Exploring and Supporting Today's Collaborative Writing.

Collaborative writing has become increasingly common in many professions, however, when compared to the extensive research conducted 30 years ago, we know very little about it today. Now that both tools and people's skills have changed, how are people actually using these new tools in their collaborations? In my dissertation project, I investigate how people write together now, using both qualitative (i.e., interviewing participants and hand-coding co-authored documents) and quantitative (i.e., statistical modeling using Google Docs log data) research methods. I have also built information visualization systems to complement existing research methods. By understanding what practices and tools people use in collaborative writing, I will propose design implications for system designers to improve the tools, as well as collaboration guidelines for people to write together better.