David Randall

Volker Wulf

Kjeld Schmidt

This book is concerned with the associated issues between the differing paradigms of academic and organizational computing infrastructures. Driven by the increasing impact Information Communication Technology (ICT) has on our working and social lives, researchers within the Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) field try and find ways to situate new hardware and software in rapidly changing socio-digital ecologies. Adopting a design-orientated research perspective, researchers from the European Society for Socially Embedded Technologies (EUSSET) elaborate on the challenges and opportunities we face through the increasing permeation of society by ICT from commercial, academic, design and organizational perspectives. Designing Socially Embedded Technologies in the Real-World is directed at researchers, industry practitioners and will be of great interest to any other societal actors who are involved with the design of IT systems.

Designing Socially Embedded Technologies in the Real-World

Professor in Information Systems and New Media Volker Wulf

Marleen Huysman

A multidisciplinary examination of the interplay between social capital--the value derived from social ties--and information technology. The concept of social capital, or the value that can be derived from social ties created by goodwill, mutual support, shared language, common beliefs, and a sense of mutual obligation, has been applied to a number of fields, from sociology to management. It is only lately, however, that researchers in information technology and knowledge management have begun to explore the idea of social capital in relation to their fields. This collection of thirteen essays by computer scientists, sociologists, communication specialists, economists, and others presents a multidisciplinary look at this particular intersection of information technology and social science and the need to adopt a sociotechnical perspective.For the most part the contributors take a positive view of the interplay of social capital, knowledge sharing, and community building. Some essays look at specific instances, including the on-line and face-to-face relationships of a community of athletes, the building of social capital among Iranian NGOs, and the Internet-based communities created by the open-source movement, while others discuss more general ideas of civic and personal communities. The last four essays examine computer applications that augment social capital, including topic- and member-centered communications spaces such as the Expert Finder and the Loops system and virtual repositories of knowledge such as the Answer Garden and Pearls of Wisdom.

Social Capital and Information Technology

Fabio Paternò

This book provides an in-depth insight into the emerging paradigm of End-User Development (EUD), discussing the diversity and potential for creating effective environments for end users. Containing a unique set of contributions from a number of international researchers and institutes, many relevant issues are discussed and solutions proposed, making important aspects of end-user development research available to a broader audience. Most people are familiar with the basic functionality and interfaces of computers. However, developing new or modified applications that can effectively support users' goals still requires considerable programming expertise that cannot be expected of everyone. One of the fundamental challenges that lie ahead is the development of environments that enable users with little or no programming experience to develop and modify their own applications. The ultimate goal is to empower people to flexibly employ and personalise advanced inform ation and communication technologies.

New Perspectives in End-User Development

Stefan Uellner

Computer-unterstütztes kooperatives Lernen ist ein zunehmend an Bedeutung gewinnendes interdisziplinäres Forschungsfeld. Das Buch präsentiert die Proceedings der ersten deutschsprachigen Tagung zum Thema. In einem qualitätsorientierten Auswahlprozess wurden 15 Beiträge ausgewählt, die einen hervorragenden Einblick in den Stand der Diskussion im deutschen Sprachraum geben.

Proceedings der ersten Tagung „Computergestütztes Kooperatives Lernen (D-CSCL 2000)“ am 23. und 24. März 2000 in Darmstadt

Vernetztes Lernen mit digitalen Medien

Markus Rohde

Myriam Lewkowicz

Parina Hassanaly

COOP 2010 is the 9th edition of the International Conference on Designing Cooperative Systems, being the second European conference in the field of Computer Supported Cooperative Work after ECSCW. The conference brings together researchers who contribute to the analysis and design of cooperative systems and their integration in organizational community, public and other settings, and their implications for policy and decision making. Cooperative systems design requires a deep understanding of collective activities, involving both artifacts and social practices. Contributions are solicited from a wide range of domains contributing to the fields of cooperative systems design and evaluation: CSCW, HCI, Information Systems, Knowledge Engineering, Multi-agents, organizational and management sciences, sociology, psychology, anthropology, ergonomics, linguistics.

Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Designing Cooperative Systems, May, 18-21, 2010, Aix-en-Provence

Proceedings of COOP 2010

Volkmar Pipek

Mary-Beth Rosson

Work practices and organizational processes vary widely and evolve constantly. The technological infrastructure has to follow, allowing or even supporting these changes. Traditional approaches to software engineering reach their limits whenever the full spectrum of user requirements cannot be anticipated or the frequency of changes makes software reengineering cycles too clumsy to address all the needs of a specific field of application. Moreover, the increasing importance of ‘infrastructural’ aspects, particularly the mutual dependencies between technologies, usages, and domain competencies, calls for a differentiation of roles beyond the classical user–designer dichotomy. End user development (EUD) addresses these issues by offering lightweight, use-time support which allows users to configure, adapt, and evolve their software by themselves. EUD is understood as a set of methods, techniques, and tools that allow users of software systems who are acting as non-professional software developers to 1 create, modify, or extend a software artifact. While programming activities by non-professional actors are an essential focus, EUD also investigates related activities such as collective understanding and sense-making of use problems and solutions, the interaction among end users with regard to the introduction and diffusion of new configurations, or delegation patterns that may also partly involve professional designers.

2nd International Symposium, IS-EUD 2009, Siegen, Germany, March 2-4, 2009, Proceedings

End-User Development

Mark S. Ackerman

Associate Professor for Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Media Volkmar Pipek

The field of knowledge management focuses on how organizations can most effectively store, manage, retrieve, and enlarge their intellectual properties. The repository view of knowledge management emphasizes the gathering, providing, and filtering of explicit knowledge. The information in a repository has the advantage of being easily transferable and reusable. But it is not easy to use decontextualized information, and users often need access to human experts. This book describes a more recent approach to knowledge management, which the authors call "expertise sharing." Expertise sharing emphasizes the human aspects -- cognitive, social, cultural, and organizational -- of knowledge management, in addition to information storage and retrieval. Rather than focusing on the management level of an organization, expertise sharing focuses on the self-organized activities of the organization's members. The book addresses the concerns of both researchers and practitioners, describing current literature and research as well as offering information on implementing systems. It consists of three parts: an introduction to knowledge sharing in large organizations; empirical studies of expertise sharing in different types of settings; and detailed descriptions of computer systems that can route queries, assemble people and work, and augment naturally occurring social networks within organizations.

Beyond Knowledge Management

Sharing Expertise

Yvonne Rogers

Wolfgang Prinz

Matthias Jarke

K. Schmidt

Schmidt and Bannon (1992) introduced the concept of common information space by contrasting it with technical conceptions of shared information: Cooperative work is not facilitated simply by the provisioning of a shared database, but rather requires the active construction by the participants of a common information space where the meanings of the shared objects are debated and resolved, at least locally and temporarily. (Schmidt and Bannon, p. 22) A CIS, then, encompasses not only the information but also the practices by which actors establish its meaning for their collective work. These negotiated understandings of the information are as important as the availability of the information itself: The actors must attempt to jointly construct a common information space which goes beyond their individual personal information spaces. . . . The common information space is negotiated and established by the actors involved. (Schmidt and Bannon, p. 28) This is not to suggest that actors’ understandings of the information are identical; they are simply “common” enough to coordinate the work. People understand how the information is relevant for their own work. Therefore, individuals engaged in different activities will have different perspectives on the same information. The work of maintaining the common information space is the work that it takes to balance and accommodate these different perspectives. A “bug” report in software development is a simple example. Software developers and quality assurance personnel have access to the same bug report information. However, access to information is not sufficient to coordinate their work.

ECSCW 2001

Etienne Wenger

M.H. Huysman

The book contains 24 research articles related to the emerging research field of Communities and Technologies (C&T). The papers treat subjects such as online communities, communities of practice, Community support systems, Digital Cities, regional communities and the internet, knowledge sharing and communities, civil communities, communities and education and social capital. As a result of a very quality-oriented review process, the work reflects the best of current research and practice in the field of C&T.

Communities and Technologies

Henry Lieberman

This book makes important aspects of the international discussion on End User Development (EUD) available to a broader audience. It offers a unique set of contributions from research institutes worldwide, addressing relevant issues and proposing original solutions. This broad look at the emerging paradigm of End-User Development will inspire every reader to appreciate its potential for the future. Indeed, the editors hope that readers – "end-users" - will themselves become developers.

End User Development

Susanne Bødker

Niels Olof Bouvin

Luigina Ciolfi

Wayne Lutters

This volume presents the proceedings of ECSCW 2011, the 12th European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. Each conference offers an occasion to critically review our research field, which has been multidisciplinary and committed to high scientific standards, both theoretical and methodological, from its beginning. The papers this year focus on work and the enterprise as well as on the challenges of involving citizens, patients, etc. into collaborative settings. The papers embrace new theories, and discuss known ones. They contribute to the discussions on the blurring boundaries between home and work and on the ways we think about and study work. They introduce recent and emergent technologies, and study known social and collaborative technologies, such as wikis and video messages. Classical settings in computer supported cooperative work, e.g. meetings and standardization are also looked upon anew. With contributions from all over the world, the papers in interesting ways help focus on the European perspective in our community. The 22 papers selected for this conference deal with and reflect the lively debate currently ongoing in our field of research.

ECSCW 2011: Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 24-28 September 2011, Aarhus Denmark

This book is about how computer systems might be designed to serve their users rather better. It deals with how to study the natural behaviour of users to see how computer systems might best help them, and how one might also involve them in the design of computer systems that will assist them in their everyday practices.

Volker Wulf

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