Publisher's Synopsis
A rapid expansion in the use and reliance upon Local Area Networks (LANS) has occurred since 1983. LANs represent a significant investment for an organization but can result in the achievement of direct productivity increases and other less tangible benefits for the enterprise. To date, the most common LAN application has been e-mail, though researchers are now exploring how installed systems can be better utilized to enable organizations to capitalize further on their investments. Unfortunately, vendor claims of connectivity are not always matched by the performance of systems on-site and progress towards industry-wide standards for hardware, software and communications remains problematic.;This volume contains papers from researchers and practitioners interested in promoting the more effective utilization of LAN technology and also concerned with addressing current and potential difficulties.;Topics considered include: the use of CSCW in environmental scanning; group decision support for information strategic planning; the impact of task type and communication medium on the effectiveness and efficiency of group decision support system supported meetings; social forces influencing computer supported meetings outcomes; prototyping tools for the development of distributed applications; optimizing negotiable call accesses for broadband communication networks; linking organizational networks with future telecommunications carrier and equipment industry directions; video and audio communications over LANS; distributed notebooks for LANS; development tools in multi-database application environments; developing organizational information systems; implementation of company-wide office automation; use of a LAN in controlling the development of large information systems projects; an itinerant computational server for a personal computer network; and knowledge awareness on asynchronous information sharing.
