EVOLVING SYLLABUS

IS212, Information in Society
Spring 2005
School of Information Management and Systems
Wednesday, 9:30-12 room 107 South Hall

Prof. Nancy Van House

Updated 4/28/05

Wiki

Current week

This course is, in practice, a special topics seminar that changes from year to year. The overall theme is methods and approaches to understanding the interaction of technology and the social, with an emphasis on approaches and topics that are relevant to design. A major (but not the only) foundation for this course is the interdisciplinary field known as Science and Technology Studies (STS). Topics will depend on who attends and what people are interested in. We will not plan out the entire semester in advance, but will make choices among an array of topics based on what the class is interested in.

 

SCHEDULE
Date Reading Discussion Leader(s)
Jan 26

Landon Winner, Do Artifacts Have Politics? http://www-personal.si.umich.edu/~rfrost/courses/Women+Tech/readings/Winner.html

Paul Dourish, Where the Action Is, ch. 3: Social Computing. Available online via UCB library at http://uclibs.org/PID/17642. (You need to be using a machine on campus or come through Library Proxy. I needed to update my Acrobat Reader for this to display properly.)


Yuri

 

Stephen

Feb. 2

TODAY ONLY:
time changed: 10-12:30; room changed: 205SH

107 SH

Mizuko Ito, Personal Portable Pedestrian: Lessons from Japanese Mobile Phone Use http://www.itofisher.com/mito/archives/ito.ppp.pdf

Okabe, Daisuke. Emergent Social Practices, Situations and Relations through Everyday Camera Phone Use.

Recommended:

Mizuko Ito and Daisuke Okabe. Technosocial Situations: Emergent Structurings of Mobile Email Use
http://www.itofisher.com/mito/mobileemail.pdf

Other papers: http://itofisher.com/mito/publications.html

Mimi Ito will meet with us when she arrives in Berkeley - probably 11:30 or so.

Morgan

Feb. 9

SCOT

This week we'll focus on understanding what SCOT is; this topic will continue into next week.

Bijker, W. E. (2004) Technology, Social Construction of. International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences. (requires campus IP address or proxy)

Bijker, W. E. (1995). King of the road: the social construction of the safety bicycle. In Of bicycles, bakelites, and bulbs: Toward a theory of sociotechnical change (pp. 19-100). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (copies outside my office; long, but read it for SCOT, not for the details on bicycles)

Pinch, T. (1996). The social construction of technology: a review. In R.Fox (Ed.), Technological change (pp. 17-35). Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers. (copies outside my office)

Ronald Kline; Trevor Pinch. Users as Agents of Technological Change: The Social Construction of the Automobile in the Rural United States Technology and Culture, Vol. 37, No. 4. (Oct., 1996), pp. 763-795. (requires campus IP address or proxy)

Recommended:
Rosen, P. (1993). The social construction of mountain bikes: technology and postmodernity in the cycle industry. Social Studies of Science, 23, 479-513. (requires campus IP address or proxy)

Trevor J. Pinch; Wiebe E. Bijker. The Social Construction of Facts and Artefacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology Might Benefit Each Other ; Social Studies of Science ,Vol. 14, No. 3 (Aug., 1984), pp. 399-441

Matti and Tracey

Feb. 16

Continue discussion of SCOT:
  • review readings from last week
  • come prepared to discuss Kline and Pinch
  • Find examples of SCOT related to topics in your own domain/interests and come to class prepared to discuss

Feb. 23 Selection from Hacking, The Social Construction of What?  
March 2 Lave, J., Wenger, E. Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 1991. chs. 1, 2, 4, 5 Available as PDF on the wiki. Megan, Dan, Steve
March 9

Suchman, L. A. Plans and Situated Actions: the Problem of Human-Machine Communication. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1987. chs 1-4, 8.

The following all available online via the library using campus IP address or proxy:

Suchman, 2003. Reading and Writing: A response to comments on Plans and Situated Actions. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, Vol. 12, No. 2: 299-306.On the wiki; available via campus library.

Possibly useful - re discussion of identity from last week's class:
Figuring Personhood in Sciences of the Artificial Lucy Suchman, 2004.

Plus skim these others - comments on P&SA:

Plans and Situated Actions: A Retro-Review
Timothy Koschmann
Journal of the Learning Sciences, Vol. 12, No. 2: pages 257-258.

Plans and Situated Action Ten Years On
Wes Sharrock, Graham Button
Journal of the Learning Sciences, Vol. 12, No. 2: pages 259-264.

Lesson Plans and Situated Learning-and-Teaching
Gordon Wells
Journal of the Learning Sciences, Vol. 12, No. 2: pages 265-272.

Situated Action in the Zeitgeist of Human-Computer Interaction
John M. Carroll
Journal of the Learning Sciences, Vol. 12, No. 2: pages 273-278.

By the Seat of Our Pants: The Evolution of Research on Cognition and Action
Alonso H. Vera
Journal of the Learning Sciences, Vol. 12, No. 2: pages 279-284.

Representations That Depend on the Environment: Interpretative, Predictive, and Praxis Perspectives on Learning
Daniel L. Schwartz, Taylor Martin
Journal of the Learning Sciences, Vol. 12, No. 2: pages 285-297.

 
March 16

Activity Theory

Activity theory is referred to a lot in the HCI lit but with, I think, only a superificial understanding. Our goal will be to thoroughly understand AT, how it has been used/misused in HCI, and how it can be used.

Start with:
Kaptelinin, Victor, and Nard, Bonnie A. Activity Theory: Basic Concepts and Applications. CHI 97 workshop.
Liam Bannon, Activity Theory , 1997

Then read:

Nardi, B. (1996). Activity theory and human-computer interaction(pp. 7-16); and Kuutti, K. (1996).Activity theory as a potential framework for human-computer interaction (pp. 17-44). Both In B.Nardi (Ed.), Context and consciousness: activity theory and human-computer interaction . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (on the wiki)

FYI- other useful readings:

Patricia Collins, Shilpa Shukla, David Redmiles.Activity Theory and System Design: A View from the Trenches. Computer Supported Cooperative Work 11: 55-80, 1999.

Engeström,Yrjo. Expansive Visibilization of Work: An Activity-Theoretical Perspective. Computer Supported Cooperative Work 8: 63–93, 1999.

Gay, G., Hembrooke, H. Activity-Centered Design: an Ecological Approach to Designing Smart Tools and Usable Systems. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass, 2004

Christine A. Halverson (2002). Activity Theory and Distributed Cognition: Or What Does CSCW Need to DO with Theories? Computer Supported Cooperative Work 11: 243-267.

Star, S. L. (1996). Working together: Symbolic interactionism, activity theory, and information systems. In D.Middleton & Y. Engestrom (Eds.), Cognition and communication at work (pp. 296-318). Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University.


 
March 23 Spring Break  
March 30

Distributed Cognition

James Hollan, Edwin Hutchins, and David Kirsh . Distributed cognition: toward a new foundation for human-computer interaction research ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, Volume 7 , Issue 2 (June 2000) (ACM Dig Lib - accessible from UC IP addresses)

Hutchins, E & Klausen, T. (1996) Distributed cognition in an airline cockpit. In Y. Engeström and D. Middleton (Eds.) Cognition and communication at work. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Christine A. Halverson (2002). Activity Theory and Distributed Cognition: Or What Does CSCW Need to DO with Theories? Computer Supported Cooperative Work 11: 243-267.

Also look at:
Nardi, Studying Context: a Comparison of Activity, Theory, Situated Action Models, and Distributed Cognition. In Nardi, ed., Context and Consciousness, p. 69-102. Copied and handed out during March 16 class. (Part of the copying that Megan did during the break.)

 
April 6 no class - CHI conference.  
April 13

Christine A. Halverson (2002). Activity Theory and Distributed Cognition: Or What Does CSCW Need to DO with Theories? Computer Supported Cooperative Work 11: 243-267.

Star, S. L. (1996). Working together: Symbolic interactionism, activity theory, and information systems. In D.Middleton & Y. Engestrom (Eds.), Cognition and communication at work (pp. 296-318). Cambridge ; Cambridge University Press. I'll make a copy available for scanning for the wiki.

Not the paper I was thinking of but checking Y. Rogers' site I found the following:
Rogers, Y. (2004) New Theoretical approaches for Human-Computer Interaction. Annual Review of Information, Science and Technology, 38, 87-143. Covers AT, DCog, and more.

This is the ANT paper but we won't try to discuss it today:
Law, J. (1992). Notes on the theory of the actor-network: Ordering, strategy, and heterogenity. http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/papers/law-notes-on-ant.pdf

 
April 20

Social scientists and design: 

Lucy Suchman (2000), Located Accountabilities in Technology Production

 

 
April 27

Social Scientists and Design (cont)

Suchman, L. A., Blomberg, J., Orr, J. E., & Trigg, R. H. (1999). Reconstructing technologies as social practice. American Behavioral Scientist, 43, 392-408. Overview of their work. On the wiki.

I may add one more article. 4/21/05

Recommended:

Suchman, L. (2000). Embodied Practices of Engineering Work. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 7, 4-18. Activity theory and ethnomethodology. On the wiki.

Actor-Network Theory (we'll continue this into next week -- begin with these)

Law, J. (1992). Notes on the theory of the actor-network: Ordering, strategy, and heterogenity. http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fss/sociology/papers/law-notes-on-ant.pdf


For an example of ANT in action: Law, J. (1992). On the Methods of Long-Distance Control: Vessels, Navigation, and the Portuguese Route to India. http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fss/sociology/papers/law-methods-of-long-distance-control.pdf

FYI: Actor-Network Resource

 
May 4

 

Latour, B. J. J. (1995). Mixing humans and nonhumans together: The sociology of door-closer. In S.L.Star (Ed.), Ecologies of knowledge: work and politics in science and technology (pp. 257-277). SUNY Press. Also published in Social Problems, Vol. 35, No. 3, Special Issue: The Sociology of Science and Technology, Jun., 1988 (available online via campus - on wiki)

Recap, review, wrap-up

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ANT recommended:

 Callon, M. Some elements of a sociology of translation: domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St. Brieuc Bay. In Law J. (ed.). Power, Action, and Belief: a New Sociology ofKnowledge? Routledge and Kegan Paul: London, 1986.


Star, S. L. & Griesmer, J. R. (1989). Institutional ecology, "translations," and boundary objects: Amateurs and professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-39. Social Studies of Science, 19, 387-420. (will be made available)

Optional - FYI:

Bowker, G. C. & Star, S. L. (1996). How things (actor-net)work: Classification, magic and the ubiquity of standards.

 
     

 

Potential topics:

 

Actor-Network Theory

Law, J. (1992). Notes on the theory of the actor-network: Ordering, strategy, and heterogenity. http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/papers/law-notes-on-ant.pdf


For an example of ANT in action: Law, J. (1992). On the Methods of Long-Distance Control: Vessels, Navigation, and the Portuguese Route to India. http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/papers/law-methods-of-long-distance-control.pdf

Callon, M. Some elements of a sociology of translation: domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St. Brieuc Bay. In Law J. (ed.). Power, Action, and Belief: a New Sociology of Knowledge? Routledge and Kegan Paul: London, 1986. (will be made available)

Bowker, G. C. & Star, S. L. (1996). How things (actor-net)work: Classification, magic and the ubiquity of standards.

J. Johnson [Bruno Latour] (1995): “Mixing Humans and Nonhumans Together: The Sociology of a Door-Closer” in Susan Leigh Star (ed.): Ecologies of Knowledge: Work and Politics in Science and Technology. pp. 257-277.

Kaghan, W. N. and Bowker, G. C. Crossing boundaries and building bridges: Irreductionist '"frameworks" for the study of sociotechnical systems. Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, 18 (2001) 253-269.

Star, S. L. & Griesmer, J. R. (1989). Institutional ecology, "translations," and boundary objects: Amateurs and professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-39. Social Studies of Science, 19, 387-420.

Context

There's lots of agreement that context is important in IT design and use, but then things get confusing: what is context and how does it get incorporated in design?

Dourish, P. What we talk about when we talk about context. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 8, 1 (2004) 19-30.:

Anind K. Dey and Gregory D. Abowd. Towards a Better Understanding of Context and Context-Awareness. In the Workshop on The What, Who, Where, When, and How of Context-Awareness, as part of the 2000 Conference on Human Factors inComputing Systems (CHI 2000), The Hague, The Netherlands, April 3, 2000. ftp://ftp.cc.gatech.edu/pub/gvu/tr/1999/99-22.pdf Focused on representation from an actionable/computational perspective (rather than a descriptive or analytical one).

Abowd and Mynatt. "Charting Past, Present and Future Research in Ubiquitous Computing" TOCHI 7(1), 2000. pp. 29-58. http://www.cc.gatech.edu/fce/pubs/tochi-millenium.pdf Chris says: This is a fairly decent outline of the ubiquitous computing agenda.]

 

Critical Technical Practice

Agre, P. (1997). Toward a critical technical practice: Lessons learned in trying to reform AI. In G.C.Bowker, S. L. Star, W. Turner, & L. Gasser (Eds.), Social science, technical systems, and cooperative work (pp. 131-158). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. online version

Wardrip-Fruin, M. & Moss, B. (2002). The impermance agent: Project and context. PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, 70, 52-83. Read pp. 69-71 on CTP. pdf

See a page listing people associated with CTP

Read as examples of CTP:

Philip E. Agre, Writing and Representation. From Michael Mateas and Phoebe Sengers, eds, Narrative Intelligence, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2002. online version

Philip E. Agre. Cyberspace as American Culture Science as Culture 11(2), 2002, pages 171-189. pdf version.

Distributed Cognition

Like AT, this is an approach talked about in HCI but with, I suspect, often only a superficial understanding. Our goal will be to understand how it is used and can be used understanding and designing IT, and its relationship to the other approaches discussed.


Gender and Technology

These are examples -- need to do more digging around to decide what we would read.

Wajcman, J. (2000). Reflections on gender and technology studies: In what state is the art? Social Studies of Science, 30, 447-464.

Haraway, D. (2003). Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies, 14, 575-600.

McLauglin, J. (2002). Gendering the user and technological innnovation. In International Summer Academy on Technological Studies: User Involvement in Technological Innovation (pp. 115-127).

 

Grounded Theory

Glaser, B. G. & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company.


Adele E. Clarke Situational Analysis: Grounded Theory After the Postmodern Turn. Sage, 2005 (forthcoming).

the link between technology and social theory

An anthropologist's view:
Lucy Suchman
including (links fixed)
Lucy Suchman (2000), Located Accountabilities in Technology Production
Lucy Suchman (1987). Plans and situated actions : The problem of human-machine communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Another anthropologist:
Diana Forsythe


Forsythe, D. Studying Those Who Study Us: an Anthropologist in the World of Artificial Intelligence. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 2001.

Forsythe, D. "It's just a matter of common sense": Ethnography as invisible work. Studying Those Who Study Us: An Anthropologist in the World of Artificial Intelligence. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 2001.

Forsythe, D. Ethics and politics of studying up in technoscience. Studying Those Who Study Us: an Anthropologist in the World of Artificial Intelligence. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 2001.

Forsythe, D. New bottles, old wine: hidden cultural assumptions in a computerized explanation system for migraine sufferers. Studying Those Who Study Us: an Anthropologist in the World of Artificial Intelligence. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 2001.

A technologist's view:
Paul Dourish
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~jpd/ various including

Dourish, P. (2004). What we talk about when we talk about context. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 8.

Dourish, P. (2001). Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction. Cambridge: MIT Press. http://www.ics.uci.edu/~jpd/embodied/

Paul Dourish & Graham Button (1998). On “Technomethodology”:Foundational Relationships between Ethnomethodology and System Design Human-Computer Interaction 13: 395-432. Slightly different version: http://www.ics.uci.edu/~jpd/

Situated Action, Learning, Knowledge

Haraway, D. Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies, 14, 3 (2003) 575-600.

Lave, J., Wenger, E. Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 1991.

Suchman, L. A. Plans and Situated Actions: the Problem of Human-Machine Communication. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1987.

Social Construction of Technlogy (SCOT)

This is an approach that has not been used in IT as much as I think it should be. We will examine it in order to understnad it well enough to use it. My research group has been looking at the complementary strengths and weaknesses off SCOT and AT for technology design and use.

Pinch, Trevor J. and Wiebe E.Bijker. 1987. "The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts: or how the sociology of science and the sociology of technology might benefit each other," in Bijker, Wiebe, Thomas P. Hughes, and Trevor E. Pinch, eds., The Social Construction of Technological Systems (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1989) , pp. 17-50.

Bijker, W. E. (1995). King of the road: the social construction of the safety bicycle. In Of bicycles, bakelites, and bulbs: Toward a theory of sociotechnical change (pp. 19-100). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Pinch, T. (1996). The social construction of technology: a review. In R.Fox (Ed.), Technological change (pp. 17-35). Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers.

Recommended: Paul Rosen, The Social Construction of Mountain Bikes: Technology and Postmodernity in the Cycle Industry. Social Studies of Science, Vol. 23, No. 3. (Aug., 1993), pp. 479-513 (Available from campus IP addresses only)

Texts and artifacts

Latour, B. (1999). Pandora's hope : Essays on the reality of science studies. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Chapter 2: Circulation Reference: Sampling the Soil in the Amazon Forest.

Latour (1986) Bruno Latour, ‘Visualization and Cognition: Thinking with Eyes and Hands’, Knowledge and Society 6: 1-40.

Law, J. (1986). The heterogeneity of texts. In M.Callon, J. Law, & A. Rip (Eds.), Mapping the Dynamics of Science and Technology: Sociology of Science in the Real World (pp. 67-83). London: Macmillan Press.

Rip, A. (1986). Mobilizing Resources through Texts. In M.Callon, J. Law, & A. Rip (Eds.), Mapping the Dynamics of Science and Technology: Sociology of Science in the Real World (pp. 84-99). London: Macmillan Press.

Users: Constructing Users, Incorporating Users in Design

Akrich, M. User representation: practices, methods, and sociology. In Rip A., Misa T. J., Schmit J. (eds.). Managing Technology in Society: the Approach of Constructive Technology Assessment. Pinter, New York, 1995.

Glock, F. Design Tools and Framing Practices. Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 12, 2 (2003) 221-239.

Grint, K., Woolgar, S. Configuring the user: inventing new technologies. The Machine at Work : Technology, Work, and Organization. Polity Press, Cambridge, UK, 1997.

Mackay, H. et al Reconfiguring the user: Using rapid application development. Social Studies of Science, 30, 5 (2000) 737-757.

Summerton, J. Do Electrons Have Politics? Constructing User Identities in Swedish Electricity. Science, Technology, and Human Values, 29, 4 (2005) 486-511.

Woolgar, S. Configuring the user: The case of usability trials. In Law J. (ed.). A Sociology of Monsters: Essays on Power, Technology, and Domination. Routledge, London, 1991.

Oudshoorn N., Pinch T. (eds.). How Users Matter: The Co-Construction of Users and Technology. MIT Press., Cambridge, MA, 2003.

 

Visual Studies
This field has two emphases: (1) the use of images as evidence in social science research, and (2) images and their use in people's lives. My own work incorporates both: I use images (among other resources) to study the personal use of images and the changes made possible by new technology (including cameraphones and photoblogs). We may do some reading in this area, if enough people are interested.

Barnhurst, K. G., Vari, M., and Rodriguez, I. Mapping Visual Studies in Communication. Journal of Communication, 54, 4 (2004) 616-644.

Chalfen, R. Snapshot Versions of Life. Bowling Green State University Popular Press, Bowling Green, Ohio, 1987.

Frohlich, D., Kuchinsky, A., Pering, C., Don, A., and Ariss, S. Requirements for Photoware, in ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (2002), ACM Press, 166-175.

Prosser, J. Image-Based Research: a Sourcebook for Qualitative Researchers. Falmer Press, London; Bristol, PA, 1998.

Wagner, J. (ed.) Images of Information : Still Photography in the Social Sciences. Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, 1979.

 

Work Practice and Technology

Suchman, L. A., Blomberg, J.; Orr, J.E.; Trigg, R. Reconstructing technologies as social practice. American Behavioral Scientist 43, 3 (1999) 392-408. Available online from campus addresses. Go to http://sunsite2.berkeley.edu:8000/ and search on the journal title.

Blomberg, J., Burrell, M., Guest, G. An ethnographic approach to design. In Jacko J. A., Sears A. (eds.). The Human-Computer Interaction Handbook: Fundamentals, Evolving Technologies and Emerging Applications. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.: Mahwah, New Jersey, 2003.

Suchman, L., Trigg, R. H., and Blomberg, J. Working artefacts: ethnomethods of the prototype. British Journal of Sociology 53, 2 (2002) 163-179. Available online from campus addresses.

Another version: Paper presented at the 1998 American Sociological Association in the session Ethnomethodology: Hybrid Studies of the Workplace and Technology, August 22, 1998, San Francisco, CA.

 

 

Other Info

Grades will be based on (1) your keeping up on the readings and participating in class discussion, and (2) a final paper reflecting on and synthesizing some of the readings from the course, preferably applied to a topic relevant to your own interests.

Recommended for SIMS PhD students, MIMS students, and for graduate students in other departments with an interest in social issues in knowledge work and information technology. Especially relevant for students in HCI interested in more depth in social theory issues. In past years the class has been extremely varied, with maybe half the students from SIMS, and others from computer science, education, and off-campus. Students with specific interests that you would like to see addressed in the class are encouraged to email me.

Prerequisites:
IS 203 or IS204 or consent of instructor. Non-SIMS students require permission of instructor (which is generally readily given, except to undergrads).