Supporting Synchronous Communication In
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
ING-INF/05 SUPPORTING SYNCHRONOUS COMMUNICATION IN DISTRIBUTED SOFTWARE TEAMS by Fabio Calefato A Thesis Submitted to the Department of Computer Science in Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Bari, Italy Advisor: Professor Filippo Lanubile PhD Coordinator: Professor Anna Maria Fanelli January, 2007 © Copyright by Fabio Calefato 2007 ii To Me, My Family, and Everyone Else I Care About: You Know Who You Are iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I want to thank my advisor, Prof. Filippo Lanubile for accepting me as a PhD student and for all of his support throughout these three intense years. I hope I absorbed from him even just a smallest part of his skills. Thanks also to Dr. Daniela Damian for giving me the chance to conduct the experiment at UVic and for her valuable guidance during my stay in Canada. A big ‘thank you’ goes to all the affiliates with the CDG/Collab: Daniela, for her patience and tolerance with me and my jokes; Domenico, for turning me in a TV- show junkie; Mario, for his work with the development of eConference. Thanks also to all the people who have shared lunch with us in the lab, bringing in a little more fun and distraction. Many thanks to Rocco Oliveto, Fausto Fasano, and the other guys at the University of Salerno for sharing with me some relevant papers from ‘inaccessible digital libraries.’ Thanks also to Vincenzo Fiorentino and Roberto Kudlica at the CSI for sharing their printing facilities. Thanks to the graduate and undergraduate students who have helped me with the development of my project. Thanks to Google Scholar. I cannot imagine my ‘research life’ without it. Thanks to my friends in my hometown, who never complained about my presence, but did complain about my complete absence lately. The biggest thanks go to my family for keeping me away from any worry, giving me the chance to keep myself focused only on my work in the last ‘heavy’ months. Last but not least, I can’t do without thanking Pearl Jam: Thank you guys, you can hardly imagine all that you have done for me and what your works mean to me. I’ll always cherish the memories of your concert in Italy (Pistoia, Sept. 20, 2006) and try to keep on rockin’ in a free world, as much as I can! January 2007, Fabio iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................................................... VIII ABSTRACT (IN ITALIAN) ................................................................................................................. XI LIST OF TABLES .............................................................................................................................. XIV LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................................ XVI CHAPTER 1 : INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 18 1.1. BACKGROUND ........................................................................................................................ 18 1.2. OUTLINE OF THE RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS ....................................................................... 24 1.3. OUTLINE OF THE THESIS STRUCTURE .................................................................................... 24 CHAPTER 2 : THE ROLE OF DISTRIBUTED REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING IN DISTRIBUTED SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT .............................................................................. 26 2.1. THE BENEFITS OF DISTRIBUTED SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ................................................ 26 2.2. THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF DISTANCE .................................................................................. 28 2.3. REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING ............................................................................................... 33 2.3.1. Requirements Elicitation .................................................................................................. 35 2.3.2. Requirements Negotiation ................................................................................................ 37 2.4. DISTRIBUTED REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING ........................................................................ 39 2.4.1. Tool Support for Distributed Requirements Workshop ................................................... 40 2.5. SUMMARY .............................................................................................................................. 42 CHAPTER 3 : GROUP RESEARCH ................................................................................................... 43 3.1. METHODS FOR GROUP RESEARCH ......................................................................................... 43 3.2. TASK CLASSIFICATION FRAMEWORKS ................................................................................... 46 3.3. GROUP DYNAMICS ................................................................................................................. 49 3.4. TEAMS WITH NO PAST AND FUTURE, OR AD HOC GROUPS ................................................... 51 3.5. CHALLENGES AND NEEDS IN SUPPORTING DISTRIBUTED AD HOC GROUPS ......................... 54 3.6. SUMMARY .............................................................................................................................. 57 CHAPTER 4 : COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION ................................................... 58 4.1. STILL MOTIVATION FOR RESEARCH ON TEXT-BASED COMMUNICATION? ........................... 58 4.2. SOCIAL PRESENCE THEORY ................................................................................................... 60 4.3. MEDIA RICHNESS THEORY ..................................................................................................... 61 4.4. COMMON GROUND THEORY .................................................................................................. 63 4.5. MEDIA SYNCHRONICITY THEORY .......................................................................................... 66 4.6. MEDIA RICHNESS PARADOX .................................................................................................. 71 4.7. SUMMARY .............................................................................................................................. 75 CHAPTER 5 : DEVELOPMENT OF A COMPREHENSIVE FRAMEWORK FOR GROUP, TASK, AND MEDIA FACTORS .......................................................................................................... 76 5.1. MANAGING THE CONTEXT: THE INTERTWINED EFFECTS OF TASK, MEDIA, AND GROUP FACTORS ............................................................................................................................................... 76 5.2. MATCHING TASK AND MEDIA CHARACTERISTICS ................................................................. 77 5.2.1. Time-Interaction-Performance Theory ............................................................................ 78 5.2.2. Task/Technology Fit Theory ............................................................................................. 79 5.3. MATCHING GROUP AND MEDIA CHARACTERISTICS .............................................................. 80 5.4. DEVELOPMENT OF A COMPREHENSIVE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .................................... 81 v 5.5. SUMMARY .............................................................................................................................. 84 CHAPTER 6 : TOOL SUPPORT FOR DISTRIBUTED TEAMS ................................................... 86 6.1. COMPUTER-SUPPORTED COOPERATIVE WORK AND GROUPWARE ........................................ 86 6.2. HISTORY AND FOCUS OF CSCW AND GROUPWARE .............................................................. 88 6.3. EMAIL, THE ONLY SUCCESSFUL COLLABORATIVE TOOL? .................................................... 92 6.3.1. Resolving Points of Friction in Collaborative Tools ....................................................... 94 6.4. REDUCING DISTANCE WITH PRESENCE AWARENESS ............................................................. 94 6.4.1. Adding Social Translucence to Collaborative Tools ....................................................... 99 6.5. JABBERPRESENCE, A MOZILLA THUNDERBIRD EXTENSION ................................................ 101 6.6. SUMMARY ............................................................................................................................ 109 CHAPTER 7 : THE ECONFERENCE TOOL: HISTORY AND EVOLUTION ......................... 110 7.1. ECONFERENCE ...................................................................................................................... 110 7.2. 1ST GENERATION: P2PCONFERENCE ..................................................................................... 111 7.2.1. Project JXTA ................................................................................................................... 116 7.2.2. The Impact of JXTA ........................................................................................................ 118 7.2.3. Lesson Learned: Stability as a Key Aspect .................................................................... 122 7.3. 2ND GENERATION: ECONFERENCE ......................................................................................... 123 7.3.1. Jabber/XMPP .................................................................................................................