Understanding and communicating social informatics : a framework for studying and teaching the human contexts of information and communication technologies / Rob Kling, Howard Rosenbaum, Steve Sawyer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kling, Rob, author.

Rosenbaum, Howard, author.

Sawyer, Steve, 1960- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Computers and civilization.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (241 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Medford, New Jersey : Information Today, Inc., [2005]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Here is a sustained investigation into the human contexts of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), covering both research and theory in this emerging field. Authors Kling, Rosenbaum, and Sawyer demonstrate that the design, adoption, and use of ICTs are deeply connected to people's actions as well as to the environments in which they are used. In Chapters One and Two, they define Social Informatics and offer a pragmatic overview of the discipline. In Chapters Three and Four, they articulate its fundamental ideas for specific audiences and present important research findings about the personal, social, and organizational consequences of ICT design and use. Chapter Five covers Social Informatics education; Chapter Six discusses ways to communicate Social Informatics to professional and research communities; and Chapter Seven provides a summary and look to the future.

Contents:

Cover

Title Page

Contents

Figures and Tables

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Preface

Chapter 1: Introduction to Social Informatics

1.1 The Disconnection Between Popular and Scholarly Discussion

1.2 Defining Social Informatics

1.3 The Value of Social Informatics

Chapter 2: The Consequences of ICTs for Organizations and Social Life

2.1 The Social Nature of ICTs

2.1.1 ICTs Are Interpreted and Used inDifferent Ways by Different People

2.1.2 ICTs Enable and Constrain Social Actions and Social Relationships

2.1.3 ICTs Provide a Means to Alter Existing Control Structures

2.1.4 There Can Be Negative Consequences of ICT Developments for Some Stakeholders

2.2 The Technical Nature of ICTs

2.2.1 ICTs Play Both Communicative and Computational Roles

2.2.2 There Are Important Temporal and Spatial Dimensions of ICT Consequences

2.2.3 ICTs Rarely Cause Social Transformations

2.3 The Institutional Nature of ICTs

2.3.1 Social and Technical Consequences Are Embedded in Institutional Contexts

2.3.2 ICTs Often Have Important Political Consequences

Chapter 3: Social Informatics for Designers, Developers, and Implementers of ICT-Based Systems

3.1 Understanding the Social Design of ICTs

3.1.1 The Historical Premise of Designer-Focused Systems

3.1.2 The Configurational Nature of ICT-Based Systems

3.1.3 Usability Is a Partial Response to Designer-Focused Approaches

3.2 Principles for Social Design

3.2.1 Social Design Compared to Designer-Focused Approaches

3.2.2 Designing for a Heterogeneity of Uses, People, Contexts, and Data

3.2.3 The Designing of ICTs Continues During Their Use

3.2.4 There Is Agency in the Design and Deployment of ICTs

Chapter 4: Social Informatics for ICT Policy Analysts

4.1 How Can Social Informatics Contribute to ICT Policy Analysts'Work?.

4.1.1 How Social Informatics Can Help

4.1.2 Contemporary Policy Issues from a Social Informatics Perspective

4.1.2.1 Notebook Computers Replacing Textbooks

4.2 A Historical View of Social Informatics-Oriented Policy Analysis

4.2.1 U.S. ICT Policy (1970-Present)

4.2.1.1 U.S. Congress's Office of Technology Assessment

4.2.1.2 The Computer Science and Telecommunications Board

4.2.1.3 President's Information Technology Advisory Committee

4.2.1.4 U.S. Department of Commerce

4.2.2 Private ICT Research Institutes in the 1990s

4.2.3 European ICT Policy Analysis (1985-Present)

4.2.3.1 The United Kingdom's Programme on Information and Communication Technologies

4.2.3.2 European Commission's Information Society Project Office in the 1990s

4.3 ICT Policy Analysis in the Next Decades

Chapter 5: Teaching Key Ideas of Social Informatics

5.1 Why Teach Social Informatics?

5.1.1 Social Informatics Teaching in the Context of Broad Trends in Science-Oriented Education

5.2 Summarizing the Teaching of Social Informatics

5.2.1 Current Status of Teaching Social Informatics

5.2.2 Issues with the Current Status of Teaching Social Informatics

5.3 Teaching Social Informatics

5.3.1 Key Social Informatics Ideas

5.3.1.1 The Context of ICT Use Directly Affects Their Meanings and Roles

5.3.1.2 ICTs Are Not Value Neutral: Their Use Creates Winners and Losers

5.3.1.3 ICT Use Leads to Multiple, and Often Paradoxical, Effects

5.3.1.4 ICT Use Has Ethical Aspects

5.3.1.5 ICTs Are Configurable

5.3.1.6 ICTs Follow Trajectories

5.3.1.7 Co-Evolution of ICT System Design/Development/Use

5.3.2 Tailoring Social Informatics Concepts forSpecific Curricular Purposes

5.3.3 Social Informatics as Informed Critical Thinking

5.3.4 Issues with Teaching Social Informatics.

5.3.4.1 Motivating Contemporary ICT-Oriented Educators to Value (and Include) Social Informatics Concepts and Techniques in the Curriculum

5.3.4.2 Difficulties with Synthesizing Social Informatics Literature That Is Mostly Research-Based and Spread Across Numerous Disciplines

5.3.4.3 Issues with Helping Students Integrate Social Informatics Concepts and Techniques with Their Own Experiences

5.3.4.4 Dealing with Existing Mental Models That Students Bring to Social Informatics Topics

5.4 Recommendations

Chapter 6: Communicating Social Informatics Research to Professional and Research Communities

6.1 Learning from Organizational and Social Informatics

6.2 Audience

6.3 Communicating to ICT Professional Audiences

6.3.1 Perceptions of the Relevance of Social Informatics Research

6.3.2 Competition for the Attention of the ICT Professional Audience

6.3.3 Strategies for Communicating to ICT Professional Audiences

6.3.3.1 Learning About ICT Professionals

6.3.3.2 Redesigning the Research Focus

6.3.3.3 Publicizing Social Informatics Research to the ICT Professional Audience

6.3.3.4 Holding Regular Forums That Bring Academics Together with ICT Professionals

6.3.3.5 Providing Continuing Education for ICT Professionals

6.3.3.6 Creating Research-Based "ICT Extension Services"

6.3.3.7 Managing Competition with Research and Consulting Firms

6.4 Communicating to Academic and Research Communities

6.4.1 Audience

6.4.2 Challenges of Communicating to Academic and Research Communities

6.4.3 Strategies for Improving Communication with Other Academic and Research Communities

6.4.3.1 Raising the Profile of Social Informatics Research

6.4.3.2 Increasing Publishing Options for Social Informatics Research

6.4.3.3 Taking Advantage of Easy Access to Networked Digital Information About Social Informatics.

6.4.3.4 Research Initiatives to Raise the Profile of Social Informatics

6.4.3.5 Increasing Institutional Support for Social Informatics Research

6.5 Raising the Visibility of Social Informatics

Chapter 7: Conclusions

7.1 Summary of Findings, Concepts, and Issues

7.1.1 ICTs Are Socially Shaped

7.1.2 Problem-Oriented Nature of Social Informatics Research

7.1.3 People Are Social Actors

7.1.4 ICT Use Is Situated and Contextually Dependent

7.2 Specific Relevance to Particular Domainsof Interest

7.2.1 Social Informatics Relative to Designing, Developing, and Implementing ICTs

7.2.2 Social Informatics Relative to Information and ICT Policy Making

7.2.3 Social Informatics in ICT-Oriented Formal Education

7.3 Moving from Collecting Findings to Theorizing About ICTs

7.3.1 Institutional Nature of ICTs

7.3.2 Conceptualizing Computing from a Social Informatics Perspective

7.4 Social Informatics as a Professional Obligation

7.5 Taking Social Informatics Seriously

References

Appendix A: Reviews and Anthologies of Social Informatics Research

Appendix B: Structure and Process of the 1997 Social Informatics Workshop

Appendix C: 1997 Social Informatics Workshop Participants

Appendix D: Additional Reviewers

About the Authors

Name Index

Subject Index

Glossary.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (pages 155-181) and indexes.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-283-31050-3

9786613310507

1-57387-958-4

OCLC:

891395084