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Bridging the Gap: Interdisciplinary Information Technology Research
Suzi Iacono, Digital Society and Technologies Program, National Science Foundation
Connecting Research and Policy in the Digital Economy, January 29, 2003
Background on 1st International Conference on Social and Economic Implications of IT
Interagency coordinating groupSocial, Economic and Workforce (SEW) 7 Implications of IT
One of 7 coordinating groups
One Part of IWG on NITR&D$1.9B budget
Charge: develop synergies across the agencies and develop new research agendas
Gap analyses
Many gaps:
Between researchers and policy makers
Conferences
Clearing house
Between research in the US on social and economic implications of IT and other parts of the world
Between research on the technical and the social interdisciplinary research
Between today and tomorrow
To promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; and to secure the national defense.
NSF’s MissionNSF’s Mission
NSF’s Mission (2)NSF’s Mission (2)
External orientation – in order to “advance national prosperity and welfare:”
• Must pay attention to complex, interdependent and changing societal problems
• E.G., changing atmosphere, economies, and workplace skills, new threats like bio-terrorism and demands like homeland security
NSF’s Mission (3)NSF’s Mission (3)
Internal orientation – in order to “promote the progress of science:”
• Must “seize the greatest opportunities science is creating for discovery and the improvement of the human condition”
• Number of scientific fields are exploding (8,530 in 1987), many from new interdisciplinary areas
• Marburger (scientific advisor to the president)-- science based science policy: “discovery and the creation of new technologies are unlikely to emerge from mandates in service to a particular social issue”
Priority AreasPriority Areas
Information TechnologyResearch $278 $286 3%
Biocomplexity inthe Environment $58 $79 36%
Millions of DollarsFY 2002
PlanFY 2003Request
PercentChange
$145 $185 27%Learning for the 21st
Century Workforce
$199 $221 11%Nanoscale S&E
$30 $60 100%Mathematical Sciences
$0 $10 N/ASocial, Behavioral &Economic Sciences
ITR “People and Society” Research Areas
1999 – Social and Economic Implications of IT
2000 – People and Social Groups Interacting with Computers and Infrastructure
2001 -- Augmenting Individuals and Transforming Society
2002 – People and Society
Digital Society and Technologies: Universal Participation in a Digital Society
Satellite
Global
Suburban& rural
Urban
Pico-Cell
Micro-Cell Macro-Cell
In-building
Pico-Cell
Adapted from Tim Hewitt, “UMTS Overview,” TIA inf. Session, ITU Comf., Mpls, MN, Oct. 17-18, 1998
Why is “Digital Society” a Difficult Area of Science?
Important goals: Transforming Enterprise, Science, Community, Society, etc. while “doing no harm” and maybe “doing some benefit”
Yet field is fragmented, no one discipline where this research is conducted
Primary DST SubfieldsCSS
Economics of IT
Multi-Agent Systems
Coordination Theories
Computational Org Theory
Collaboration Technologies
IT-IN-USE
Value Sensitive Design
Implications of IT
Design &
Development
of IT
Use of
IT
Social, Behavioral, Economic, Legal and Ethical Outcomes of IT
Research on Social and Economic Implications of IT: Causal Links
Context/Domain of Use
Design &
Development of IT
Use of IT
Computer Science Focus is on the Artifact and Usability
Disciplinary Research on Social and Economic Implications of IT:
Computer Science
Use of IT
Social, Behavioral, Economic, Legal and Ethical Outcomes
Social and Economic Sciences Focus is on Use and Social Outcomes
Disciplinary Research on Social and Economic Implications of IT: Social, Economic and Behavioral Sciences
Design & Development of IT
Use of IT
Social, Behavioral, Economic, Legal & Ethical Outcomes
Disciplinary Research on Social and Economic Implications of IT: Computer Science and SES
Cross-disciplinary Overlap at Use
Interdisciplinary Research on Social and Economic Implications of IT
Use of IT
Design & Development
Long Term Outcomes
Theorizing IT artifacts and social systems:• IT with life cycles and dynamics• IT as embedded in contexts, activities and
relationships, which are also evolving as in “coinventions” or coevolution
• That include unintended uses and consequences
• As part of a feedback loop whereby there are constant new revisions in IT and transformations in social systems
The Interdisciplinary ChallengeThe Interdisciplinary Challenge
Design & Development of IT
Social, Behavioral, Economic, Legal & Ethical Outcomes
Interdisciplinary Research on Social and Economic Implications of IT
Incorporate unintended uses and consequences into new designs
Use of IT
Unintended Consequences
Unintended Uses
New Designs
New Versions New Uses New Consequences
Information TechnologyResearch
Domain Science
Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences
Disciplinary Knowledge Necessary to Complete the Virtuous Cycle
Example: Scientific Collaboratories
“One vision of the future is the Collaboratory: a ‘combination of technology, tools, and infrastructure that allows scientists to work with remote facilities (co-laboratory) and one another (collaboratory) as if they were colocated and effectively interfaced.’”
(Lederberg and Uncapher, 1989).
People to people links
People to information links People to facilities links
(From: Finholt and Olson, 1997)
Integration through distributed, media-rich network connections
Scientific Collaboratories
UARC/SPARC Collaboratory
Research on UARC started in 1992; research on SPARC started in 1998
Research team from U MI composed of:• 9 space physicists• 3 computer scientists • 6 behavioral scientists
Goal: enable science that would not have been done otherwise
Lessons Learned New Versions
System needed to scale as number of users and sites increased
As collaborations increased, need for software that recognized different roles of users and subclusters of work
Screen real-estate was a critical issue; users spent considerable time arranging their screens.
Users needed to add instrument viewers, analysis tools and access to their archival data during a collaborative session
Scientists need to be able to move between individual work and their collaborative work
Scientists preferred to not do analysis in real-time but to organize post-facto collaborative workshops
Design & Development of IT
Social, Behavioral, Economic, Legal & Ethical Outcomes
The Virtuous Cycle: Research on Social and Economic Implications of IT
Incorporate unintended uses and consequences into new designs
Use of IT
Unintended Consequences
Unintended Uses
New Designs
New Versions New Uses New Consequences
What the virtuous cycle suggests
Start studying technologies early, as they are being developed
Include social, technical and domain users in prospective research projects
Embed human values in the technologies as they are being developed and designed
Willingness of social scientists to learn about technology, not as a black box; include theories of IT in academic curriculum
Willingness of computer scientists to understand long-term transformation, implications and use social science research for new versions
Need for long-term studies
Complex ProblemsHow can we work at a distance as effectively as we work face-to-face?
How do we develop and maintain an IT workforce?
How can we develop and use knowledge environments to do better science?
How can we develop software that embeds human values?
How can we develop educational technologies that promote learning?
How do we develop machines, devices and software agents that are intelligent and sociable and what we want in terms of interaction and division of labor?
What is the role of open source software communities, movements and what does this mean to the software industry?
How can we manage knowledge intensive dynamic systems?
Practical Challenges
Bringing researchers together, learning to collaborate
Institutional reward structures
Disciplinary turf issues, conflict due to misunderstanding
Researchers stuck in their disciplinary training, methods
ConclusionsInterdisciplinary research – what are the steps to pull together design, use, and outcome assessments of IT and put together the social with the technical?
Challenge -- need to allow streams of interdisciplinary research to continue over years
Policy issues – let’s build policy into technology in the early stages so that it embeds human values we care about instead of waiting until after it is out there
