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The Intellectual Challenge of CSCW: The Gap Between Social Requirements and Technical Feasibility (2000)
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| Venue: | Human-Computer Interaction |
| Citations: | 225 - 12 self |
BibTeX
@ARTICLE{Ackerman00theintellectual,
author = {Mark S. Ackerman},
title = {The Intellectual Challenge of CSCW: The Gap Between Social Requirements and Technical Feasibility},
journal = {Human-Computer Interaction},
year = {2000},
volume = {15},
pages = {179--203}
}
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Abstract
Over the last 10 years, Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) has identified a base set of findings. These findings are taken almost as assumptions within the field. In summary, they argue that human activity is highly flexible, nuanced, and contextualized and that computational entities such as information transfer, roles, and policies need to be similarly flexible, nuanced, and contextualized. However, current systems cannot fully support the social world uncovered by these findings. This paper argues that there is an inherent gap between the social requirements of CSCW and its technical mechanisms. The social-technical gap is the divide between what we know we must support socially and what we can support technically. Exploring, understanding, and hopefully ameliorating this social-technical gap is the central challenge for CSCW as a field and one of the central problems for HCI. Indeed, merely attesting the continued centrality of this gap could be one of the important intellectual contributions of CSCW. This paper also argues that the challenge of the social-technical gap creates an opportunity to refocus CSCW as a Simonian science of the artificial. To be published in Human-Computer Interaction Preprint- Ackerman- Challenge of CSCW 1 1.
Keyphrases
technical feasibility intellectual challenge social-technical gap gap social requirement central problem computer-supported cooperative work human activity current system computational entity central challenge base set important intellectual contribution continued centrality human-computer interaction preprint ackerman challenge inherent gap social requirement social world information transfer simonian science technical mechanism
