This annotated bibliography was completed in 1986. It will be of use today primarily for persons ... more This annotated bibliography was completed in 1986. It will be of use today primarily for persons interested in the history of computing, the history of technology, and the rise of cultural aspects of computing. The bibliography documents sources that pre-date the Internet, Email, hypertext, the world wide web, and all forms of social media.
This bibliography brings together in one place diverse, scattered and hard-to find sources that will give researchers an entree to the literature on the social aspects of computing. The bibliography and the literature review that accompanies it are intended to provide an overview of this research area. Scholars here and abroad, graduate students and others interested in the social aspect of computing have encouraged us in this task because they believe that the bibliography would be a useful tool. The bibliography is intended to make vital literature readily accessible and to serve as a source of information about working papers and other documents that are often difficult to locate.
The bibliography contains a review essay: "Social Sciences and the Computer: A Literature Review" by James M. Nyce
The full bibliographic reference is:
Beeman. William; and Kenneth T. Anderson. 1986. An Annotated Bibliography of Research on Computers and Society with an essay by James M. Nyce. Providence, RI: Office of Program Analysis, Institute for Research in Information and Society (IRIS), Brown University.
Safety and security are often regarded as two separate concepts, both scientifically and organiza... more Safety and security are often regarded as two separate concepts, both scientifically and organizationally. Both are often seen as two fundamentally conflicting institutional demands and their agendas as being based on two profoundly different organizing principles. Because of this, safety may get less attention in security organizations than necessary as such a distinction would mean in the perception of people that funding for the one would go at the cost of the other. This chapter points out that organizing for security and for safety may not be so different after all as both safety and security seem to develop from the same social structures and institutional complexities. The differences between the two seem to be a matter of social construction, power and policy, rather than that these differences would inevitably follow from what one would regard as their intrinsic features.
… Conference on Human-Computer Interaction in …, 2002
Human-centered HCI systems can result if devel-opers pay heed to the orientations, expectations, ... more Human-centered HCI systems can result if devel-opers pay heed to the orientations, expectations, and understanding of the (end-)users. Contextual inquiry has emerged as one way since it can reveal what (computerized) work means to the practitioners who ...
Introduction While anthropology of science and technology does exist, much of what we have writte... more Introduction While anthropology of science and technology does exist, much of what we have written on these subjects tends to get published outside anthropology. While there have been several well argued attempts to move these subjects closer to the center of the discipline, ...
Human-centered HCI systems can result if developers pay heed to the orientations, expectations, a... more Human-centered HCI systems can result if developers pay heed to the orientations, expectations, and u nd erstanding of the (end-)users. Contextual inquiry has emerged as one way since it can reveal what (compute rized) work means to the practitioners who do it, but it needs to make the jump from the description and analysis of current working practice to a design language targeted at the future. In this paper we use three examples from studies into the use of flight strips in air traffic co ntrol for their ability to make this jump, extracting the lessons we still need to learn if we want to employ contextual inquiry as a tool in creating HCI sys tems.
Background The development of expertise in anaesthesia requires personal contact between a mentor... more Background The development of expertise in anaesthesia requires personal contact between a mentor and a learner. Because mentors often are experienced clinicians, they may find it difficult to understand the challenges novices face during their first months of clinical practice. As a result, novices’ perspectives may be an important source of pedagogical information for the expert. The aim of this study was to explore novice and expert anaesthetists understanding of expertise in anaesthesia using qualitative methods. Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 9 novice and 9 expert anaesthetists from a German University Hospital. Novices were included if they had between 3 and 6 months of clinical experience and experts were determined by peer assessment. Interviews were intended to answer the following research questions: What do novices think expertise entails and what do they think they will need to become an expert? What do experts think made them the expert person an...
This paper is a case study that describes an in situ information systems (IS) development effort ... more This paper is a case study that describes an in situ information systems (IS) development effort carried out with only local resources and staff in military (Swedish army) medium level headquarters (HQ). Originating in a qualitative study of command practice, this paper tracks the design and development of a simple hypertext application (a spreadsheet cluster) built from off-the-shelf software and describes the application's evolution over time into a control and coordination tool. The chain of events during a series of five military Command Post Exercises (CPXs) that led to the development of the application is described briefly here. First promoted by a few staff, it evolved over six months through these five CPXs. It was meant to be a complement to a new top-down common IS architecture in the HQ, one meant to support flexible teamwork and coordination. The application became so much a part of daily work practices that it became "invisible". Internal IS evaluations a...
Unmanned aerial systems (UASs) in general and UAS safety in particular have so far received littl... more Unmanned aerial systems (UASs) in general and UAS safety in particular have so far received little attention in the science, technology and society (STS) literature. This paper therefore reports on sev-eral (military) cases of this relatively new technology, focusing specifi cally on issues of safety. Quite often, safety of technology is considered the result of a rational process – one of a series of rational, often calculative, linear steps. The paper’s results suggest that establishing safety in military UASs is very much a social process. Approaching (military) UAS safety from this perspective could perhaps be complementary to more analytical and rational perspectives on safety of this type of technology. Further research is therefore suggested on the implications that social processes can have for safety in UASs. So far, it seems, such a position on safety in technology has been little explored in both the STS and safety literature explicitly.
Background: Knowledge about a female perspective on health and disease is important to understand... more Background: Knowledge about a female perspective on health and disease is important to understand what happens in e.g. the medical meeting. A deeper understanding for the phenomenon of health also has social and economic importance. In Sweden women account for about 60% of the long-term cases of sickness absence.Aim: To explore and describe women's perceptions of health and disease and their accounts of sickness absence.Methods: The chronic diseases mentioned by elderly women in an interview study are compared with those documented in their respective medical records (n=199). The prevalence of positive diagnoses, overall agreement, and the kappa-coefficient were calculated for each group of diagnoses. Semi-stmctnred interviews were conducted with 82 women who had been on sick leave (60 days or more) or who had disability pension. Sixty of these middle-aged women also carried out a Q-sort.Results: The lowest overall agreement between the elderly women report during interviews and...
Through a case study, this article explores a number of theoretical issues related to the often t... more Through a case study, this article explores a number of theoretical issues related to the often taken for granted relationship between simulator fidelity and the quality and transferability of training in complex, dynamic, safety-critical settings. A counterexample based on mid-fidelity simulation is presented and the assumed coincidence of fidelity and validity is tested, that is the study tests the equation of constructed photorealism (built to mimic reality) and effective development of the competence that operators require to manage situations that involve underspecified problems, time pressure constraints and complex group interaction. The article concludes that such competence development cannot rely only on highly context-specific (photorealistic) environments. Further, it will be argued that lower-fidelity simulation, when appropriately designed, can provide competence development with pedagogical and economic advantages.
As technology on board gets more automated and integrated there is the hope that seafarers will d... more As technology on board gets more automated and integrated there is the hope that seafarers will do less work. But as seen in other domains, as ships become more automated it seems that operators perform more and different work, for which many of them are ill prepared. We describe here the results of a field study on Swedish ships. With today’s technologies, seafarers on ships with (and without) integrated bridge and navigation systems have to perform less manual work but more integration work. Integration work, as we define the term, is a process, initiated and driven by the seafarer. In particular, it is working proactively to construct a workplace that ‘works’ for them, given their tasks and duties. The paper discusses whether workload has really been reduced or only shifted to another mode or form.
Work and technology in higher education: The …, 1995
To Move Away From Meaning: Collaboration, Consensus, and Work in a Hypermedia Project James M. Ny... more To Move Away From Meaning: Collaboration, Consensus, and Work in a Hypermedia Project James M. Nyce Gail Bader University College Ball State University In 1988, a research project was initiated to enhance students' understandings of the relationships between American ...
ABSTRACT Triggered by our occasionally tense field experiences relating to the implementation and... more ABSTRACT Triggered by our occasionally tense field experiences relating to the implementation and institutionalization of usability in design engineering organizations that are characterized by traditional engineering education and thinking, we have earlier suspected that the activities associated with human-centered design were orthogonal to the design engineering practices otherwise in place. While noting that other human factors professionals have had comparable challenges relating to multidisciplinary design, we have, however, reached a point where we rather are suggesting that the ontological, epistemological and methodological grounding of classic design engineering, under some circumstances, could be the direct cause for friction between that discipline and that of human factors. In a way taking our own medicine, we have thus arrived at a place where we are realizing the need for an ethnographical exploration and improved understanding of classic design engineering fundamentals, appreciating that a more successful and fruitful interaction and cooperation with that essential discipline very well could spring from a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the mindset of the classic design engineer. The main part of the present paper pivots around developing such an insight, hoping to contribute to the effective, efficient and satisfactory outcome of multidisciplinary cooperation for those who find themselves being tasked with human-centric work in traditional engineering organizations.
This paper brings a social science perspective (from the ethnicity and diversity literature) to b... more This paper brings a social science perspective (from the ethnicity and diversity literature) to bear on a process that is regarded by many as essentially a technical one: the safe insertion of military unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) in the (inter)national European airspace. The aim of this qualitative study was to gain a more adequate scientific socio-technological understanding of the topic, so as to strengthen issue dialogue and discussion. Indeed, studying the ''integration'' of these UASs (as this process is often referred to) through the lens of acculturation literature revealed some socio-technological processes that have been little noticed but which seem to underlie and inform this debate. For example, some voices seem to be favoured over others, a well-known phenomenon in the ethnicity and diversity literature. Safety, it could even be argued, is in this debate the pivot point around which social and other dynamics revolve. Belief and power may thus be more important factors here—''masked'' of course—than technical aspects of safety. The results of this study are important not only for the military since the incorporation of military UAS occurs, partially at least, in civilian airspace. Civil actors thus formed a substantial subset of those interviewed here.
This annotated bibliography was completed in 1986. It will be of use today primarily for persons ... more This annotated bibliography was completed in 1986. It will be of use today primarily for persons interested in the history of computing, the history of technology, and the rise of cultural aspects of computing. The bibliography documents sources that pre-date the Internet, Email, hypertext, the world wide web, and all forms of social media.
This bibliography brings together in one place diverse, scattered and hard-to find sources that will give researchers an entree to the literature on the social aspects of computing. The bibliography and the literature review that accompanies it are intended to provide an overview of this research area. Scholars here and abroad, graduate students and others interested in the social aspect of computing have encouraged us in this task because they believe that the bibliography would be a useful tool. The bibliography is intended to make vital literature readily accessible and to serve as a source of information about working papers and other documents that are often difficult to locate.
The bibliography contains a review essay: "Social Sciences and the Computer: A Literature Review" by James M. Nyce
The full bibliographic reference is:
Beeman. William; and Kenneth T. Anderson. 1986. An Annotated Bibliography of Research on Computers and Society with an essay by James M. Nyce. Providence, RI: Office of Program Analysis, Institute for Research in Information and Society (IRIS), Brown University.
Safety and security are often regarded as two separate concepts, both scientifically and organiza... more Safety and security are often regarded as two separate concepts, both scientifically and organizationally. Both are often seen as two fundamentally conflicting institutional demands and their agendas as being based on two profoundly different organizing principles. Because of this, safety may get less attention in security organizations than necessary as such a distinction would mean in the perception of people that funding for the one would go at the cost of the other. This chapter points out that organizing for security and for safety may not be so different after all as both safety and security seem to develop from the same social structures and institutional complexities. The differences between the two seem to be a matter of social construction, power and policy, rather than that these differences would inevitably follow from what one would regard as their intrinsic features.
… Conference on Human-Computer Interaction in …, 2002
Human-centered HCI systems can result if devel-opers pay heed to the orientations, expectations, ... more Human-centered HCI systems can result if devel-opers pay heed to the orientations, expectations, and understanding of the (end-)users. Contextual inquiry has emerged as one way since it can reveal what (computerized) work means to the practitioners who ...
Introduction While anthropology of science and technology does exist, much of what we have writte... more Introduction While anthropology of science and technology does exist, much of what we have written on these subjects tends to get published outside anthropology. While there have been several well argued attempts to move these subjects closer to the center of the discipline, ...
Human-centered HCI systems can result if developers pay heed to the orientations, expectations, a... more Human-centered HCI systems can result if developers pay heed to the orientations, expectations, and u nd erstanding of the (end-)users. Contextual inquiry has emerged as one way since it can reveal what (compute rized) work means to the practitioners who do it, but it needs to make the jump from the description and analysis of current working practice to a design language targeted at the future. In this paper we use three examples from studies into the use of flight strips in air traffic co ntrol for their ability to make this jump, extracting the lessons we still need to learn if we want to employ contextual inquiry as a tool in creating HCI sys tems.
Background The development of expertise in anaesthesia requires personal contact between a mentor... more Background The development of expertise in anaesthesia requires personal contact between a mentor and a learner. Because mentors often are experienced clinicians, they may find it difficult to understand the challenges novices face during their first months of clinical practice. As a result, novices’ perspectives may be an important source of pedagogical information for the expert. The aim of this study was to explore novice and expert anaesthetists understanding of expertise in anaesthesia using qualitative methods. Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 9 novice and 9 expert anaesthetists from a German University Hospital. Novices were included if they had between 3 and 6 months of clinical experience and experts were determined by peer assessment. Interviews were intended to answer the following research questions: What do novices think expertise entails and what do they think they will need to become an expert? What do experts think made them the expert person an...
This paper is a case study that describes an in situ information systems (IS) development effort ... more This paper is a case study that describes an in situ information systems (IS) development effort carried out with only local resources and staff in military (Swedish army) medium level headquarters (HQ). Originating in a qualitative study of command practice, this paper tracks the design and development of a simple hypertext application (a spreadsheet cluster) built from off-the-shelf software and describes the application's evolution over time into a control and coordination tool. The chain of events during a series of five military Command Post Exercises (CPXs) that led to the development of the application is described briefly here. First promoted by a few staff, it evolved over six months through these five CPXs. It was meant to be a complement to a new top-down common IS architecture in the HQ, one meant to support flexible teamwork and coordination. The application became so much a part of daily work practices that it became "invisible". Internal IS evaluations a...
Unmanned aerial systems (UASs) in general and UAS safety in particular have so far received littl... more Unmanned aerial systems (UASs) in general and UAS safety in particular have so far received little attention in the science, technology and society (STS) literature. This paper therefore reports on sev-eral (military) cases of this relatively new technology, focusing specifi cally on issues of safety. Quite often, safety of technology is considered the result of a rational process – one of a series of rational, often calculative, linear steps. The paper’s results suggest that establishing safety in military UASs is very much a social process. Approaching (military) UAS safety from this perspective could perhaps be complementary to more analytical and rational perspectives on safety of this type of technology. Further research is therefore suggested on the implications that social processes can have for safety in UASs. So far, it seems, such a position on safety in technology has been little explored in both the STS and safety literature explicitly.
Background: Knowledge about a female perspective on health and disease is important to understand... more Background: Knowledge about a female perspective on health and disease is important to understand what happens in e.g. the medical meeting. A deeper understanding for the phenomenon of health also has social and economic importance. In Sweden women account for about 60% of the long-term cases of sickness absence.Aim: To explore and describe women's perceptions of health and disease and their accounts of sickness absence.Methods: The chronic diseases mentioned by elderly women in an interview study are compared with those documented in their respective medical records (n=199). The prevalence of positive diagnoses, overall agreement, and the kappa-coefficient were calculated for each group of diagnoses. Semi-stmctnred interviews were conducted with 82 women who had been on sick leave (60 days or more) or who had disability pension. Sixty of these middle-aged women also carried out a Q-sort.Results: The lowest overall agreement between the elderly women report during interviews and...
Through a case study, this article explores a number of theoretical issues related to the often t... more Through a case study, this article explores a number of theoretical issues related to the often taken for granted relationship between simulator fidelity and the quality and transferability of training in complex, dynamic, safety-critical settings. A counterexample based on mid-fidelity simulation is presented and the assumed coincidence of fidelity and validity is tested, that is the study tests the equation of constructed photorealism (built to mimic reality) and effective development of the competence that operators require to manage situations that involve underspecified problems, time pressure constraints and complex group interaction. The article concludes that such competence development cannot rely only on highly context-specific (photorealistic) environments. Further, it will be argued that lower-fidelity simulation, when appropriately designed, can provide competence development with pedagogical and economic advantages.
As technology on board gets more automated and integrated there is the hope that seafarers will d... more As technology on board gets more automated and integrated there is the hope that seafarers will do less work. But as seen in other domains, as ships become more automated it seems that operators perform more and different work, for which many of them are ill prepared. We describe here the results of a field study on Swedish ships. With today’s technologies, seafarers on ships with (and without) integrated bridge and navigation systems have to perform less manual work but more integration work. Integration work, as we define the term, is a process, initiated and driven by the seafarer. In particular, it is working proactively to construct a workplace that ‘works’ for them, given their tasks and duties. The paper discusses whether workload has really been reduced or only shifted to another mode or form.
Work and technology in higher education: The …, 1995
To Move Away From Meaning: Collaboration, Consensus, and Work in a Hypermedia Project James M. Ny... more To Move Away From Meaning: Collaboration, Consensus, and Work in a Hypermedia Project James M. Nyce Gail Bader University College Ball State University In 1988, a research project was initiated to enhance students' understandings of the relationships between American ...
ABSTRACT Triggered by our occasionally tense field experiences relating to the implementation and... more ABSTRACT Triggered by our occasionally tense field experiences relating to the implementation and institutionalization of usability in design engineering organizations that are characterized by traditional engineering education and thinking, we have earlier suspected that the activities associated with human-centered design were orthogonal to the design engineering practices otherwise in place. While noting that other human factors professionals have had comparable challenges relating to multidisciplinary design, we have, however, reached a point where we rather are suggesting that the ontological, epistemological and methodological grounding of classic design engineering, under some circumstances, could be the direct cause for friction between that discipline and that of human factors. In a way taking our own medicine, we have thus arrived at a place where we are realizing the need for an ethnographical exploration and improved understanding of classic design engineering fundamentals, appreciating that a more successful and fruitful interaction and cooperation with that essential discipline very well could spring from a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the mindset of the classic design engineer. The main part of the present paper pivots around developing such an insight, hoping to contribute to the effective, efficient and satisfactory outcome of multidisciplinary cooperation for those who find themselves being tasked with human-centric work in traditional engineering organizations.
This paper brings a social science perspective (from the ethnicity and diversity literature) to b... more This paper brings a social science perspective (from the ethnicity and diversity literature) to bear on a process that is regarded by many as essentially a technical one: the safe insertion of military unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) in the (inter)national European airspace. The aim of this qualitative study was to gain a more adequate scientific socio-technological understanding of the topic, so as to strengthen issue dialogue and discussion. Indeed, studying the ''integration'' of these UASs (as this process is often referred to) through the lens of acculturation literature revealed some socio-technological processes that have been little noticed but which seem to underlie and inform this debate. For example, some voices seem to be favoured over others, a well-known phenomenon in the ethnicity and diversity literature. Safety, it could even be argued, is in this debate the pivot point around which social and other dynamics revolve. Belief and power may thus be more important factors here—''masked'' of course—than technical aspects of safety. The results of this study are important not only for the military since the incorporation of military UAS occurs, partially at least, in civilian airspace. Civil actors thus formed a substantial subset of those interviewed here.
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Books by James M Nyce
This bibliography brings together in one place diverse, scattered and hard-to find sources that will give researchers an entree to the literature on the social aspects of computing. The bibliography and the literature review that accompanies it are intended to provide an overview of this research area. Scholars here and abroad, graduate students and others interested in the social aspect of computing have encouraged us in this task because they believe that the bibliography would be a useful tool. The bibliography is intended to make vital literature readily accessible and to serve as a source of information about working papers and other documents that are often difficult to locate.
The bibliography contains a review essay: "Social Sciences and the Computer: A Literature Review" by James M. Nyce
The full bibliographic reference is:
Beeman. William; and Kenneth T. Anderson. 1986. An Annotated Bibliography of Research on Computers and Society with an essay by James M. Nyce. Providence, RI: Office of Program Analysis, Institute for Research in Information and Society (IRIS), Brown University.
Papers by James M Nyce
This bibliography brings together in one place diverse, scattered and hard-to find sources that will give researchers an entree to the literature on the social aspects of computing. The bibliography and the literature review that accompanies it are intended to provide an overview of this research area. Scholars here and abroad, graduate students and others interested in the social aspect of computing have encouraged us in this task because they believe that the bibliography would be a useful tool. The bibliography is intended to make vital literature readily accessible and to serve as a source of information about working papers and other documents that are often difficult to locate.
The bibliography contains a review essay: "Social Sciences and the Computer: A Literature Review" by James M. Nyce
The full bibliographic reference is:
Beeman. William; and Kenneth T. Anderson. 1986. An Annotated Bibliography of Research on Computers and Society with an essay by James M. Nyce. Providence, RI: Office of Program Analysis, Institute for Research in Information and Society (IRIS), Brown University.