Login2. Collaboration Tasks
2.1 General Tasks
A hydroengineering project demands for several project relevant tasks which have to be considered in the Web based project platform. Main project tasks are:
- business tasks
- office tasks
- technical tasks
Web based collaborative engineering supports these tasks by a set of Web services. These services offered by Web server as hardware/software combination forms a Web based collaboration platform as virtual work space - in case of projects so called Web based project platform.
Business tasks are negotiation, contracting, submission, product and service calculation and prizing, financial balancing, project management and so on. These non technical tasks are associated to the technical parts of a project. Therefore business tasks cannot be considered separately. In respect to the educational character of training exercises at universities business tasks are beyond these lecture notes except project management tasks.
Office tasks include the daily work in an office: Reporting, archive, communication, protocols and all other administration work. These tasks and their results form the base in the cooperation between partners in a project. Office tasks have to be integrated in a Web based project platform to support the collaboration of the involved partners.
Technical tasks are the original tasks of a hydroengineering project in the view of traditional civil, environmental and hydroengineering. Technical tasks are the analysis, comprehension and forecast of the natural processes in respect to human intervention as well as the planning, design, construction, analysis, implementation, management and operation of structures to solve engineering problems.
These lecture notes focus on the technical parts of hydroengineering projects, which are based on simulation models. The consideration of other technical tasks and business tasks in general are beyond these notes. But the interaction of business models and technical models towards global models for water management is an import challenge which needs more effort than just one lecture.
Several tasks have to be supported by technical solutions for Web based collaborative engineering. These tasks can be classified in a general matter as:
- communication
- documentation
- coordination
These three tasks will be described in some more details.
2.2 Communication
Communication deals with the exchange and sharing of information. There are different levels of communication such as oral, written and mimic conversation. From the technical point of view four kinds of communication can be distinguished.
- information exchange
- information sharing
- discussion
- conferencing
Information exchange is the transfer of any kind of information from one communication partner to one or more other partners. The information to be exchanged will be duplicated for this purpose. Information sharing is the common use (access, reading, authoring, management) of information units by several communication partners. The information to be shared will not be duplicated or transferred in networks. Discussion are a flexible, managed conversation form between several partners based on oral or written information exchange. Examples from the Internet are text based chat rooms. Conferencing is a more broaden target oriented activity to integrate information exchange and sharing as well as discussion. Video conferencing integrates audio/video transmission in the Internet.
2.3 Documentation
Documentation deals with the long term exchange of information esp. knowledge and experience in general and project relevant information such as comprehensible decisions. Typical documentation tasks are:
- reading and authoring
- reporting and drawing
- experience exchange
- knowledge exchange
Project information are documented in closely linked documents such as reports, drawings, milestones, letters, papers, publications, tutorials and guide-lines. Authoring and reading of traditional sequential paper based documents are not sufficient for the complex information in engineering projects and the different level of information retrieval (e.g. technical, economical, ecological, social views on the project objects). Dynamic interactive hyperlink documents based on Web technology combine technical information, multi-media presentation and flexible document structures. Design, simulation and construction models, reports and drawings can be integrated in such kind of documents to overcome the traditional separation of data (information), graphical presentation (drawings) and written descriptions (reports).
2.4 Coordination
Coordination deals with the organization, monitoring and control of actions and information access as well as the management of all kinds of resources to determine the working process in a collaboration. Typical coordination tasks are:
- work-flow management
- time management
- resource management
- voting and decision support
The different tasks require suitable tools and corresponding working methods. Typical properties which have to be considered for the selection of supporting tools and working methods are accuracy, convenience, secretiveness and reliability.
Coordination in projects is an internal task inside teams to support the internal discussion and decision/agreement finding process towards a common target and strategy. Vertical coordination is based on order of an upper level and execution/confirmation on a lower level (e.g. team leader and team member). Horizontal coordination is based on voting mechanisms between equal partners and demands a high level of capacity for team-work and compromises from the involved partners.
© FM April 2001
