Towards a common foundation for Web-based collaboration

As the importance of Web and Internet-based support for collaboration increases, the confusion and unnecessary duplication of work resulting from multiple independently developed and mutually incompatible collaboration tools increases as well. In this vision-oriented contribution, we argue that it is time to start exploring a shared conceptual foundation underlying all inter-networked collaborative tools. We propose a possible conceptual framework for such a foundation and report on our current experiment aimed at exploring the validity, completeness, and usefulness of one of its possible manifestations. In the conclusion, we argue that our vision is open to unlimited extension and can accommodate all forms of virtual collaboration and take advantage of all existing and as yet undiscovered forms of distributed information technology.