Role Management in a Privacy-Enhanced Collaborative Environment

Nowadays, social software is in demand in very different settings. Managing relationships (e.g., social networking sites) and content sharing (e.g., photo sharing), but also collaborative working via the Internet became a widely accepted part of the social lives of people. Especially, collaborative environments provide platforms supporting users in creating and exchanging new ideas, material, and conducting discussions, but also in representing themselves by allowing for according profile management etc., cf. [KR07]. Supporting the users’ privacy in such interactive environments stands in sharp contrast to the objectives of collaboration. However, previous work has shown that different approaches may overcome this ostensible contradiction. One further approach is subject of this paper and consists of a differentiated role management. Accordingly, this paper describes the particular settings of applications shaping Privacy-Enhanced Collaborative Environments (PECE), for which a comprehensive role management has to be realized. The paper discusses the implications on the role concept resulting from the privacy-related settings and introduces a three-dimensional approach for roles in a collaborative environment