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Roseman, M. (1993)
Design of a Real-Time Groupware Toolkit. Master’s thesis, Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, February.
Type: Masters thesis.
Also as: Report 1993-515-20.
Note: Roseman was under my supervision

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Abstract.
Real-time groupware systems, where several users work simultaneously with the same information, are notoriously difficult to construct. This thesis describes the design and implementation of a toolkit for building real-time groupware. Following a user-centered methodology, a number of requirements for groupware toolkits are presented. The requirements are both human-centered, such as support for work surface activities, flexible group processes, and integration with conventional work, and also programmer-centered, such as communications and a shared graphics model. Based on these requirements, a prototype toolkit called GroupKit is described. It contains three sets of components used to meet the requirements: a communications infrastructure; overlays for work surface activities; and open protocols for flexible group processes. Other concerns in the toolkit design are minimizing the developer’s work; encouraging use; extensibility; and flexibility. A number of sample applications built with GroupKit are described.

Keywords: Real time groupware, toolkits, synchronous work