Working Papers (RKCSI)
Permanent link for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/2022/147
The RKCSI Working Paper Series provides a venue for social informatics researchers to publish their works for distribution to a wide audience. Works may be submitted before or in lieu of publication in a formal journal.
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Browsing Working Papers (RKCSI) by Author "Hara, Noriko"
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Item Ecological approach to virtual team effectiveness(Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, 2002) Shachaf, Pnina; Hara, NorikoThis paper attempts to address the need for more research on virtual team effectiveness, and outlines an ecological theoretical framework. Prior empirical studies on virtual team effectiveness used frameworks of traditional team effectiveness and mainly followed Hackman's normative model (input-process-output). We propose an ecological approach for virtual team effectiveness that accounts for team boundaries management, technology use, and external environment, properties which were previously either non-existent or contextual. The ecological framework suggests that three components, external environment, internal environment, and boundary management, reciprocally interact with effectiveness. The significance of the proposed framework is the holistic perspective that takes into account the complexity of the external and internal environment of the team.Item Formal and Informal Learning: Incorporating Communities of Practice into Professional Development(Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, 2002) Hara, NorikoThe field of professional training has a long tradition of supporting learning and performance through formal training. This paper raises questions about the focus on formal learning and proposes a new way of incorporating communities of practice into professional development. Communities of practice are informal networks that support a group of practitioners in developing a shared meaning and engaging in knowledge building among the members. The purposes of this paper are to describe informal and formal learning found in organizations and to discuss the implications of informal and formal learning in communities of practice for general professional development.Item Informatics and Distributed Learning(Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, 2002) Kling, Rob; Hara, NorikoItem IT Supports for Communities of Practice: An Empirically-based Framework(Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, 2002) Hara, Noriko; Kling, RobDespite strong interest among practitioners and scholars, the study of communities of practice (CoPs) and Information Technology (IT) is short of empirical research. This paper presents a theoretical framework for communities of practice and provides alternative perspectives on IT supports for communities of practice. The framework was developed based on the literature and ethnographic case studies of communities of practice within two organizations. The study examines how people share and construct their knowledge and how they use collaborative IT to support work practices in two organizations. The surprising finding is that the groups that used IT most intensively had the least well-developed CoPs. The results of the study would inform practice and research in Knowledge Management.Item The Quality of Evidence in Knowledge Management Research: Practitioner versus Scholarly Literature(Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, 2006-11) Ekbia, Hamid R.; Hara, NorikoThe fragmentation of knowledge management as a field and as an area of research poses serious theoretical challenges for researchers. The viability of KM rests on how the community responds to these challenges, but it also depends on how they garner empirical support for their purported theories. One aspect of this would involve the evaluation of the evidence provided in KM research. This paper presents a comparative study of the evidence that is presented in scholarly and professional literature on KM. For this purpose, the paper introduces a typology of evidence to analyze the data obtained from the survey of the literature. The classification based on this typology reveals no systematic difference between the types of evidence put forth in the scholarly and practitioner literature. However, closer examination reveals interesting differences in terms of the questions they ask, the perspective they adopt, and the methods they follow to convince others of the validity their claims. We explain these differences in terms of the notions of “blackboxing” and “performance” borrowed from actor-network theory. Drawing upon lessons from the philosophy of science and science studies, we explicate the different degrees of blackboxing by professionals and scholars in translating data of studied cases into “evidence” that is then handed down to others who take interest in it. The implications of these differences for scholarly research on KM will be discussed.Item Social Informatics Education in I-Schools(Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, 2005-09) Robbin, Alice; Hara, Noriko; Day, RonThis essay focuses on the philosophical and conceptual underpinnings of a program of study in Social Informatics. We examine foundational concepts and analytical tools, ideas worked out by Rob Kling and others about the key components of an ICToriented education (even when the intent of their discussion was not pedagogical). Our intention is to assay Kling’s program of critical inquiry for a Social Informatics education that prepares information professionals to respond appropriately and ethically in their future careers. We do not to recommend the adoption of specific courses for a Social Informatics education. We had also planned to identify those components of a Social Informatics education that I-schools and library and information science schools have incorporated in their program offerings to determine how much progress has been made to adopt a critical perspective on the relationship between technology and people. However, this proved to be nearly impossible; we discuss our limited findings based on our initial exploration. Our concluding remarks address additions to the Kling perspective on a Social Informatics education that we would like to see and offer some thoughts on ways to support a Social Informatics education for information professionals.Item Students’ Distress with a Web-based Distance Education Course(Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, 2000) Hara, Noriko; Kling, RobMany advocates of computer-mediated distance education emphasize its positive aspects and understate the kinds of communicative and technical capabilities and work required by students and faculty. There are few systematic analytical studies of students who have experienced new technologies in higher education. This article presents a qualitative case study of a web-based distance education course at a major U.S. university. The case data reveal a topic that is glossed over in much of the distance education literature written for administrators, instructors and prospective students: students' periodic distressing experiences (such as frustration, anxiety and confusion) in a small graduate-level course due to communication breakdowns and technical difficulties. Our intent is that this study will enhance understanding of the instructional design issues, instructor and student preparation, and communication practices that are needed to improve web-based distance education courses.