A collaborative working environment (CWE) supports people (e.g., e-professionals) in their individual and cooperative work. Research in CWE involves organisational, technical, and social issues.
The following applications or services are considered elements of a CWE:
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Working practices are evolving from the traditional proximity or geographical collocation paradigm to a virtual collocation paradigm where professionals work together whatever their geographical location. In this context, e-professionals use a collaborative working environment which provides the capabilities to share information[1] and exchange views in order to reach a common understanding. Such a level of common understanding enables an effective and efficient collaboration among different expertises.
The concept of CWE is derived from the concept of virtual workspaces[2][3], and is related to the concept of ework; it extends the traditional concept of the professional to include any type of knowledge worker who intensively uses information and communications technology (ICT) environments and tools[4] in their working practices. Typically a group of eprofessionals conducts their collaborative work through the use of collaborative working environments (CWE)[5].
The CWE concept refers to online collaboration (i.e. virtual teams,[6] mass collaboration,[7] massively distributed collaboration[8]), online communities of practice, such as the open source community, and open innovation principles.