yam@nttmhs.ntt.jp (Toshihiko YAMAKAMI) (01/02/90)
'Groupware' may include very wide variety of interests in computer and communication systems. But in my opinion, one of the most interesting issues is how to provide efficient high level communication protocols for groupwork. For example, human beings use many techniques to make agreement, negotiation, project management and so on. But traditional communication systems provide only broadcasting or point-to-point communication. So human begings should map various protocols into such raw level communication primitives. What types of high level group communication protocols do we use in group activities? Is it better to realize such protocols in communication systems? Ot is it hard to pick up such high level communiction primitives? In my current research, I believe there exists some bacis group communication primitives. I suppose it is something like a communication-goal exchange protocol. Now I am interested in what level of communication goal is suitable for office groupwork support. // A Happy New Year to all groupware researchers in the world. // There are not so many grouware researchers in Japan, so // we would like to see vital and exciting discussion in this group, // and we are happy to join it. :-) Toshihiko YAMAKAMI NTT Telecommunication Networks Laboratories * Interests include: Office Systems, CHI, OSI Telephone: +81-468-59-3781
UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) (01/05/90)
In article <4318@nttmhs.ntt.JP>, yam@nttmhs.ntt.jp (Toshihiko YAMAKAMI) says: > > What types of high level group communication >protocols do we use in group activities? Just thinking off the top of my hat 8-) 1. Some of my communications are 'informational'. I don't expect any reply, and I don't care if they are dealt with or not. 2. Some are 'requests'. "Can I have $xxx to buy a widget?" I'd really prefer a yes or not answer within a particular time frame, with the possibility of a 'yes, if...' and 'no, but...' answers, to. 3. Some are 'responses to requests'. 4. Some are 'prposals', as in "I think we should do Z." I want to sesome disc ussion of the merits of Z, followed by some determination of Yes, let's do Z or No, let's not do Z within some fixed amount of time, with Table Z as another possible option. 5. With 4 comes the ugly spectre of Amendments, Discussions, Points of Order, voting, and so on. 6. Some are 'arguments'. Joe says let's do Z, and I say "No, because" or "Yes, because". At some point, Janet says, "Lee's 'No, bacause' is invalid because...", and most people agree with her. That's all I can think of right now. > Is it better to realize such protocols in communication systems? > Ot is it hard to pick up such high level communiction primitives? I think it is worth trying. As you say earlier, most of our current email systems do not distinguish among the many types of messages that get passed. It seems reasonable to try adding structure. For example, if I send someone a 'request', it should include a Reply By: field, and the underlying software could enforce it by forcing the recipient to reply by that time or else ... Or else what? I dunno. How about (a) their boss gets a weekly report of the number of reply deadlines they missed, (b) their terminal locks up until they reply, (c) the answer is 'yes'? >
esf00@uts.amdahl.com (Elliott S. Frank) (01/06/90)
In article <90005.104713UH2@PSUVM.BITNET> UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) writes: >In article <4318@nttmhs.ntt.JP>, yam@nttmhs.ntt.jp (Toshihiko YAMAKAMI) says: >> >> What types of high level group communication >>protocols do we use in group activities? > >Just thinking off the top of my hat 8-) > >1. Some of my communications are 'informational'.ply, > >2. Some are 'requests'. > >3. Some are 'responses to requests'. > >4. Some are 'proposals'. > >6. Some are 'arguments'. > >> Is it better to realize such protocols in communication systems? >> Ot is it hard to pick up such high level communiction primitives? > There are more ... how about 'promises' ("the check is in the mail ...") 'reminders' ("specification due ...") and probably more. Fernando Flores did some work with Terry Winograd of Stanford in the early Eighties on this taxonomy. (Does anyone have a good citation for this stuff, i.e., generally available outside university libraries and written in some variant of English?) [I did some work with Fernando in the mid-Eighties, when he maintained that a rather rigid taxonomy (only four categories) was sufficient for *all* communication. (This is the basis of the 'Coordinator', one of the first groupware packages.)] I like the idea of having the communications system understand an expandable set of primitives -- everything gets neatly packaged, and I can restrict my viewing to only 'interesting' sets of primitives. If you want to argue about who gets the desk next to the women's room, I can skip the entire thread until it gets to the 'everybody will move two offices to the left" part. -- Elliott Frank ...!{hplabs,ames,sun}!amdahl!esf00 (408) 746-6384 or ....!{bnrmtv,drivax,hoptoad}!amdahl!esf00 [the above opinions are strictly mine, if anyone's.] [the above signature may or may not be repeated, depending upon some inscrutable property of the mailer-of-the-week.]
bro@titan.rice.edu (Douglas Monk) (01/06/90)
In article <d5Vc02Ns7b8k01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> esf00@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Elliott S. Frank) writes: >In article <90005.104713UH2@PSUVM.BITNET> UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) writes: >>In article <4318@nttmhs.ntt.JP>, yam@nttmhs.ntt.jp (Toshihiko YAMAKAMI) says: >>> What types of high level group communication >>>protocols do we use in group activities? >Fernando Flores did some work with Terry Winograd of Stanford in the >early Eighties on this taxonomy. (Does anyone have a good citation >for this stuff, i.e., generally available outside university libraries >and written in some variant of English?) "Understanding Computers and Cognition; A New Foundation for Design", by Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores, published by Addison-Wesley. I have a paperback copy, (c) 1986, 1987 by Ablex Publishing. I got it at Rice's Campus Bookstore, but have seen it at well-stocked technical bookstores. >[I did some work with Fernando in the mid-Eighties, when he maintained >that a rather rigid taxonomy (only four categories) was sufficient for >*all* communication. (This is the basis of the 'Coordinator', one of >the first groupware packages.)] I find a taxonomy of "illocutionary acts" attributed to John Searle on pages 58-59 with five categories: Assertives, Directives, Commissives, Expressives, and Declarations. This comes from: Searle, John R. A taxonomy of illocutionary acts, in K. Gunderson (Ed.), Language, Mind and Knowledge, Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota, 1975, 344-369. Reprinted in: Searle, John R., Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ., 1979. >Elliott Frank ...!{hplabs,ames,sun}!amdahl!esf00 (408) 746-6384 > or ....!{bnrmtv,drivax,hoptoad}!amdahl!esf00 Doug Monk (bro@rice.edu) Disclaimer: These views are mine, not necessarily my organization's.
kgrant@.com (Ken Grant) (01/07/90)
In article <4150@brazos.Rice.edu> bro@titan.rice.edu (Douglas Monk) writes: > >I find a taxonomy of "illocutionary acts" attributed to John Searle on >pages 58-59 with five categories: Assertives, Directives, Commissives, >Expressives, and Declarations This means of classifying "illocutionary acts" is typically called speech-act theory. The gist of it is that an utterance is classified according to its purpose. Utterances can be to inform, to direct, to request, and so forth. We used this sort of notion for taxonimizing message types in the Information Lens. cheers, Ken Grant Internet: kgrant%oracle.com@apple.com kgrant@oracle.com (if your mailer groks MX records) UUCP: ...{hplabs,apple,uunet}!oracle!kgrant
yam@nttmhs.ntt.jp (Toshihiko YAMAKAMI) (01/07/90)
From article <90005.104713UH2@PSUVM.BITNET>, by UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer): > In article <4318@nttmhs.ntt.JP>, yam@nttmhs.ntt.jp (Toshihiko YAMAKAMI) says: >> >> What types of high level group communication >>protocols do we use in group activities? > Just thinking off the top of my hat 8-) > 1. Some of my communications are 'informational'. I don't expect any reply, > 2. Some are 'requests'. "Can I have $xxx to buy a widget?" I'd really > 3. Some are 'responses to requests'. > 4. Some are 'proposals', as in "I think we should do Z." I want to sesome > 5. With 4 comes the ugly spectre of Amendments, Discussions, Points > of Order, voting, and so on. > 6. Some are 'arguments'. Joe says let's do Z, and I say "No, because" I considered it last year. I picked up 5 types of high level communication primitives. They have three elements:(recipients, deadlimit, primitive type). I considered 5 types of primitives. (1) Information -- it requires no reply, the same as the first one of Lee's. It requires only delivery notice. (2) Simple communication -- it waits for replies. (3) Scheduled active communication sequences -- it will invoke communication with specified schedule. (In my view, it is "don't forget" or "do-it" type communication) (4) Summary communication -- it waits for summary of replies. (In my view, it is "voting", "paper work authentication by supervisors", users do not have interests in individual messages, but in the final result caused by the communication sequences) (5) Scheduled passive communication sequences -- it will wait for message arrival. (In my view, it is "daily report posting" or something like that). It is one level of abstraction. I think these primitives are not sufficient. For example: (A) It is not clear for me they can be constructive primitives to make more concrete and complex primitives such as "argue", "propose", "make appointment", and so on. (B) I think there should be 'negative' primitives. How can I construct "don't disturb", "bargaining", or "ignorance" actions? Silence or such kind of non-responses should be managed by groupware. Or we should make 'positive' first and it is not the time of negative groupware? I do not know the details of Winograd's work. I read some in last year's BYTE and "Computer Supported Cooperative Work: A Book of Readings(Ed by I.Greif)". I think negative action management has some possibility of extending action theories. All I can imagine is "to embed interruption mechanicms by timer and re-scheduling mechanisms of actions when action sequences meet someone's ignorance'. I am sorry that my usage of term 'negative communication' is not well defined. Any comments will be welcome. -- Toshihiko YAMAKAMI Toshihiko YAMAKAMI NTT Telecommunication Networks Laboratories Telephone: +81-468-59-3781 FAX: +81-468-59-2546 junet: yam@nttmhs.ntt.jp CSNET: yam%nttmhs.ntt.jp@relay.cs.net snail-mail: Take 1-2356-523A, Yokosuka, Kanagawa 238-03 JAPAN
UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) (01/07/90)
In article <1990Jan6.211045.12857@oracle.com>, kgrant@.com (Ken Grant) says: > >In article <4150@brazos.Rice.edu> bro@titan.rice.edu (Douglas Monk) writes: >> >This means of classifying "illocutionary acts" is typically called >speech-act theory. The gist of it is that an utterance is classified >according to its purpose. Utterances can be to inform, to direct, to >request, and so forth. We used this sort of notion for taxonimizing >message types in the Information Lens. > Would someone offer a summary of the Information Lens, and perhaps a good reference or two? Thanks. lee