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McEwan, G., Greenberg, S., Rounding, M. and Boyle, M. (2006)
Groupware Plug-ins: A Case Study of Extending Collaboration Functionality through Media Items. In Proceedings of 2nd International Conference on Collaboration Technologies – CollabTech 2006. (Tsukuba, Japan), IPSJ SIG Groupware and Network Services, pages 42-47, July 13-14.
Type: Refereed conference (full paper).
Awards: 🏆Best paper nominee.
Earlier version: Report 2006-822-15, February.
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Abstract.
Groupware normally offers only fixed functionality, which can be a poor match to the actual needs of particular group. We argue that groupware should be extensible by third party developers, and describe groupware plug-ins as a method that enables this. Using the Community Bar (CB) as a case study, we illustrate an easy-to-program extensible groupware architecture. Unlike single user plug-ins, CB groupware plug-ins automatically share and populate a distributed data structure, using a distributed Model View Controller pattern to simplify programming. Several 3rd party plugins illustrate what people can create in practice.