robinson@geriatrix.cs.uoregon.edu (Bill Robinson) (04/16/91)
Please point me to references concerning group meeting time scheduling (both commercial products and research projects). Preferrably, these systems will take schedules from participants as input and derive times in which a meeting could take place. (Extensions may include tracking of meetings.) Thanks, Bill Robinson =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Department of Computer Science, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1202 domain: robinson@cs.uoregon.edu usenet:{decvax, allegra}!tektronix!uoregon!robinson Phone: (503) 686-4408 Fax: (503) 686-3127 -- Bill Robinson =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Department of Computer Science, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1202 domain: robinson@cs.uoregon.edu
jgrudin@daimi.aau.dk (Jonathan Grudin) (04/22/91)
robinson@geriatrix.cs.uoregon.edu (Bill Robinson) writes: >Please point me to references concerning group meeting time scheduling (both >commercial products and research projects). Preferrably, these systems will >take schedules from participants as input and derive times in which a meeting >could take place. (Extensions may include tracking of meetings.) >Thanks, >Bill Robinson >=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= >Department of Computer Science, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1202 >domain: robinson@cs.uoregon.edu >usenet:{decvax, allegra}!tektronix!uoregon!robinson >Phone: (503) 686-4408 Fax: (503) 686-3127 >-- >Bill Robinson >=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= >Department of Computer Science, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1202 >domain: robinson@cs.uoregon.edu The commercial product history in this area is extensive and goes back almost a decade. However, it is extremely difficult to find anyone who uses this feature, due to the fact that even where electronic calendars are in use, they tend to be used by a small subset of the population. Data on such use appear in a CHI'87 paper by Susan F. Ehrlich and analysis in a TOOIS paper the same year. This work and its implications are reviewed in papers I presented at CSCW'88 and in Office: Technology & People in 1989, and is briefly reviewed in a chapter "Groupware and Cooperative Work: Problems and Prospects" in the book The Art of Human-Computer Interaction, edited by Brenda Laurel (Addison- Wesley, 1990). Two recent papers describing technical approaches to building such systems are M. Woitass, Coordination of Intelligent Office Agents -- Applied to Meeting Scheduling, from the IFIP WG 8.4 Crete Conference, published as a book Multi-User Interfaces and Applications, edited by S. Gibbs and A.A. Verrijn-Suart, North-Holland, 1990; D. Beard et al., A Visual Calendar for Scheduling Group Meetings, in Proc. CSCW'90. From those you can find some other references. I strongly encourage you to consider the adoption problems and perhaps do some research into the reception and use of the commercial products, which have long been sold by IBM, Wang Labs, Digital, and others, before undertaking the building of new prototypes. Beard et al reported at CSCW90 that perhaps when everyone is carrying notebook computers it will be possible to get more widespread use of electronic calendars; in the meantime, most of us prefer paper calendars for their convenience. Jonathan Grudin Computer Science Department Aarhus University Ny Munkegade 116 Building 540 DK-8000 Aarhus C Denmark jgrudin@daimi.aau.dk or grudin.chi@xerox.com