CollabTech 2016, the 8th International Conference on Collaboration
Technologies,offered a unique forum for academics and practitioners to present
and discuss innovative ideas, methods, or implementations related to
collaboration technologies, which are greatly needed for various everyday
collaboration activities owing to recentadvances in networking, computing, and
interaction technologies. The previous CollabTech conferences were held in
Tokyo in 2005, Tsukuba in 2006, Seoul in 2007, Wakayama in 2008, Sydney in
2009, Sapporo in 2012, and Santiago in 2014. Following the success of the joint
organization with CRIWG in the last conference, CollabTech 2016 was co-located
and organized with CRIWG 2016 again, but this time in Kanazawa, Japan. The
CRIWG and CollabTech communities had similar research topics and goals, but had
been geographically located in different regions. We believed this joint
endeavor would provide an interesting opportunity to meet each other. The
success of the conference was largely due to the authors and presenters, as
well as the Program Committee and the Conference Committee members, whose
efforts made the conference possible. The success was also due to the SIG on
Groupware and Network Services of the Information Processing Society of Japan,
the SIG on Cyberspace of the Virtual Reality Society of Japan, and the SIG on
Communication Enhancement of the Human Interface Society. The Japan Advanced
Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) and the Faculty of Library,
Information and Media Science of the University of Tsukuba also gave us warm
support. Ishikawa Prefecture, Kanazawa City, Support Center for Advanced
Telecommunications Technology Research (SCAT), and Hitachi, Ltd. contributed
financially to the success of the conference. We are pleased that the
conference was fruitful for all participants and played an important role in
cultivating the community in this research field.