Collective Intelligence In Organizations: Toward a Research Agenda

A new generation of web tools is penetrating organizations after successful adoption within the consumer domain (e.g., social networking; sharing of photos, videos, tags, or bookmarks; wiki-based editing). These tools and the collaborative processes they support on the large scale are often referred to as Collective Intelligence (CI).

This workshop, co-organized by PARC, XRCE, IBM Research, and University of Milano-Bicocca, will focus on CI tools for collaboration in work-related settings, especially for task forces now increasingly common in industry and government. The workshop is aimed at refining the problem; summarizing pioneering work on CI in general (i.e., exemplars of practices and tools); presenting specific design requirements, CI tools, and/or new methods; and ultimately developing a research agenda that specifically addresses the problem of supporting CI among knowledge workers in organizations.

Information For Workshop Attendees

1. Before the Workshop

You will get an invitation via email: register and use the private wiki: http://ciorg.wikispaces.com

Please read the other participants' position statements before the workshop [see right sidebar or wiki] to ensure familiarity with the experiences and goals of other attendees -- especially because only 6 of the 18 position papers will be presented. Since two discussants will also be paired to each presented paper, discussants will need to be prepared to ask a question of the presenter during the Q&A portion.

2. Workshop Schedule

Section 1 (9:00 - 10:30)

• Introductions, followed by two invited talks by: (1) David Millen, IBM Research; and (2) Josh Richau, Jive Software.

Break (10:30 - 11:00)

Section 2 (11:00-1:00)

• Short presentations (10 minutes + 5 for questions) of 6 position papers, which were chosen because they offer a wide range of different topics and perspectives that we expect will broaden the workshop group discussion
  
• Designated discussants will pose questions to presenters as part of each presentation
  

Lunch and Posters/Demos (1:00-2:00)

• Participants (labeled with a *) will give a 3-5 minutes preview of their paper using the poster

Section 3 (2:00 - 4:00)

• Brainstorming to outline the key discussion topics for the day; participants will divide into small groups, moderated by the attending workshop organizers and invited speakers, and sketch a proposed research agenda [see Workshop Themes and Design Questions below for potential topics]

Break (4:00-4:30)

Section 4 (4:30-6:00)

• Reconvene to summarize directions identified during the breakout discussions, survey key research, outline a research agenda with specific tasks for the group, check interest in publication plans and re-edition of the workshop, and regroup

Dinner (TBD)

Workshop Themes & Design Questions

Themes

1. Empirical studies of work practices in organizations, e.g., case studies of taskforces illustrating practices and design requirements
2. Designs of new software tools or proof-of-concept prototypes supporting CI in task forces, communities, or in-depth evaluations of tools already deployed that support CI in organization
3. Theoretical contributions on collective intelligence, crowdsourcing, and community-based learning in organizations, which can directly inform design and research
4. Cases of multidisciplinarity research showing the interplay between field studies, analysis of requirements, and development of CI tools

Design Questions

1. What are the information sharing processes that constitute the context to the various activities and what features of CI tools that can capture these?
2. What are available traces from previous activities and how they be exploited for the current activity?
3. What is the degree of domain modeling that the tools need to support to leverage content created and shared?
4. What visualizations and abstractions can help to monitor and make sense of the activities of others?
5. How do organizational mechanisms such as trust, motivation/incentives, attribution, traceability of information and activity flows; how can they be 'designed in' (modeled or accounted for in) the CI tools?
6. What mix of research methods, such field studies and logs analysis, are suitable for CI research and design?