Cooperation in parallel : a tool for supporting collaborative writing in diverged documents

This thesis builds on theory from the fields of computer supported cooperative work and computer supported collaborative writing and the example of work in the free and open source software development communities to describe "cooperation in parallel" - a mode of collaborative writing among parties with diverged goals and distinct documents. It examines the social and technological requirements of cooperation in parallel for writing and considers the effectiveness of existing technologies ability to address them. It then presents the design and evaluation of TextNet: a wiki for document writing that uses techniques from software development including branch creation and tracking features and introduces a text-specific interface for merging changes and representing and resolving conflicts. It concludes by arguing that TextNet makes important steps toward the support cooperation in parallel for writing.

Department dc:contributor.department

Program in Media Arts and Sciences (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Hill, Benjamin Mako

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Walter Bender.

• Architecture. Program in Media Arts and Sciences.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/41740

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/41740