Socially Embedded
Technologies
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Academic and Institutional
Challenges
Volker Wulf
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© 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen
Table of Content
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EUSSET: the vision
Methods and Concepts: some examples
» Design Case Studies
» Infrastructuring
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Academic Challenges
Knowledge building
Institutional Challenges
TODOs
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© 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen
EUSSET: Understanding and
Designing Social-Embedded
Technologies
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Computers are becoming an infrastructure for
all/different domains of life
Traditional CS / IS fields do not take the social
embeddedness of technologies (sufficiently) into account
European intellectual tradition is spear heading these
issues
» European CSCW / HCI / IS communities: quite some actors are
in the room
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Bringing together
» Understanding of social practices in their differentiation
» Designing of innovative technologies in a wide range of domains
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© 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen
Academic Challenges
Academic subfields suffer from epistemological divide
(positivistic vs. constructivist research agendas)
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Human Computer Interaction,
Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Learning
Ubiquitous Computing
Software Engineering
Information Systems
EUSSET: a coherent research agenda
» Understanding social systems (field of applications for
innovative technologies)
» Designing innovative technologies
» Understanding their appropriation in the wild
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© 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen
Design Case Studies: Long-term
Engagement with Practice (Wulf et al 2009)
Design Case Studies
» Empirical analysis of given practices in a specific field of
application,
» (Participatory) Design of an innovative ICT artifact related to
the findings of the empirical analysis
» Investigation into the appropriation of the ICT artifact over a
longer period of time.
Prestudy
Design
Appropriation
Definition describes an ideal type of studies,
fragments are often interesting, interleaving temporal
order of phases
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© 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen
Design Case Studies in
Specific Application Domains
Cross-cutting Issue: Concept building
Appropriation
Support
End
User
Develop
ment
Design
Methodes
Cooperative
Work
Community
Support
Sustainability
Aging
Society
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© 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen
Infrastructuring: Toward an Integrated
Perspective on the Design and Use of
Information Technology (Pipek/Wulf 2009)
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© 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen
Research Challenges
Practices are hidden, partly digitalized, complex,
developing
Design: creatively linked to practices
Technologies: design space is influenced by history of
their emergence
Appropriation: creatively inspired by innovative
technological artefacts and transformativly linked to
given practice
Changes in practice: driven by multitude of factors
Conceptual and theoretical problems- competition rather
than cooperation
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© 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen
Knowledge building in a
situated research approach
Current state of the art
» Theories and concepts without evaluation and scope of validity
» Accumulation of (design) case studies without knowledge
building on top of them
(Design) case studies within a constructionist paradigm
» Linked to specific practices and IT design options
» Case studies offer thick descriptions
» Situated in specific context
Theory and concept building is through comparison of
multiple cases (corpus of studies)
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© 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen
Domains of Research with
Societal Relevance
Internationally competitive production systems:
technologies and work organization
Ecological production and consumption of energy and
raw materials
Aging society: health care and social caring
New forms of political participation and democratic
legitimation
New forms of multinational cooperation and economical
regulation
Migration: integration and reference to home community
Issues of specific developmental needs: Agriculture, raw
material production, education, health, global
cooperation
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© 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen
Europe: Institutional
Strengths
Europe has a strong intellectual tradition to ground
the field
» Philosophical foundations: Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Latour
» Tradition of Socio-technical Systems
» Movement of Participatory Design
Evolutionary model of innovation
Europe‘s funding is based on collaborative schemes
between academia and practitioneers
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© 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen
Europe: Institutional
Problems
EU-IST FP 7 (and 8?) does not provide much funding for
EUSSET domains
» Periperal work packages in a large variety of domains
» Lacking funding in topic areas central to the community
» National funding schemes work operate similarly
Cooperation between academia and IT industries and IT
user (organizations) does not work perfectly
» European funding model ‚in theory‘ perfectly suited but needs
some improvements
» Better schemes and techniques required to bridge the gap
between very different communities pf practice
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© 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen
Europe: Institutional
Problems - 2
European academic conferences suffer from
international competition
» Less submissions
» Smaller participation
» Missing plattform for publication, other than (expensive)
commercial publishers or (US-dominated) ACM-DL
European academic community
» Segregated and distributed across different fields, little
shared discourse
» Stagnating in size and ageing core actors
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© 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen
Open Issues: Academically
Looking for an appropritate research and design
paradigm for the EUSSET community
» Bridging between technological innovation and
ethnographical depth
Building knowledge in a situated design community:
issue of transferability beyond cases
Bridging among disciplines
Opening towards practitioners
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© 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen
Organizational Issues
EUSSET organization: financing, membership, leadership,
mailing list(s)
EU / National Government Lobbying: list of contacts,
materials for contacting
Exchange of (phd-) students, joint master program,
summer school: Erasmus funding
EUSSET Digital Library: presentation of conference
proceedings
New conference format, e.g. COOP: extended versions of
publication format, discoursive presentation und
documentation, integration of practitioneers
Wikipedia presentation: Socially Embedded Technologies,
Socio-Informatics, (E-)CSCW, Appropriation, ……
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© 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen