Using robot-mediated communication to improve remote collaboration.

An emerging technology for supporting geographically distributed work teams, robot-mediated communication (RMC) presents new opportunities for supporting effective collaboration. These systems extend videoconferencing capabilities by providing local users with a physical embodiment of the remote user to interact with. They also give the operator control over the system via the ability to navigate and to manipulate the system's cameras within the local user's environment. The goal of my dissertation is to investigate how these key functionalities---physical embodiment and control over the system---affect collaborative outcomes and to use the results to develop heuristics that inform both the design of future RMC systems and aid in understanding how these characteristics might affect similar technologies. In addition, my dissertation aims at contributing to our theoretical understanding of collaboration and the part that these functionalities or affordances play in it. This research focuses on three phases of investigation: (1) how the addition of these functionalities shapes user relationships, (2) how changes to the physical embodiment of the system affect the local user's perceptions of the remote user, and (3) how variations in perceived control of the system alter interactions between users.