Supporting shared representations in collaborative activities: Introduction to the Special issue

International audienceIn many collaborative activities related to problem framing or solving, shared representations of the subject/object of the work provide some sort of mediation capability to the participants while performing their activity. Particularly the status and history of these shared representations are often central to the activities (O'Neill et al., 2011). Examples of such collaborative activities include online video or music creation, product design, emergency management diagnostics in healthcare, and remote device troubleshooting. Many other examples can be found in domains where an activity is carried out collectively and distributed over time and/or space