Dynamism and Data Management in Distributed, Collaborative Working Environments

Due to globalization and environmental challenges, there is a growing interest in adopting collaborative technologies to support distributed virtual enterprises to work as virtual teams, reducing time, cost and need for travel. This paper presents the approach taken by the CoSpaces project [1] in developing a collaborative technology platform for distributed engineering organizations. In particular, this paper overviews the ongoing work of the “Dynamic Session Management System” which provides the dynamic integration of decision making and communication tools within the entire CoSpaces software framework. It also reports on how data management and sharing within this dynamic infrastructure is handled while addressing the security concerns of certain individual companies.