Relescope: An experiment in accelerating relationships

Abstract

Busy academics and professionals are being called upon to manage more and more relationships. Many details of collaboration are accessible in digital libraries and other repositories. With Relationship-Oriented Computing, we posit that network information embedded in these repositories can be leveraged to improve the human need to manage and form the most productive relationships. To explore this idea, we developed a relationship-network application, called Relescope, and deployed it at the ACM CSCW 2004 conference. It provided a personalized report to attendees based on publication and citation information. The report was intended to provide concrete insights into the relationship-network that could be acted upon. Results of a survey showed that 52% of responders used their report to recognize and talk to others or plan which talks to attend. People with fewer collaborators were more inclined to use Relescope than the people with the most collaborators. Lessons learned and future work are discussed.