题 目：A Visualization-based Approach to Dynamic Situation Awareness in Online Group Discussion
主讲人：Dongsong Zhang博士（Department of Information Systems at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA）
时 间：2012年6月19日（周二） 下午16:00
地 点：主楼418会议室
主讲人简介：
Dr. Dongsong Zhang is a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Information Systems at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA. He received his Ph.D. in Management Information Systems from the Eller School of Management at the University of Arizona, one of the top five MIS programs in United States. His current research interests include context-aware mobile computing, computer-mediated collaboration and communication, knowledge management, and e-Business. He has published about 100 papers in academic journals, conference proceedings, and book chapters, including premium journals such as as MIS Quarterly, Journal of Management Information Systems (JMIS), Communications of the ACM (CACM), IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (TKDE), IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, Decision Support Systems, and Information & Management, among others. He has received research grants and awards from National Institution of Health (NIH), Google Inc., and Chinese Academy of Sciences.
内容简介：
Situation awareness (SA) has been well recognized as a critical yet often elusive foundation for effective group decision-making. The task of identifying and understanding dynamic, evolving discussion situation can be quite challenging, especially when coping with information overload and time pressure. With the widely adoption of collaborative software in support of group collaboration, there has been exponential growth of the volume of discussion messages posted online. As a result, the traditional thread-based hierarchical structure and presentation of messages in group discussion software become ineffective in support of real-time SA, which may affect the process and outcome of group collaboration. To address this important problem, in this study, we propose a novel visualization-based approach to supporting users’ SA in online group discussion and decision making. We have also developed a set of new variables to measure SA in online discussion from three key aspects: discussion snapshot, discussion evolution, and people. The proposed approach was empirically evaluated by using a prototype system and discussion data collected from an online group discussion session. The results show that the proposed approach significantly improves user performance and perception of SA in group discussion. We also discover that the positive impact of visualization on SA is moderated by the complexity of SA tasks. The findings of this study provide significant research contributions and practical implications for the design and use of situation-aware collaborative software.