About Me

I am a mid-twen-aged research- and teaching assistant at the Cooperative Media Lab (Bauhaus-University Weimar) and I live in Weimar, Germany. I have a wide-spread field of interest in the meaning of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp), and Social Sciences.

I am strongly interested in Media Spaces and Recommender Systems, especially the bridge between computer science and social sciences for supporting social interaction.

Particular Interests

• Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp)
• Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)
• Human Computer Interfaces (HCI)
• Media Spaces
• Recommender Systems
• Defining Contexts
• Social Web / Social Communities
• Photography DSLR & Medium Format (Log)
• Dogging (Spend time while wandering with my dog.)

Journals and Reviewed International Conferences

• Gross, T., Beckmann, C. and Schirmer, M. The PPPSpace: Innovative Concepts for Permanent Capturing, Persistent Storing, and Parallel Processing and Distributing Events. In Proceedings of the Eighteenth Euromicro Conference on Parallel, Distributed, and Network-Based Processing - PDP 2010 (Feb. 17-19, Pisa, Italy). IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos, 2010. pp. 359-366. (ISBN: 978-0-7695-3939-3).
• Gross, T. and Beckmann, C. CoLocScribe: Selektive Informationsfreigabe in einem Media Space (CoLocScribe: Selective Information Disclosure in a Media Space; in German). In Mensch & Computer - 9. Fachuebergreifende Konferenz fuer interaktive und kooperative Medien - M&C 2009 (Sept. 6-9, Berlin, Germany). Oldenbourg, Munich, 2009. pp. 463-466. (ISBN: 978-3-486-59222-1).
• Gross, T. and Beckmann, C. Advanced Publish and Subscribe for Distributed Sensor-Based Infrastructures: The CoLocScribe Cooperative Media Space. In Proceedings of the Seventeenth Euromicro Conference on Parallel, Distributed, and Network-Based Processing - PDP 2009 (Feb. 18-20, Weimar, Germany). IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos, CA, 2009. pp. 333-340. (ISBN: 978-0-7695-3544-9).
• Beckmann, C., Schirmer, M., Paul-Stueve, T. and Gross, T. Sens-ation: Eine Plattform zur Entwicklung ubiquitaerer Umgebungen (Sens-ation: A Platform for Developing Ubiquitous Environments; in German). In Mensch & Computer - 7. Fachuebergreifende Konferenz fuer interaktive und kooperative Medien - M&C 2007 (Sept. 2-5, Weimar, Germany).Oldenbourg, Munich, 2007. pp. 273-276. (ISBN: 978-3-486-58496-7).

Book Chapters

• Sülzenbrück, T and Beckmann, T Vardump: The Power of Seeing What's Behind In Lua Programming Gems, Eds. L. H. de Figueiredo, W. Celes, R. Ierusalimschy, Lua.org, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, December 2008, pp. 29-32. (ISBN 978-85-903798-4-3).

Misc. Publications

• Beckmann, C. and Gross, T. Leichtgewichtige Auswahlentscheidungen fuer Gruppen am Beispiel eines Recommender-Systems fuer Filme (Light-Weight Selection Decisions in Group Expemplified in a Recommender-System for Movies; in German). In Workshop-Proceedings der Tagung Mensch & Computer 2009 - 9. Fachuebergreifende Konferenz - Grenzenlos frei!? (Workshop-Proceedings of the Mensch & Computer Conference; in German)- M&C 2009 (Sept. 6-9, Berlin, Germany). Logos Verlag, Berlin, 2009. pp. 213. (ISBN: 978-3-8325-2181-3).
• Beckmann, C. and Gross, T. CoLocScribe: A Media Space for Information Disclosure in Storytelling. Technical Report # BUW-CSCW-2008-03, Computer-Supported Cooperative Work Group, Faculty of Media, Bauhaus-University Weimar, Bauhausstr. 11, 99423 Weimar, Germany, Oct. 2008.

Master's Thesis: GReMo

Recommender systems provide users with recommendations and support them when choosing between an overwhelming amount of alternatives in their everyday lives, i.e. last.fm for listening music, Amazon for buying products. These systems encompass a variety of algorithms for estimating preferences for single-users. Outstanding are collaborative filtering methods that estimate a single person's taste by the similarity in taste of other related users of the system. Users of these systems express their taste by giving ratings concerning items to the system.

GReMo: Concept and Implementation of a Mobile Group Recommender System

However, most activities or items recommended by such systems are conducted or consumed in groups, i.e. watching a movie together in a movie theatre. Consequently, the system should regard the group as a union and provide recommendations to them, instead of presenting recommendations that are dedicated to single users. This emerges several challenges addressed in this thesis, i.e. the recommendation process should consider the group's nature and its preferences.

The thesis describes the concept, implementation and development of a end-user mobile group recommender application that provides both a sophisticated group recommender interaction concept, as well as powerful merging strategies for combining individual predictions into a group recommendation. The group recommender interaction concept includes three phases: (1) negotiation preparation, (2) negotiation process, and (3) negotiation result, and is implemented in an application running on a mobile device. The merging strategies provide straightforward and group satisfaction maximisation approaches and are implemented in the group recommender system.

Bachelor's Thesis: CoLocScribe

In spring 2008 I have received the my Bachelor's degree in Media Systems with the top-most grade of 1.0/1.0 for the Bachelor's Thesis CoLocScribe at Bauhaus-University Weimar, Germany: Defence was 16/04/2008 ~ 7.00 p.m., B11 R014

CoLocScribe: Technological Concepts and User Observation of Information Disclosure in a Mediaspace

Mediaspaces, since their first prototypes in the research field of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), aim at mediating communication and providing assistance for collaboration of people working together at distributed places. Mediaspaces make of audio and video connections in order to facilitate the process of working together. However, it is still a challenge to provide an appropriate support for the absent natural communication in a mediaspace. Gesticulation, mimic, or paralanguage are self-evident in face-to-face situations, but such natural communication aspects are lacking in a mediaspace.

Additional information, provided in a mediaspace about peoples´ current working context or on working artefacts enormously contribute to the process of work in the sense of reducing the geographically affected distance and compensate for the lack of information that otherwise would be available in face-to-face settings. This provides a common understanding and the feeling of being aware of working together in a group.

This is strongly connected with information disclosure, which refers to the precise sharing of information among people. Because people want to embody themselves towards others, they want to disclose information selectively. Research on information disclosure stands for the analysis of circumstances of disclosing information to others.

This thesis presents a qualitative study for analysing information disclosure under the circumstance of co-present others in a mediaspace. Therefore a mediaspace on the base of an event-based infrastructure was built. The mediaspace, supporting video connections and providing awareness information was used by the participants of the study. Subsequently, a semi-structured interview was done and three different user types, handling information disclosure differently, were conceptualised. The three Ps as a concept will lead to further implications for further disclosure designs in mediaspaces.

Supervisors

Prof. Tom Gross
Prof. Andreas Ziemann

Related

• CoLocScribe Website @ CMLab
• CoLocScribe presentend @ Mediengang 2008
• Prof. Tom Gross (Website)
• Chair Computer Supported Cooperative Work @ BUW
• Chair of Media Sociology @ BUW

While studying at the BUW, I have done the following projects. The order of appearing is reverse chronologically.

Bauhaus-University Weimar
Computer-Supported Cooperative Work Groop


Germany
European Union
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Germany
European Union

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