Databases and Groupware Comparing Groupware

Databases and Groupware

Comparing GroupWare and Databases

The reliance of workgroups on collaborative online work areas, commonly called groupware, has changed the role of databases in organizations globally. The intent of this paper is to define the differences and integration points between groupware and databases. The social aspects of how online collaboration is also explored through an analysis of empirical analysis in the integration of databases to support group-based process workflows (Lou, Scamell, Shah, 2006). Studies also refer to the interaction of groupware applications and databases are often referred to as Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) (Bandera, Filippi, Motyl, 2006).

Groupware Defined

The progression of online workspaces has been accelerating as development of global work teams pervades the world's organizations. It is common to find work teams and new product development teams spanning three or more continents (Aurum, Daneshgar, Ward, 2008). At the foundation of these processes for managing work group workflows is the managing of knowledge and its classification into taxonomies that are relevant to the work team's needs (Denton, 2006). Groupware then concentrates on bringing the most relevant information to the process workflows of teams that may be in the same building or across continents. The critical aspect of these workflow processes is the ability to quickly define new taxonomies for managing information in multiple databases at the same time. As a result of this requirement of groupware and more specifically the needs of teams, groupware forces a high level of integration across databases in any organization (Riemer, Frbler, 2007). Many of these organizations progress to offering real-time access to their many databases through a groupware portal such as Microsoft SharePoint for example (Babar, Kitchenham, Zhu, Gorton, Jeffery, 2006).

Progression of Groupware

While groupware has been around for decades, its increasing use within the last several years is being driven by the catalyst of higher levels of integration between databases that had previously been siloed and not capable of contributing to workgroup-based workflows. The critical requirement of supporting knowledge management in the context of development teams has empirically proven to improve workforce productivity across globally distributed work teams for example (Bandera, Filippi, Motyl, 2006). In this respect the CSCW platform becomes an integral foundation to ensuring workflow processes critical for a team to accomplish its objectives are clearly planned and executed upon (Belanger, Allport, 2008). What's becoming the collaborative catalyst of making teams work more efficiently together has been the transparency and immediacy of information now available in these collaborative workspaces, creating increased trust throughout groups in the process. Development teams no longer have to rely on just a single team person to gain access to a drawing or document, these collaborative workspaces or portals can provide check-in/check-out functionality for any document a team chooses to share. Further, these integration of databases, not possible before, makes it possible for teams to gain greater insights into how their teams' efforts can be augmented and increased by better data and information. The use of taxonomies that are specifically designed to support the processes that teams use to complete tasks is now also possible within groupware applications, a feature not available in previous applications. The bottom line is that groupware is augmenting the collaboration necessary to ensure global development teams are successfully attaining their objectives, made possible with greater levels of database integration than has been possible in the past.