The idea of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work is accepted as a feature of the 1990s work environment, even if results have not always been up to the hopes put into these new technical support systems. Engineers have joined sociologists in wanting to build mechanisms into their systems that will account for the social costs of changing the infrastructural arrangements of working together. Even in the realm of scientific cognition and decision making, the metaphor of scientists as robust problem solvers is now incorporating issues related to such contingent and messy things as disciplinary and professional politics, or the nature, availiability, and rights of access to laboratory materials (Berg, 1996; Star & Ruhleder, 1996).
However, the biggest impetus for closer cooperation between system designers and social scientists probably lies outside the realm of artificial intelligence or CSCW and more in the field of information science. Government agencies are actively sponsoring joint research projects and often seek to include social scientists in large computing projects. This has recently been evident, for example, in the new U.S. Digital Library Initiative, which includes social scientists as evaluators of use and impact, and also as theorists of community and work (Bishop et al., 1995). This step is easy to understand in one sense, given levels of public investments in digital highways. As a matter of public concern, will these highways lead to heaven or hell? Will they be a fabulous opportunity for working creatively together or, as many fear, the siren call luring us into the flow of infojunk currently polluting the Web? The dynamic nature of open systems means that the benchmarks needed to fix the cognitive limits of joint action are not easy to determine.
⇒ Fence building and ⇒ Fence Tending
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BOWKER, Geoffrey C., STAR, Susan Leigh, WILLIAM, Turner and LES, Gasser (eds.), 2014. Social Science, Technical Systems, and Cooperative Work: Beyond the Great Divide. New York: Psychology Press. ISBN 978-1-315-80584-9.