Explorations of the Effects of Distance on Group Work Using Organizational Simulations and Agent-based Modeling

Open in new window

Speaker
Judith S. Olson
Richard W. Pew Professor of Human Computer Interaction, University of Michigan

When
-

Where
Newell-Simon Hall 1305 (Michael Mauldin Auditorium)

Description

The internet has made it possible for teams to conduct their work without having to be collocated. We have been studying how distance affects teamwork, both in the lab and in the field. We have studied “virtual teams” in corporate settings and “collaboratories” in science and engineering. We have done laboratory studies of small groups of people working over audio/video and a number of shared applications and electronic whiteboards. The results from these studies do not always mesh, likely because the field work is messy and lab work too constrained. More recently, we have made the lab work more complicated by using “organizational simulations” with groups of 10 people working in various arrangements of collocation and remote locations for several hours. I will report on three such studies. Since the results are complex and thus the explanations hard to sort out, we have additionally employed agent based modeling-agents programmed with simple behavioral rules that we believe account for the complex results. I will talk about the modeling effort and how we both verify the models and explore the space of possible explanations. One of the main results has to do with the downside of collocation-that by favoring those who are “at hand,” performance suffers.

Speaker's Bio

Judith Olson is the Richard W. Pew Professor of Human Computer Interaction at the University of Michigan. She is a professor in the School of Information, the Business School, and the Psychology Department. She got her Ph.D. in Psychology at the University of Michigan then held a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University before returning to Michigan as a faculty member. Except for three years at Bell Labs and a year at Rank Xerox Cambridge, UK, she has been at Michigan her entire professorial life. Her research focuses on the technology and social practices necessary for successful distance work, encompassing both laboratory and field study methods. She has served on a number of editorial boards and panels for both the National Research Council and the National Science Foundation. She was one of the first seven inductees into the CHI Academy, and in 2006 was granted the CHI Lifetime Achievement Award.

Speaker's Website
http://www.crew.umich.edu/people/jolson.html

Host
Sara Kiesler