Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Making it easier for employees because of business traveling, consolidates services, and
assists in the communication processes.
Increasing productivity because employees' are more focused with business related
projects with only a single system to interact in.
Making collaborations with team members easier with a singular virtual workplace.
Allowing a company to reach more of its employees via meeting workspaces and
virtual training sessions (Shafia, Ebrahim, Ahmed, & Taha, 2009)(Hertel, Geister, &
Konradt, 2005) (Demster, 2005).
Some challenges to integrating virtual workspaces still exist. For example, some challenges
of implementation of virtual workplaces are:
Failure to leverage the technology that supports virtual workplaces resulting in
decrease in productivity.
Lack of human contact effecting team motivation, trust and productivity.
Increased sensitivity to communication, interpersonal and cultural factors.
Increased number and use of various formal and informal communications channels
with the constantly-expanding use of social networking sites (Greenlee, 2003) (Powell,
Piccoli, & Ives, 2004).
3. The need for a virtual collaborative workspace framework
The exponential growth of the World Wide Web (WWW) over the past two decades has
driven both technological innovation and increased senstivity to immediacy in
communication and collaborative business functions. As the web has evolved so too has our
desire to become more involved with the process of content-sharing and content-creation.
Now new web-based semantic technologies are providing smarter, more meaningful
content and virtual world technologies are presenting that content with a new level of depth
and interactivity (Lesko & Hollingsworth, 2010). Additionally, we do this all faster and with
less willingness to wait for the process to evolve. As an interface, today's virtual
collaborative technologies provide users with some unique capabilities including:
Shared Space: the world allows multiple users to participate at once.
Graphical User Interface: the world depicts space visually.
Immediacy: interaction takes place in real time.
Interactivity: the world allows users to alter, develop, build, or submit customized
content.
Persistence: the world's existence continues regardless of whether individual users are
logged in.
Socialization/Community: the world allows and encourages the formation of in-world
social groups (Book, 2008).
As a collaborative medium virtual workspace integration within any business requires some
basic understanding of four key components. Those four key components are as follows:
1.
Business Environment - this component recognizes both the internal and external
factors that may impact the process of use of the collaborative medium. Factors such as
geographical location, corporate policies and procedures, and collaborations with
