Grace: A System to Support the Development and Use of Global Computer‐Supported Cooperative (CSCW) Applications Available to Purchase

Describes the Grace Project, its goals and scope. The aim of Grace is to build distributed group communications tools within an Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) networking environment. Grace provides the foundations for a globally distributed system for cooperative working based on information sharing within activity and organizational domains. Introduces a conceptual model of group communications derived from analysing sample activities. Outlines architecture of Grace and explains the use of existing OSI services. Examines two prototype activities: a Help desk in detail and Computer Conferencing in outline. Discusses the implications of trying to control the access to the above type of tools. Briefly describes the status of group communications standardization.