Empirical CATeam research in meetings

Meeting research, and especially research on computer supported meetings of natural teams, is not available in abundance. What is reported of meetings often uses a rather limited theoretical research framework and rarely captures the richness, both in theory and practice, of meetings. Also, it is often implicitly assumed that meetings with computer support are very similar to meetings without computer support. However, meetings are very complex-structured, and change dynamically and radically with different technologies involved, and therefore should be looked at from different perspectives. This paper first describes the initial assumptions and premises on which the CATeam (Computer Aided Team) research programme is based, including its background, research environment and the software used. It then analyses changes in meetings supported by group systems from the perspectives of positivist empirical research, case studies and a more ethnographic approach. Observations on facilitation, anonymity, parallelism, task focus, and participation in natural group meetings are discussed in greater detail.<>