Collaboration has always been a source of creativity. People working together bring in different ways of thinking. A group of people will have more knowledge than a single person, especially if people from different domains are involved. In such an environment, experts will use their expertise to provide solutions based on their detailed knowledge for their specific domain.
Creativity often emerges where different ways of looking at a problem are brought to- gether. Analyses have shown that most scientific and artistic innovations emerge from collaboration [47]. Tests with students indicate that the brainstorming and idea-finding part is much more effective when people work in small groups then individually [102]. A single person can only access the knowledge for the own specific domain. Collaborative creativity is understood as people with knowledge of the same or different disciplines, brought together to solve problems, which could be solved without the collaboration of many [25].
2.3.1 Avoidance of Barriers in Creative Collaboration
According to Fischer there are barriers, which might hinder collaboration. It is necessary to identify and overcome these barriers in order to enable collaborative creativity. This is especially of interest when developing software for the support creative collaboration.
Fischer defined the following barriers [46]:
spatial
Managing workplace-independency. temporal
Dealing with different time zones and asynchronous communication. conceptual
Reach common ground and shared understanding. technological
The first two points are very important in regard to collaboration. The internet plays a key role for satisfying these two points. Software for the support of collaborative cre- ativity must be web-enabled. Approaches, which are not connected will play a minor role if not completely disappear in future. Hence, these points are very important in an interconnected world.
Bryan-Kinns identified another type of barriers. These barriers are of social nature unlike the just mentioned technical ones. It describes the factors for a satisfactory engagement of every collaborator. This raised three questions of interest [20]:
Enticement
What attracts artists to work on a project? Engagement
What encourages the artists to collaborate? Sustainment
What keeps the artists working on the artefact?
Despite the need for an interesting project or task for each collaborator, it is also important that the software itself is attractive to the user. The Graphical User Interface (GUI) of the software should be simple and easy to use in order to avoid hindering the creator when working on the artefact. A lot of tools for the support of creativity fail at this point. Often enough the creativity support is realised through uncommon design of the GUI. But instead of making the collaborator more creative, the software is too confusing as it does not follow the principles of human-computer interaction (HCI) (see Section 2.4.2).
Very important is the question whether the creators are able to work in a team. It requires certain abilities to work collaboratively. The abilities might be [21]:
Acknowledgement
The ability to recognise the contribution of others. Mirroring
The ability to reflect the contribution of others. Transformation
It is necessary that the creativity support tools cater for the reduction of possible tensions [63] between the collaborators and enhance the understanding for the contributions of the others. Technologies like version control help to create awareness of the work of others. Communication facilities support discussions between the collaborators. This enables an easy way to discuss problems or tasks within the team.
The failure of current approaches to cover at least most of the above mentioned points has restricted the field of application. Even more, creative collaboration has rarely been an issue in current approaches so far. As a result, collaboration is a first class citizen for this thesis.
2.3.2 Multimedia Literacy and Transliteracy
For the first time in history, the internet enables a huge number of people to communicate with each other through different types of media. Several multimedia types are used for presentation of content to the viewers of a website. These novel technologies have an effect on the way of how people distribute knowledge and news [37].
The ability to present and consume information through various multimedia types is called multimedia literacy. The term literacy was initially only used to describe the ability to read and write. The online edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica defines the term as the
“...capacity to communicate using inscribed, printed, or electronic signs or symbols for representing language.”
The term multimedia literacy is expanding the meaning of communication by including media formats like audio, text and video. Multimedia becomes more and more important for teaching purposes. Different types of tools have been implemented to provide pupils and students with learnings environments to cater for their need to learn through a wider diversity of media [137]. It is important to note that the focus of multimedia literacy in schools lies not on the media types itself, but the form in which these are used, like narrative, interactive, communicative, adaptive and productive [19].
The interactive fashion of the Web 2.0 and new internet-enabled platforms even enhance the possibilities to communicate beyond those of the multimedia literacy. The term transliteracy is used to describe the ability to use a mixture of platforms and media.
It is defined as
“the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks.” [123]
The most important word in this quote is “across”. This term describes today’s technical possibilities to share media not only through one platform, but many different ones. Web- sites are accessible via standard computers, but also via smartphones and TVs. This has a huge impact on the way people communicate and work. Communication and interaction becomes more and more time and workplace independent. This has definitely enriched people’s creativity and creative process.
As current approaches fail to support collaboration, they certainly fail to cater for a support of multimedia literacy and transliteracy. The De Montfort Creativity Assistant provides several collaboration tools and allows the integration of new tools through its pluggable design.
2.3.3 Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Groupware
Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) is a multidisciplinary research area, which caters for the understanding of creation, interaction and evaluation of computer supported work. The term was introduced to summarise the research on the upcoming cooperative (or collaborative) work through the usage of computer system during the 1980’s [50]. The main focus of CSCW lies on collaborative applications and their users. One of the main objectives in CSCW is the awareness of every involved individual about the collaborative process [38].
CSCW is often mentioned together with the term groupware. The two terms are sometimes even referred to as having the identical meaning. However, the term groupware describes the implementation of the principles for CSCW. Groupware is more closely related to product markets whereas CSCW has a more exploratory background [51].
Today most projects in academia and industry are developed and controlled by using computers. Information is stored in central databases, which are world-wide accessible. Members of work-groups are often spread all over the world and might never meet each other. CSCW applications are divided into sub-categories, depending on how the tech- nologies are used.
Same Place Different Place
Synchronous face-to-face group work sync. distributed group work (electr. meeting room) (video conferencing)
Asynchronous async. group work async. distributed group work (shared computers) (e-mail)
Table 2.1: Categories of CSCW Applications
Table 2.1 contains the four different categories of CSCW applications [64]. The categories are chosen by the location of the collaborators as well as the working time. The table itself is referred to as the CSCW matrix. Examples for the categories are provided inside the brackets.
Applications for CSCW require a well designed framework for the user and content man- agement. These applications usually require multi-user support for all four types, described in the above shown matrix. These have a huge effect on the user interface for such an application. It requires the development of flexible communication infrastructures and seamless data management [8].
2.3.4 Computer Supported Collaborative Learning
The Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) is closely related to the CSCW. The concepts for both terms emerged during the same time, due to the emergence of per- sonal computers as well as quick and reliable networks.
Today, more and more people use computers for learning purposes. Especially the number of universities which provide online learning environments increased vastly since the last decade [18]. The main objectives of CSCL are the usage of collaborative learning environ- ments with a simultaneous analysis of the progress made by the students [42]. Analyses of CSCL are mostly statistical analyses, based on the content produced by the collaborators [23, 109]. CSCL is used in education for all age groups, starting at the kindergarten [119].
Nonetheless, the CSCL is not only used for analysis purposes, but to introduce new ways of learning. The usage of CSCL can improve the outcomes of the learning process [76]. The reason for this is the potentially availability of huge resources for teaching purposes.
Teachers are able to provide multimedia content, which allows teaching complex ideas to address intellectual challenges [43]. The meaning of the second “C” in CSCL is not precisely defined. Mostly used as the abbreviation for collaborative, but sometimes for cooperative like in the term CSCW. Some researchers argue that it is necessary to distinct between the two terms. Dillenbourg writes that in collaboration, partners work together on the same problems whereas the work is split when cooperating [36].