Research on the infrastructure system which allows users to build their own groupware without programming

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As World-Wide Web becomes popular, Web-based groupware systems are widely used on the Internet. We believe that the systems will be more useful if the users not only take advantage of them but also reconstruct and improve them. We also expect that such systems will be helpful for the users to collaborate in knowledge development.Coventionally, there are two ways of having a groupware system : developing a system designed to order, and purchasing a commercial product. In both ways, however, it is difficult to have an easy-to-use groupware system at a low cost.We noticed how office workers use a white board. On one hand, they take advantage of its original function ; they write words, draw pictures, and tick magnets on the white board. On the other hand, they combine the white board with vinyl tapes and pieces of paper t have various information-sharing tools themselves.Inspired by this manner of use, we have been developing an infrastructure system, Visual Meta Groupware (or VMG for short), which allows users to build their own groupware without programming. This system provides basic visual components, each of which implements a function essential to a groupware system. The users can place some of the components on a Java applet in a Web browser window in order to integrate the functions into a single groupware system, in the same feeling as they put vinyl tapes and magnets together on a white board. We have also implemented a prototype system and conducted experiments to confirm its effectiveness.Incidentally, there have been several cases of groupware systems that adopt analogy with white boards. However, such a system only simulates a white board's original function to allow users to input letters and figures in a white screen. In addition, there have been several proposals for operating systems that provide infrastructures for groupware. Unlike them, our research focuses on an infrastructure on which end-users can build their own groupware.