Extending Collaboration Support Systems: Making Sense in Remote Innovation

Abstract

This chapter first examines the role of collaboration and collective learning in regional and industry-wide innovation and how remote innovation–that is, innovation organized through electronic collaboration–could be enhanced by comprehensive computer support tools that include sensemaking aids. We look at the importance of sensemaking in collaborations and report on a study in which we analyzed sensemaking processes among students collaborating remotely. We describe a web-based computer system called LiveNet, that incorporates sensemaking aids to facilitate remote innovation. It brings together members within one workspace, provides them with the ability to locate needed information quickly, and supports this process with an agent-based structure that can assist members to achieve their goals. In addition, LiveNet supports the development of a common language and facilitates knowledge sharing, processes deemed important in the innovation and collective learning literatures. In the final section, we describe how this system can be used in remote innovation.