An Architectural Approach to Apply the Supervisor/Worker Collaboration Pattern to Nomadic Workspaces

Although information technology is advancing, computer-based systems do not yet ideally support collaborative activities of mobile users in nomadic workspaces. Mobile information systems do not appropriately address the specific characteristics inherent to such environments. The contribution of this work to distributed and mobile collaboration is a proposal for a three-layered architecture addressing the three cornerstones of collaboration: communication, conventions (i.e. collaboration laws and strategies), and entities. In particular, we present the supervisor/worker pattern representing a reference implementation of this architecture. This type of pattern is an omnipresent mode of collaboration and hence this implementation shall support mobile users collectively operating in nomadic workspaces.