This research is funded under the Special Initiative on Coordination Theory and Collaboration Technology. This is one of eleven winners under that competition. This project involves an integrated program of theory building, software tool development and assessment, and controlled experiments in distributed group support systems. Such systems embed group decision support system tools and procedures within a computer-mediated communication system. The primary objective of the project is to build a general theory, supported by empirical evidence, to understand how variations in group structures and software tools affect the process and outcome of decision making. This multi-disciplinary effort focusses on synchronous computer conference, in which participants are distributed in different locations, and on asynchronous computer conference, in which participation is distributed in time as well as space.
