Process-oriented Coordination of Collaborations in Social Networks

Social networks are known to stimulate the exchange and sharing of information among peers. Even more social networks can initiate a cooperation (e.g., people sharing music) and a collaboration (e.g., searching for collaborators for research works). However, social networks are not widely used as work resources (e.g., for help or support request) mostly due to missing coordination mechanisms. This paper describes how collaboration can be coordinated in social networks. The proposed way to achieve this is based on the usage of a set of activity lists of social network members. An activity list specifies all personal activities required to reach a collaborative output. Based on the activity lists a process model can be generated that controls and analyzes the coordination. Activities requiring collaboration are performed using social network. The approach is illustrated with a use case.