Currently I work at the University of Newcastle, in the IT department. The only CSCW application we currently have in place is a product that doubles as our email applicaiton. The product is Novell Groupwise which allows users to email, calendar both shared and personal and share files through the use of a cobinet system which is a shared folder that resides on the server.

Novell Groupwise is probably not the best applicaiton that I have used for CSCW having been given experience with various other systems throughout this course. The role that I perform within this system is that of a member of the IT team where we use email for correspondance and sharing minutes for meetings within the cabinet. This system in the CSCW format will need to be upgraded soon due to the inflexible nature of the product. There are a number of much better collaboration tools available today that would make work alot easier.

The main policies governing the use of this system are a fairly standard corporate email policy. This email policy limits the interactions of the users within the system greatly as any and all correspondance is kept to a professional manner. In a less strict system this would foster the growth of a more team environment by allowing collegues to both work and play and build up a community and team mentatily.

The three strengths of Novell groupwise are:

Its sharing capabilities – Calendar, files

Its instant delivery – messages arrive in almost real time keeping important information flowing.

Ease of use – as it is very similarly laid out to a standard email applicaitons most users are very familiar with its use.

The three weaknesses of the application are:

Its in flexibility – does not allow adaption and adoption of the changing world

lack of public communication – A forum would be a great way to share information and allow people to search through past topics easier.

Permissions – Creating a shared folder it is difficult to allow multiple people access to this folder.

The retension of information through the use of the system is the most difficult aspect. As the main form of communicaiton is via email this makes locating past information more difficult.

Improvements could range from adding better communication tools e.g blogs, forums, and an improved search feature that would allow locating information to be located alot easier.

More recently many of our team members have started using a social networking website called face book. This website is alot more along the lines of some aspects that could be incorporated into a work CSCW. This tool allows each user to have their own profile and communicate with other members of the team. Through the use of this website I have felt a much bigger bond with fellow co workers. As many members of our team are geographically located around Newcastle and the Central Coast this allows us to communicate with each other as well as providing some socaial interaction within the team.

Ideally I believe all aspects of CSCW and social networks can be incorporated effectivly into the workplace environment to aid in building a team mentatilty, providing members within the team accurate and up to date information as well as creating an information repository for new members coming onto the team.