StudioBRIDGE

Abstract

StudioBRIDGE is an awareness system, based on instant messaging (IM), developed for students working in open studio spaces in the Architecture Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The goal of StudioBRIDGE is to help students initiate online and offline interactions by giving them an awareness of nearby people, groups, locations, and events of the community. Even when students are working in close proximity to each other, they are often not aware of the activities and expertise of their colleagues nearby. We believe that this integrated awareness could lead to increased peer learning and expertise sharing by encouraging informal social communication, particularly in groups whose members have existing social and physical ties. In this paper, we describe the user community and the motivation, design, and initial pilot deployment of StudioBRIDGE.

eBat: A Technology‐enriched Life Sciences Research Community

“…StudioBRIDGE promotes offline social interaction by providing location awareness of students in close physical areas (Yee and Park, 2005). In contrast, members of online-only communities, such as Slashdot (Slashdot, 2006), tend to mix business and pleasure.…”

Nooks: Social Spaces to Lower Hesitations in Interacting with New People at Work

“…Dourish and Bellotti describe awareness as an "understanding of activities of others which provides a context for your own activity" [22]. Recognizing the role of social awareness in supporting dynamic collaboration at work [10,32,48], designers of early social awareness systems attempted to enhance community awareness as a means to support collaboration and coordination at work [10,23,30,38,94,95]. Towards the goal of supporting coordination in work groups, these systems provided signals such as who is in one's proximity, shared media elements [13,38], and even what activities are occurring at work [47,95].…”