Context-Aware Notification Management in an Integrated Collaborative Environment

The e-collaboration tools available in open environments offer services supporting the interaction and the synchronization between users, who are typically involved in parallel activity spheres; e.g., different projects and home schedules. However, such tools provide the user’s with separate views on her activities and collaborations; moreover, they support workspace awareness by delivering unstructured notification streams, which challenge the user’s attention and cannot be filtered or grouped on a relevance basis. As an answer to this issue, we present an Integrated Collaborative Environment offering a unified view of the user’s parallel collaboration spheres. This environment includes a notification management model supporting the selective deferral of notifications on the basis of the user’s focus of attention.