaching load reductions provided as a result of this grant made it possible to complete analysis and publish the results of previously collected data on field studies and experiments in the distributed environment. One was a field study of executives use (Hiltz and Turoff, 1992). A second was a controlled experiment on same-time/different place use of a CMCS, with and without a GDSS voting tool and designated human leadership (Hiltz, Johnson and Turoff, 1991).
Ph.D. candidate William Worrell completed data collection on a multi-year study that extends the work of Enrico Hsu in the use of computer-mediated communications and simulations for teaching management skills. His dissertation is in the area of accounting, and compares sections of a course over several years, in a two by two factorial design, that did or did not have the use of EIES 2; and that did or did not use a "fraud simulation," in the effectiveness of learning of accounting concepts and skills related to the detection and prevention of computer fraud. It is hoped that this dissertation will be completed and defended in the spring of 1994.
A new experiment, being conducted by Ph.D. candidate Raquel Benbunan, under the direction of Roxanne Hiltz, is completing pilot studies this fall and will be conducted during the spring and summer of 1996. The task is ethical analysis of scenarios by students of computers and society. An attempt is being made to determine just WHAT it is about online conditions that tends to lead to higher motivation and performance than in face to face groups, the "social presence" in combination with an asynchronous, self-paced work process, or the actual social interaction. This is a 2 x 2 factorial design, using two modes of communication (offline or asynchronous computer conference) and two group conditions (individuals working alone vs. in groups of approximately size 5). In the online "individual" condition, for example, the question- response activity software on EIES2 is being used to create a nominal group- like condition; individuals answer without seeing what anybody else has written, but after their contributions are posted, they can read the answers of others. Thus there is a "social presence" but not social interaction. One unique aspect of this experiment is that it will be done in a "field" setting in the sense that it is a required part of the undergraduate course on computers and society. Thus, not only will the quality of the responses to the scenarios generated as the experimental task be judged, but we will also be able to get a measure of "retained knowledge." At the end of the course, the final exam will include two similar scenarios and sets of questions, and these data will also be compared to see if any differences occur in "learning", or the ability to correctly conduct an ethical analysis after a period of weeks has elapsed.
Ajaz Rana, who is also now an Assistant Professor at NJIT, is re-designing his Peer Review process software tools to run on a WEB version of EIES2, under Netscape. This is in preparation for anticipated field experiments on the peer review process using DGSS. Several journals have expressed interest in using this software for their article review process when it is completed.
G. Rao is preparing a proposal for work on collaboration in a DGSS for medical decision making, under the direction of M. Turoff.
Hiltz and Turoff will begin a year-long sabbatical in January 1996. During the spring, they will be visiting at the Australian National Defense University in Canberra, where they will be working with both faculty and armed forces personnel on research on DGSS. During this absence, Jerry Fjermestad and Ajaz Rana, who are now acting as Co-PI's , will have direct supervision over the activities that are NJIT based.
Hiltz, S.R. and Turoff, M. "Structuring Computer-Mediated Communication to Avoid Information Overload," reprint of previously published paper, in D. Marca and G. Bock, eds., Groupware: Software for Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, Washington D.C., IEEE Computer Society Press, 1992, pp. 384-393.
Hiltz, S. R., and M. Turoff, Computer Networking Among Executives: A Case Study. (revised and expanded version of a 1991 conference paper.) J. Organizational Computing, 1 (4), 1991, pp. 357-376.
Hiltz, S. R., K. Johnson, and M. Turoff, (1991). Group Decision Support: The Effects of Designated Human Leaders and Statistical Feedback in Computerized Conferences, Journal of Management Information Systems, 8, 2 (81-108).
Hsu, Enrico Y.P., Hiltz, S.R., and Turoff, M. (1992). Computer-Mediated Conferencing System as Applied to a Business Curriculum: A Research Update. In V.S. Jacob and H.Pirkul, eds., The Impact of Information Technology on Business Schools: Research, Teaching and Administration, Proceedings of the 20th Annual North American Conference of the International Business School Compuater Users Group, pp. 214- 227. Awarded "Best Paper- Teaching."
Fjermestad, J., Hiltz, S.R., and Turoff, M. (1993). An Integrated Framework for the Study of Group Decision Support Systems. Paper accepted for the Hawaii Int. Conf. on System Sciences.
Jerry Fjermestad, Group Strategic Decision Making in a Computer-Mediated Commuications Environment: A Comparison of Dialectical Inquiry and Constructive Consensus Approaches. Newark, NJ, Rutgers University, Ph.D. Dissertation, January 1994.
Hiltz, S.R. and Turoff, M. The Network Nation: Human Communication Via Computer, Revised Edition. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1993.
Hiltz, S.R. and Turoff, M. Virtual Meetings: Computer Conferencing and Distributed Group Support. In R. Bostrum, S. Kinney, and R. Watson, eds., Computer Augmented Teamwork. New York: Van Nostrand, 1992, 67-85.
Turoff, M., S. R. Hiltz, A. N. F. Bahgat, and Ajaz Rana. Distributed Group Support Systems, revisions submitted to MIS Quarterly; to be published in the December 1993 issue.
Fjermestad, J., Hiltz, S.R., and Turoff, M. (1993). An Integrated Framework for the Study of Group Decision Support Systems. Proceedings of the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 1993, Vol. IV, pp. 179-188.
Dufner, D., Hiltz, S.R. and Turoff, M. (1994). Distributed Group Support: A preliminary analysis of the effects of the use of voting tools and sequential procedures. Proceedings, Hawaii Int. Conf. on System Sciences, sessions on Distributed Group Support Systems.
Rao,G.R., Suresh, B.A., Turoff, M., and Hiltz, S.R. "Issues in the development of a computer-mediated communication system framework for collaborative medical decision making," Proceedings of the IEEE-EMBS, 17th annual conference, Baltimore MD October 1994.
Balasubramanian, V. and Turoff, M. A Systematic Approach to User Interface Design for Hypertext Systems, 28th HICSS, 1995.
Ocker, R., Hiltz, S.R., Turoff, M., and Fjermestad, J., "Computer support for asynchronous software design teams: Experimental results on creativity and quality." Proceedings of the 28th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Vol. IV, pp. 4-13. Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Computer Society Press, 1995.
Worrell, W., Hiltz, S.R., Turoff, M. and Fjermestad, J. "An experiment in collaborative learning using a game and a computer-mediated conference in accounting games." Proceedings of the 28th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Vol. IV, pp. 63-71. Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Computer Society Press, 1995.
Fjermestad, J., Hiltz, S.R., Turoff, M., et. al., "Group strategic decision making: Asynchronous GSS using structured conflict and consensus approaches." Proceedings of the 28th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Vol. IV, pp. 222-231. Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Computer Society Press, 1995.
Dufner, D., Hiltz, S.R., Johnson, K., and Czech, R., Distributed group support: the effects of voting tools on group perceptions of media richness. Group Decision and Negotiation, Special issue on Distributed Communication Systems, May 1995 (Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 235-250).
Ocker, R., Hiltz, S.R., Turoff, M. and Fjermestad, J., "Computer support for distributed asynchronous software design teams: Experimental results on creativity and quality," in press, JMIS.
In process
Rana, A.J., Turoff, M. and Hiltz, S.R. Task and Technology Interaction (TTI): A theory of technological support for group tasks.
Fjermestad, J. and Hiltz, S.R., An Assessment of Experiments on Group Support Systems.
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Starr Roxanne Hiltz Principal Investigator Professor of Computer and Information Science New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) University Heights Newark NJ 07102 201-596-3388 hiltz@eies.njit.edu |
Murray Turoff Co-Principal Investigator Professor of Computer and Information Science New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) University Heights Newark NJ 07102 201-596-3399 turoff@eies.njit.edu |
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Kenneth Johnson St.Thomas University Miami, FL
Ronald Rice
Scott Poole |
Ph.D. Students (former or present): Enrico Hsu, Donna Dufner, Ajaz Rana, Jerry Fjermestad, Rosalie Sevick, Youngjin Kim, Frederick Ferronte, Cesar Perez, Mahendra Sagar, V.Balasubramanian, William Worrell, Raquel Benbunan Joint Rutgers/NJIT Ph.D. Program, MIS c/o CIS, NJIT Newark NJ 07102 |