Social learning and innovations in multimedia-based CSCW

ABSTRACT

In earlier work, we have drawn attention to the importance of 'social learning' (or innofusion) in the workplace for the successful uptake of CSCW applications, and contrasted this with the continuing emphasis placed by the CSCW community upon methodologies for design (Procter and Williams, 1996). The workplace experience highlights real constraints in the way that systems are developed and used, and in particular, the conflicts of interest which surround the design and use of IT systems at work. For example, powerful players may not favour CSCW tools or approaches; equally CSCW tools may be resisted because they transform existing power and control relationships. Such issues must be addressed if the potential of CSCW is to be realised.CSCW has raised new concerns regarding end-user requirements, and offers a richer model of these inputs to design, including knowledge of the social context of IT applications. However, its proposals for addressing these remain solidly within conventional supply-driven concepts of how new technologies emerge. The preoccupation of CSCW practitioners with improving design, has perhaps caused them to overlook user-led innovation processes in the workplace as organisation members struggle to apply artefacts to their particular purposes and contexts. These processes are particularly significant in the burgeoning range of 'multimedia' based products -- such as Desk Top Video-Conferencing -- which are the focus of this paper. We explore the pluralistic and dynamic model of technological change that is emerging here and examine some of the problems it throws up for the management of innovation

REFERENCES

• 1: Fleck, J. (1988) "Innofusion or diffusation: the nature of technological development in robotics", Edinburgh PICT Working Paper No. 4, Edinburgh University, Edinburgh.
• 2: Fleck, J. (1983) "Configurations: Crystallizing Contingency", International Journal of Human Factors in Manufacturing, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 15-36.
• 3: Daniele S. Pagani , Wendy E. Mackay, Bring media spaces into the real world, Proceedings of the third conference on European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, p.341-356, September 13-17, 1993, Milan, Italy
• 4: Procter, R. and Williams, R. (1996) "Beyond Design: Social Learning and CSCW--some Lessons from Innovation Studies". In D. Shapiro, M. Tauber and R. Traunmuller (Eds.), "The Design of CSCW and Groupware Systems", Elsevier Science, pp. 445-463.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.4 INFORMATION SYSTEMS APPLICATIONS

Additional Classification:
  J. Computer Applications

General Terms:
Design, Experimentation, Human Factors, Theory