The shared online whiteboard: An assistance tool to synchronous collaborative design

National audienceIntroductionThe work presented in this paper comes from an industrial need for the development of new support tools for remote collaborative design. Within this framework, we present a literature review on this concept and propose the development of an online collaborative whiteboard.ObjectiveThis study aims to determine whether or not shared whiteboards can be used for remote design task collaboration, in conjunction with online chat interactions. It additionally seeks to discover if the organization of relationships and interactions within groups alter the structure of task completion.MethodThis tool was evaluated through the remote design task of a data structure diagram with data collected from 42 computer science students. This approach was carried out through students in triads, separated into different rooms who communicated via online chat and/or whiteboard. There were two variables in this experimental design, the presence or absence of a project leader and the sequencing of exchanges (each member asked permission to use the tool). This experiment aimed to determine whether the task requested could be performed and if similarities to a natural situation could be observed. Data was collected from actions performed on the whiteboard and chat interactions. The observations were conducted using a verbal interactions observation grid that was taken from a natural synchronous collaborative design situation. It included different dimensions such as cognitive synchronization, the proposal and evaluation of solutions and non-task oriented interactions.ResultsThe results show that the tool allows students to collaborate. A variety of behaviors can be observed in terms of whiteboard usage and chat interactions that depend on the experimental conditions. This study shows that the tool may be used in a natural situation and that group consciousness and coordination are very important factors in this type of task. It is clear that the nature of the chat interaction depends on the role of the subject within the group. We also observed a high level of non-task oriented communication, which was more than we expected.ConclusionThe shared online whiteboard designed in this study allows for the completion of a collaborative design task with different groups structures