Date: Wednesday, November 28; 4:00p - 5:00p

Location: 301 College Avenue, Seminar Room

Note: 3:45 - 4:00p will be our reception. Following the talk, the reception will continue from 5:00 - 5:15p.

Abstract:

During the summer of 1993 I spent two months watching children play computer and video games at a Science Museum. This early project dictated the course of my research over the past 15 years. What inspired me most was how well the children were able to play together and how much they enjoyed playing with one another. Nevertheless, it was clear that the computer was not designed appropriately to support these children, nor others who wanted to work, or play with others. Fast-forward 15 years later; connecting users has become a huge priority; however, computers are still designed primarily for individual users. While advances in social computing now enable users to keep in touch in with colleagues, friends, and family spread all over the world, they still cannot easily sit in their living room and book a holiday vacation with their spouse. We are still limited by the one-user/one-computer foundation of PC technology and cannot easily integrate technology into the rich fabric of our face-to-face interactions.

In this talk I will present results from my research over the past 15 years that strives to understand co-located collaboration and how technology can be used to enhance our interactions with others. My research began with supporting children's collaboration around a computer and then shifted to more general computer support for collaboration, including tabletop displays, multi-display collaboration environments, and mobile computing. While support for face-to-face collaboration has been the dominant theme throughout this research, I have also examined many other facets such as privacy and evaluation methodology. I will close the talk by reflecting on this body of work and describe how the future of multi-user computing has the potential to connect people in new and interesting ways.

Bio:

Kori Inkpen is a Professor in the Faculty of Computer Science at Dalhousie University and is currently a Visiting Researcher at Microsoft Research.  Kori received an Honours Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and Mathematics from Dalhousie University and a Doctorate in Computer Science from the University of British Columbia. Before joining the Faculty at Dalhousie, she was an Assistant Professor at Simon Fraser University. Kori's research focuses on exploring alternative computing environments to effectively support people when they work or play with others in a face-to-face environment, including tabletop displays, large screen displays, and ad-hoc collaboration with handheld and laptop computers.  The goal of her research is to support natural, seamless interaction so that people can work together without having to worry about making the technology work. Kori is head of the Exploring Dynamic Groupware Environments (EDGE) Lab at Dalhousie University and is active in a variety of research communities including ACM CSCW, CHI, UIST,UBICOMP, and GROUP.

For more information, please contact Dan Cosley.

[schedule]

11-27-2007 Sarah