Developing a Taxonomy of Characteristics and Features of Collaboration Tools for Teams in Distributed Environments

摘要

Collaboration refers to all processes where people work together to achieve results. With the advent of computers and the Internet, many collaboration tools have emerged. Synchronous collaboration tools require a team to work at the same time. Asynchronous tools allow a team to work at different times. This final report investigates the available features of these tools, the meanings of these features, identifies common and key features, and develops a taxonomy based on these features. The PI and the team did an extensive market survey of collaboration tools. To gain first hand experience, the PI and team installed and tested nine synchronous collaboration tools and nine asynchronous collaboration tools. This final report consists of three parts: surveying synchronous collaboration tools, surveying asynchronous collaboration tools, and developing a working taxonomy of collaboration tools.