End-user controlled group formation and access rights management in a shared workspace system

Group formation and access rights management become crucial issues when shared workspaces are used to support flexible, emerging group work. End-Users should be able to form groups and adapt access rights for changing groups and workspaces. Current shared workspace systems do not support this sufficiently. Our approach combines a room metaphor-based shared workspace with the key-metaphor for facilitating both, end-user controlled flexible group formation and access rights management. An evaluation of this approach during four month of use has indicated that end-users can form groups and manage the access rights of their shared spaces.