Towards a Shared Platform for Virtual Collaboration Monitoring in Design Research

Prior applications of a system to monitor IT-mediated communication activities of design teams provided new insights into the collaboration behavior during the early phases of concept creation and prototyping. We now take our approach to the next level by sketching an architecture for a platform that aims to establish ‘out- of-the-box’ monitoring capabilities for virtual team environments and to facilitate the sharing and evaluation of recorded activities within a larger research community. To further demonstrate the flexibility and applicability of our instrument, we present results and experiences gained from a recently conducted observation of software engineering teams. Our vision is a common service for capturing and analyzing virtual collaboration activities that promotes comparative research and team diagnostics in engineering design.