Knowledge Environments: Social Factors Important to Success

Suzi Iacono, Digital Society and Technologies Program, IIS/CISE, NSF

November 25, 2002

Panel Focus

To understand and appreciate knowledge environments as socio-technical systems

To understand the development, use and outcomes of collaboration technologies as a co-evolutionary process

Research on Collaboration Technologies

Truth is somewhere in between

To be successful, technologies have to be used

• Build it and they will come! (NOT)• Adoption, use and collaboration are not

automatic

Many knowledge barriers – technical, behavioral, organizational, and economic

Knowledge Environments Research

IT Disciplines

Inter-disciplinary Fields

Computer Science

Engineering

Social Psychology

Cognitive Science

CSCW HCI Informatics

Domain Scientists/Users

SES Disciplines

Linguistics

Information Science

Sociology

Panel goalsPanel goals

Reflect on past research on collaboration technologies and obstacles to their use

Highlight key issues in need of further investigation

Four 15 minute presentations with some questions

• Jonathan Grudin, Microsoft

• Gary Olson, University of Michigan

• Wesley Shrum, LSU

• Ed Hackett, ASU

One hour for discussion

How we will do this