M. Mühlpfordt and M. Wessner. Explicit referencing in chat supports collaborative learning. In Proceedings of the Computer Supported Collaborative Learning 2005, pages 460–469, Taipei, Taiwan, May 30 – June 4 2005. [url]

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This paper describes a system called ConcertChat, which implements explicit referencing in computer mediated communication (CMC). Explicit referencing means that while producing a message an object in the shared environment can be selected and assigned as referential point to that message. They call the directed relation between the message and this referential point a reference.

This paper report experimental findings showing that referencing has a positive impact on chat conversations. They observed references used to express a variety of conversational relations as well as to point to important objects in the history or in the shared material. Also, they saw the tendency to focus on one reference per contribution to highlight the most important relation.

Tags: Computer Supported Collaborative Work, human computer interaction, interaction design, interaction regulations