Transcript sutcliffe-resc11 - UCL Computer Science

Analysing Social Computing Requirements
with Small Group Theory
Alistair Sutcliffe
Manchester Business School
University of Manchester,
Manchester M15 6PB,
UK
Social Computing Workshop RE 2011
Motivations
• Social computing requirements raises problems about
how people coordinate activity and work together
• Social RE needs to consider the psychology of how
people act together
• No systematic treatment of groupware requirements in
RE
• Solution- apply theory from social psychology as a
framework for requirements analysis
Small Group Theory
Arrow et al 2000
• Taxonomy of group types- teams, crews, task forces, social groups
• Evolutionary view- formation- emergence- enactmentmetamorphosis/ senescence
• Attractors- forces than influence group composition & behaviour
• Within group (local dynamics) and whole group (global dynamics)
views
• Some criteria for group success / effectiveness (semi predictive
theory)
Small Group Model
Arrow et al (2000) Small groups as complex systems
Emergent properties:
cohesion-integrity
effectiveness- goals
conflict managed
satisfy members
process information
Global
dynamics
influences
Local
dynamics
Knowledge Skills Abilities
Values Beliefs Attitudes
Personal Cognitive Behavioural styles
Agents
Networks of Agents,
Tasks, Tools
Global Dynamics
emergent properties
• Fulfil member needs- satisfy individual/ organisational goals
• Motivate members
• Maintain group integrity- cohesion, coordination,
• Manage conflict, develop consensus
• Process information & generate knowledge
• Complete group projects- performance effectiveness
Measure by performance, information output, attitude surveys,
observation of behaviour
Analysis Process
• Task- Agent- Tool network- roles and work organisation
- agents allocated to tasks
- tools (functional requirements) provided to support tasks
- coordination requirements
• Knowledge Skill Abilities analysis
- agents have necessary skills and knowledge
- tasks allocated to people with appropriate abilities
- training and information support requirements
• Value Belief Attitude analysis
- people values point to NFR/ soft goals
- value clashes need to be resolved, e.g. privacy
- monitoring and control implications e.g. autonomy,
responsibility, authority
Case study example
Local Government Task Group
Vehicle Crime
Task Group
Police
Local
Authority
Schools &
Colleges
Youth
Car Maintenance
Educational Charity
• Members- 1-2 representative from each organisation
• Concocted group- formed by a government initiative
• Mission to reduce vehicle crime, focus on youth education, reduce repeat
offences
Task Tool Network
6
Reduce
vehicle
theft
target
individuals
1
Identify
repeat
offenders
Crime reports DB-GIS
3
Change
attitudes
Police
4
Deter
vehicle
burnouts
Charity
Offender DB-GIS
Schools
2
Reduce
truancy
School records
Schools
Police
tool, resource
agency, organisation
Police
5
Remove
burnouts
Local
authority
Membership Analysis KSA
Knowledge
Skills
Abilities
Police
Local Authority
Schools
Charity
Offenders ID
strategies,
Crime details
1
Social conditions?
Youth culture
motivations
2, 3
Youth culture
motivations
2, 3
Detecting
offenders,
Making arrests
2, 4
Information
processing
5
Education
3
Training,
counselling
3
Prevent crime
2
Catch criminals
4
Removing
environmental
hazards
5
Tasks
1 Identify offenders
4 Deter burnouts
Influence attitudes
3
2 Reduce truancy
5 Remove burnouts
3 Change attitudes
6 Reduce theft
Mentoring
3
Requirements Implications
• Skills- appropriate skills present in group
• Knowledge – distributed in several databases, needed
integration, especially for map/geographic views
• Values- clashes between group members on privacy, security,
openness
• Task support- information requirements
- history of crime, locations
- context of crime
- offenders profile
- previous responses
- future plans to prevent crime
- tracking progress
Technology support analysis
1. GIS system
problems in ownership & access- controlled by Police &
Local Authority
data protection and de-personalisation procedures very
slow- resource issue
training and usability- not easy to learn
2. E-mail and communications
poor integration, incompatible systems, firewalls, lack of
investment
Requirements Implications
• Need for system integration- but political and economic problemsprivacy, data sharing, system ownership
• Requirements for customisation poor fit of COTS GIS solutions
• Requirements for group coordination, shared awareness, IM, email,
document exchange
• Task support requirements- multi-database search, action agendas,
progress tracking.
• Social requirements- motivations, consensus management,
negotiation.
Generic RequirementsCSCW systems
• Achieving goals: agendas and progress tracking
• Social-level monitoring- shared awareness
• Generating and sharing knowledge: visualisation
• Maintaining integrity: shared awareness
• Promoting agreement: negotiation support, summarising voting
functions
• Motivating members- persuasion & rewards
Conclusions
• Small group theory provides a useful framework/ checklist
of requirements issue for CSCW system
• Agent task tool model extends i* with user values,
knowledge & skills
• Solutions do require knowledge of theory and group
psychology
• Generic requirements linked to design implications for
groupware systems- can provide useful starting point
Generic Requirements:
Social systems perspective
(Sutcliffe et al IJHCI 2011)
Relationships
profiles
visibility of
relationships
Communication
support
text
image
persistent
conversations
blogs
membership
control
Social support
monitoring
access search
Task support
msg content
authoring
narrowcast
clique group
formation
multi-channel
communication
social
presence
voice
video
avatars
Virtual
worlds
social
awareness
broadcast
reward
mechanisms
synchronous
asynchronous
social
policies
control
privacy
security
controls
Groups and
Communities
coordination
mechanisms
Limitations
• Applies only to goal oriented groupware- CSCW
computer supported collaborative work
• Limited to small groups <20 members, but large goal
oriented groups are either hierarchically organised or
distributed so can scale
• Social media oriented systems have different (social)
goals, however
• E-communities and SNS (social network sites) share
many of the generic requirements issues.