According to Carstensen and Schmidt,[3] CSCW addresses "how collaborative activities and their coordination can be supported by means of computer systems." On the one hand, many authors consider that CSCW and groupware are synonyms. On the other hand, different authors claim that while groupware refers to real computer-based systems, CSCW focuses on the study of tools and techniques of groupware as well as their psychological, social, and organizational effects.

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CSCW is an identifiable research field focused on understanding characteristics of interdependent group work with the objective of designing adequate computer-based technology to support such cooperative work. Essentially, CSCW goes beyond building technology itself and looks at how people work within groups and organizations and the impacts of technology on those processes. CSCW has ushered in a great extent of melding between social scientists and technologists as developers work together to overcome both technical non-technical problems within the same user spaces.

Over the years, CSCW researchers have identified a number of core dimensions of cooperative work. A non-exhaustive list includes:

• Awareness: individuals working together need to be able to gain some level of shared knowledge about each other's activities.
• Articulation work: cooperating individuals must somehow be able to partition work into units, divide it amongst themselves and, after the work is performed, reintegrate it.
• Appropriation (or tailorability): how an individual or group adapts a technology to their own particular situation