Real-Time Cooperative Editing on the Internet

C omputer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) or groupware systems allow physically dispersed teams to engage in a common task by providing an interface to a shared workspace.1 Real-time cooperative editing systems extend the usefulness of CSCW applications by allowing team members to simultaneously view and edit shared documents. Both the CSCW and distributed computing communities have addressed the technical challenges of these systems since the mid-1980s (for example, see Ellis and Gibbs2 and Rodden3). More recently, commercial products such as Microsoft NetMeeting have emerged to support some cooperative editing processes (see http://www.microsoft.com/ windows/NetMeeting/Features/). Our research investigates the principles and techniques underlying the construction of cooperative editing systems that feature