A model for computer supported collaborative work and document re-use

This paper presents a model for computer supported collaborative work (CSCW) which shows collaborative authoring and reading and information interchange to be facilitated by international standards (SGML, HyTime), and a widely accepted hypertext reference model (the Dexter model). The new model, called the Dexter-Groupware (DG) model, is an extension of the Dexter hypertext reference model and incorporates a conversion and interchange model (SGML-HyTime-Dexter model) that provides an interchange mechanism to support collaborative work. Based on the DG model, an open environment for CSCW and document re-use is proposed, and a prototype, the MUCH (Many Using and Creating Hypermedia) environment, is described. The MUCH system forms the centre of the environment and a set of import/export tools allows the MUCH system to interchange information with other systems by going through international standards. In addition to interchanging information with other hypermedia systems, the MUCH environment provides a mechanism which enables non-hypermedia systems to share the information in the MUCH database by exporting a part of the database into a linear document, reading and editing in a text editor, and then importing back into MUCH without losing any hypermedia information. This mechanism makes it possible for collaborating workers to author, read and annotate on various platforms and environments. The MUCH environment has been used in our group for many years and our experiences with using MUCH to create massive documents collaboratively are also described in this paper.