Coordination support for scalable collaborative work

In this paper we discuss the principles, design options and implementation issues to support coordination and awareness services in the context of scalable CSCW sessions. We analyze essential differences between the coordination support needed by these sessions when compared with the conventional coordination activity within workflow systems. Then we propose a flexible support model, which is more adequate for group-oriented collaborative work tasks developed in the context of a more complex workgroup activity. The support is concerned with a set of adaptable mechanisms as well as system base components and services provided by an integrated, open and extensible support platform. These components implement a set of facilities for coordination and awareness control in the context of collaboration sessions.