| Sumario: | Orwell's 1984 has not come to pass and HAL of 2001 looks to be a conjecture, still much effort has been expended in search of the proper role in society for computer technology. This conference represents a refocusing of that role with the emphasis upon the cooperative working group and the computer technology which best supports it under various conditions of time and space. I would like to welcome the conference participants to the beginning of this refocusing. Some of the issues that the organizers raised during the concept formation for CSCW'86 (as reflected by their diverse disciplines involve: 1) the nature of cooperative work groups - including group aspects (e.g. mission, identity, leadership, cohesive makeup, embedded organization and interaction time/space) as well as individual aspects (e.g.contribution, commitment, need satisfaction, and role playing). An ideal situation would have all members knowing and sharing common goals, suggesting ways to reach those goals, and taking responsibility in carrying out the associated work. Questions raised attempt to bound and define cooperative work and identify those things which enable it to occur effectively, e.g.- in what situations is a shared information space (model) necessary?- what are interesting modes of cooperation (e.g. design)?- how important is negotiation and conflict resolution?- is CSCW a better abstraction than Office Automation (OA?2) the nature of technology - including current (e.g. networking) as well as the potential for improvements with future technology from a number of technical arenas (e.g. AI, Human-Computer Interfaces). Questions raised attempt to clarify technology developments, e.g. - what are the hard problems holding back technology developments?- what are the multi-user interface issues?- how can AI help?3 the nature of the relationship between groups and technology (now and for the future) and how we learn from the study of that. Questions raised include:- what is the proper balance of control between humans and machines?- what are the effects of current technology on group structures?- what is the effect of the trend toward an information-basedsociety of highly specialized and dispursed experts that need to cooperate via computer assistance to solve the complex problems of the future (e.g. Strategic Defense Initiative).?- how will technological innovation effect the way large-scale group activity is organized in the future?-,what methods do we have to understand/study these phenomena?Perhaps as a result of your participation in this conference, the critical issues of CSCW will be better understood.Welcome to CSCW '86. This first conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work offers a special opportunity to review the status of an exciting new field. The program combines reports of industrial experiences, advanced system developments and preliminary theories aimed at understanding how groups of people work together.There were eighty submissions and thirty accepted papers. The submissions were of very high quality. We regret that many excellent papers could not be accepted. Every paper was read by at least four committee members; most were reviewed by seven or eight. Nevertheless, full referees' reports were not provided; we expect that final revisions of most of the papers in these proceedings will subsequently appear in refereed journals.Despite the diverse backgrounds of the program committee members, the reviewing process revealed a surprising consensus about the nature of this new field. The committee chose to avoid parallel sessions so attendees can expose themselves to the full set of topics represented.
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