Glossary » asynchronous groupware
asynchronous groupware
software used to help people to work in groups, but not requiring those people to be working together at the same time. (asynchronous = not coordinating at a single point in time).
Examples include:
- electronic mail
- the routing of forms through an office (“workflow”)
- collaborative hypertext systems (such as the web)
- file-sharing systems that allow different people to edit the same file at different times
- version-control systems, often used in software engineering to coordinate changes made by multiple programmers to the same program
- document annotation, such as the markup used for editing and proofreading
- collaborative writing systems
