FREE online courses on Information Technology - Chapter 2 FRAMEWORKS FOR IT
- Supporting Groups and Cooperative Work-Groupware
One of the most exciting uses of technology is the support of
group and cooperative work. When individuals in different locations need to
communicate with each other to share information, a distributed network of
personal computers with appropriate software can provide a coordination
mechanism. Consider a group of accountants working on an audit assignment. The
members of the accounting firm need to examine a great deal of information. A
computer network with groupware programs keeps various documents in folders that
can be accessed by all of the audit team and this software can greatly
facilitate the audit task. Groupware programs such as Lotus Notes perform this
function. It provides electronic mail and communications and automatically
updates local databases with documents that need to be shared. A developed tool
lets end users create new applications within Notes.
