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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Now showing 1 - 20 of 50

Bits of Cities: Utopian Visions and Social Power in Placed-Based and Electronic Communities
(Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, 1996) Kling, Rob; Lamb, Roberta
A Multi-level Approach to Intelligent Information Filtering: Model, System, and Evaluation
(Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, 1996) Mostafa, J.; Mukhopahyay, S.; Lam, W.; Palakal, M.
To conduct efficient information filtering, uncertanties occurring at multiple levels must be managed. Uncertainties can occur due to changing document space as well as stochasticity and non-stationarity of the user. In this paper, a filtering model is proposed that decomposes the overall task into subsystem functionalities and highlights the need for multiple adaptation techniques to cope with uncertainties. A filtering system, named SIFTER, has been implemented based on the model, using established techniques in information retrieval and artificial intelligence. These techniques include document representation using vector-space model, document classification by unsupervised learning, and user modeling by reinforcement learning. The system can filter information based on content and user's specific interests. The user's interest is automatically learned with only limited user intervention in the form of optional relevance feedbacks for documents. We also describe extensive experimental studies conducted with SIFTER to filter computer and information science documents collected from the Internet and commercial database services. The experimental results demonstrate that the system performs very well in filtering documents in a realistic problem setting.
In the trenches of the digital revolution: Intellectual freedom and the "public" digital library
(Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, 1996) Rosenbaum, Howard
The development of the Internet and the increasing popularity of the World Wide Web have opened up a new realm of information access, storage, and delivery for librarians and information professionals. Libraries and schools are striving to respond to the pervasive and persistent growth of global networking and manage the demand for access to this dynamic medium. Currently, 21 percent of American public libraries and 35 percent of public schools have some form of internet access (U.S. Department of Commerce, 1995; Sackman, 1995). Working in the trenches of the digital revolution, librarians and information professionals are beginning to offer internet services to patrons; their work marks the beginning of the grassroots implementation of the "public" digital library. Such efforts do not come without their attendant risks, and it is extremely important that those who are becoming network service and resource providers and content producers clearly understand what is involved in their participation in the digital revolution from an issues- and policy-oriented perspective. This paper will outline one subset of the range of critical issues that are part and parcel of the world of networked information and discuss its impacts on librarians and information professionals. It will discuss questions of access, privacy, copyright, and the protection of intellectual property and suggest that librarians and information professionals discuss and develop reasonable acceptable use policies early in the implementation process that will allow them to effectively person the front lines of the digital revolution.
Structure and Action: Towards a New Concept of the Information Use Environment
(Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, 1996) Rosenbaum, Howard
One pressing concern in library and information science is to understand the social context within which the generation and dissemination of information takes place in organizational settings. This paper examines the problems involved in the attempt to account for, in theoretical and empirical terms, the social context within which information is generated, sought for, acquired, evaluated, organized, disseminated, and used in complex formal organizations. It describes the findings of research based on innovative theoretical approach that focuses on one important element of the social context of information, called the information use environment. Based on the work of Taylor [1, 2] and Giddens [3, 4] this approach represents a conceptual advance in the field that allows us to improve our understanding of the complexities of the working world of information professionals.
A Typology for Electronic-Journals: Characterizing Scholarly Journals by their Distribution Forms
(Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, 1997) Kling, Rob; McKim, Geoffrey
Notes on a structurational view of digital information in organizations
(Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, 1997) Rosenbaum, Howard
Information has become an important resource in organizations and is once again moving into the center of research attention, especially as more of this information is rendered in digital form. When digital information is considered as an organizational resource, it is an undertheorized concept. In an effort to rethink this concept, this paper proposes a structurational framework for digital organizational information within which this type of information is treated as a resource in an organizational information use environment (IUE). One objective of this paper is to develop this framework in detail, clarifying a base from which the social implications of organizational digital information may be explored. The structuration approach is used because it is "a highly useful framework for the analysis of organizations" (Mills and Murgatroyd (1991; 12). The structurational conception of digital organizational information as a resource is an important element of an organization's IUE, because of the way in which it can extend the power of those who control it (Rosenbaum, 1996b; Orlikowski, 1992). Taylor's (1991) concept of the IUE is used because it focuses on the organizational environment in "information terms." A second objective of this paper is to argue that the access to and control of digital information in organizations is a fundamental characteristic of the structuration of modern organiza given serious and sustained research attention.
Human Centered Systems in the Perspective of Organizational and Social Informatics
(Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, 1997) Kling, Rob; Star, Leigh; Kiesler, Sara; Agre, Phil; Bowker, Geoffrey; Attewell, Paul; Ntuen, Celestine
Organizational Aspects of the Virtual/Digital Library: A Survey of Academic Libraries
(Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, 1997) Travica, Bob
The virtual or digital library (V/DL) is presently being investigated across disciplines. Technology-related topics capture most of attention, while organizational issues are little studied. Rather than looking at V/DL as a specific technology, the present study takes an organizational approach. It places V/DL in the content of the academic library, focusing on relevant opinions of the library heads. The study's findings suggest that the library heads typically understand V/DL as digital materials, are mainly supportive of V/DL understood in this way, and demonstrate the tension between old and new orientations.
Digital Libraries and the Practices of Scholarly Communication
(Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, 1997) Kling, Rob; Covi, Lisa
The Internet for Sociologists
(Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, 1997) Kling, Rob
Within the last five years, many sociologists have discovered electronic mail (e-mail) discussion lists (such as LISTSERVs) and the World Wide Web (WWW)-- services, that are associated with a network of computer networks popularly referred to as "the Internet." Over the last twenty years, academics in certain disciplines, especially the lab sciences, have found computer networking to be a viable means for sharing data, organizing professionals discussions, keeping in touch with colleagues, and distributing documents, such as conference programs, preprints, and syllabi. Within the last five years, many sociologists have discovered electronic mail (e-mail) discussion lists (such as LISTSERVs) and the World Wide Web (WWW)-- services, that are associated with a network of computer networks popularly referred to as "the Internet." Over the last twenty years, academics in certain disciplines, especially the lab sciences, have found computer networking to be a viable means for sharing data, organizing professionals discussions, keeping in touch with colleagues, and distributing documents, such as conference programs, preprints, and syllabi. This brief article has the unmodest ambition of explaining to sociologists why they should take the Internet seriously as a medium of professional communication, and why some sociologists should be specially interested in the Internet (or other computer networks) as social spaces in which to study shifting social relationships in our society. Part I may be specially useful to sociologists who have relatively limited experience with Internet services. Part II discusses sociological uses of the Internet to support research, teaching, and professional communication that could interest readers with significant Internet experiences.
Digital Shift or Digital Drift?: Conceptualizing Transitions From Paper Media to Electronic Publishing and Digital Libraries in North American Universities
(Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, 1997) Covi, Lisa; Kling, Rob
Conceiving IT-Enabled Organizational Change
(Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, 1998) Kling, Rob; Tillquist, John
Management models of IT-enabled organizational change like business process re-engineering, networking organizations, and complementary IT-to-business strategies, circulate broadly through the academic literature and popular business press. But h ow do these models carried within the management discourse influence the praxis of strategic planning? This study examines a strategic planning process as it is shaped by a popular IT-enabled change model. We found that popular cultural models of IT-ena bled change shape the organizational planning process by defining the mode of participant expression and pre-defining taken-for-granted assumptions of work and work organization. Our data show how models of IT-enabled change facilitate sense-making. We di fferentiate between socially-rich and socially-thin models, and argue that the latter, linked to popularized conceptions of management carried in the practitioner literature, are especially problematic for organizational participants and can undermine eff ective organizational action.
Web-based Community Networks: A Study of Information Organization and Access
(Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, 1998) Rosenbaum, Howard
This paper reports a subset of the results a research project designed to assess the current state of state-funded community networking in Indiana. It explores the organization of information resources and services provided by 24 web-based community networks, examines the core design principles that have been most useful in the development of these community network (CN) sites and assesses the strategies currently used to provide access to these information resources and services. Using a variety of methods, including content analysis of web sites, interviews with CN board members, echnical staff, and users, and site visits, the study examined the 24 state-funded CNs and attempted to answer a set of research questions, a subset of which will be reported here. The study found that the CN sites have useful and usable technical infrastructures in place but are lacking the deep and meaningful local content and services that will allow them to become important nodes in their communities' digital information environments.
Sustaining New Coordination Methods: The Case of World Class Manufacturing
(Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, 1998) Allen, Jonathan; Bakos, Yannis; Kling, Rob
A popular philosophy of manufacturing reform commonly referred to as "World Class Manufacturing", calls for the adoption of organizational practices that significantly alter coordination within and between manufacturing firms. These practices are intended to enable continuous improvement, speed up response time, improve product quality, and create closer relationships with customers and suppliers. The adoption of coordination methods advocated by World Class Manufacturing, such as cross-functional teams and vendor certification, has been uneven. This is not surprising, considering the diversity of technical and institutional demands faced by different manufacturing firms, and even by different groups within firms. But the literature on World Class Manufacturing coordination reforms has yet to describe the key contextual factors and processes which make these methods more or less sustainable for different organizations, continuing to prescribe the same solutions to every firm regardless of their situation or history. In this study, we turn to organizational theory to help explain the sustainability or abandonment of different World Class Manufacturing coordination methods. Using a case study of three different coordination reforms in a Southern California aerospace firm, we compared the explanatory power of two popular theoretical perspectives on organizational coordination and action -- one rational perspective (structural contingency theory) and one natural perspective (institutional theory). One of the abandoned coordination reforms depended upon a complex computerized information system. Our study indicates that the use of organizational theories adds substantially to our explanation and understanding of the practical barriers faced by World Class Manufacturing coordination practices. Since few of these coordination innovations are justified using traditional techniques, it is especially important to have rich conceptual tools for thinking through exactly which coordination innovations will be sustainable in particular manufacturing organizations. The combination of rational and natural systems models accounts for both the technical and the (often neglected) institutional dimensions of the manufacturing environment.
A Study of State-Funded Community Networks in Indiana: Final Report
(Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, 1998) Rosenbaum, Howard; Gregson, Kim
How Public is the Web?: Robots, Access, and Scholarly Communication
(Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, 1998) Snyder, Herbert; Rosenbaum, Howard
This paper examines the use of "Robot Exclusion Protocol" to restrict the access of search engine robots to 10 major American university websites belonging to institutions recently named among "AmericaÕs Most Wired" universities (Gan, 1997). An analysis of web site searching and interviews with web server administrators at these sites shows that the decision to use this procedure is largely technical and is typically made by the web server administrator. The implications of this decision for openness in scholarly communication and for the future of academic, university-based web publishing are discussed.
A longitudinal investigation of personal computers in homes: Adoption determinants and emerging challenges
(Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, 1998) Venkatesh, Viswanath; Brown, Susan A.
While technology adoption in the workplace has been studied extensively, drivers of adoption in homes have been largely overlooked. This paper presents the results of a nation-wide, two-wave, longitudinal investigation of the factors driving personal computer (PC) adoption among American homes. The findings revealed that innovators and early adopters were driven by a desire to obtain hedonic outcomes (i.e., pleasure) and social outcomes (i.e., status) from adoption. The early majority was strongly influenced by utilitarian outcomes, and friends and family members. The late majority and laggards have not adopted primarily because of rapid changes in technology and consequent fear of obsolescence. A second wave of data collection conducted six months after the initial survey indicated an asymmetrical relationship between intent and behavior among intenders and non-intenders, with non-intenders following more closely with their intent (to not adopt a PC). We present important implications for research on adoption of technologies in homes and the workplace, and also discuss challenges facing the PC industry.
Not Just a Matter of Time: Field Differences and the Shaping of Electronic Media
(Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, 1999) Kling, Rob; McKim, Geoffrey
The shift towards the use of electronic media in scholarly communication appears to be an inescapable imperative. However, these shifts are uneven, both with respect to field and with respect to the form of communication. Different scientific fields have developed and use distinctly different communicative forums, both in the paper and electronic arenas, and these forums play different communicative roles within the field. One common claim is that we are in the early stages of an electronic revolution, that it is only a matter of time before other fields catch up with the early adopters, and that all fields converge on a stable set of electronic forums. A social shaping of technology (SST) perspective helps us to identify important social forces – centered around disciplinary constructions of trust and of legitimate communication – that pull against convergence. This analysis concludes that communicative plurality and communicative heterogeneity are durable features of the scholarly landscape, and that we are likely to see field differences in the use of and meaning ascribed to communications forums persist, even as overall use of electronic communications technologies both in science and in society as a whole increases.
Earths Largest Library -- Panacea or Anathema? A Socio-Technical Analysis
(Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, 2000) Napier, Mark E.; Smith, Kathleen A.
Information Inequality: UCITA, Public Policy and Information Access
(Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics, 2000) Meyer, Eric T.

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