Online Collaboration

Overview

In order to address the issue of online collaboration, we should examine first the patterns that bend the collaboration of humans (in some cases even animals since many of the observations from the animal kingdom apply to the case of human interaction), and also to elaborate on the way these patterns are transformed through the use of internet technologies and IT technologies in general. Furthermore, we should take into account the different flavors of collaboration in the form of culture-ethics, collaborative work and learning. Going beyond the study of direct applicability of experience and collective knowledge towards collaborative efficiency, there are two directions in which online group collaboration can be exploited: the first is to promote the way innovation can emerge through the collective contribution of ideas, assisted by the web and the internet, and the second is how it can best serve the intelligent communication between human and machine, over a more efficient framework inspired by human socialization, as this is served and influenced by ICT: namely social networks.

Following this rationale, the rest of sections cover all the referenced areas following the reported sequence of presentation, while a concrete application example of online group collaboration is presented in order to support the theoretical results reported.