A framework for interoperability of heterogeneous systems

Many organisations rely on a wide variety of collaborative applications in order to support their every day activities and to share resources. The collaborative applications are typically designed from scratch if the existing applications do not meet organisational needs. This incurs significant costs, and inconvenience. This paper reports on work concerning the integration of existing collaborative applications or computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) in order to support collaborative activities of organisations. This is a part of our research towards investigating and developing an integrative framework for CSCW applications. It will be flexible enough to accommodate the various and varying needs of the organisation's community. We discuss different types of integration model and interoperability in CSCW and consider different models of CSCW systems. A framework for CSCW integration is presented. The framework includes ontological, coordination, and user interface models.