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The Critical Role of Workplace Studies in CSCW (2000)

Computer supported cooperative workPublished 1 January 2008
Kjeld Schmidt
Citations73

TL;DR

Bob Anderson has challenged the characterization of the state of affairs advanced by Plowman et al., arguing that the issue of how ethnographic findings are formatted is a distraction; ethnography can be highly formal when that is appropriate for the research program at hand (Anderson, 1997).

Abstract

While there is no question that workplace studies play a prominent role in computer-supported cooperative work or CSCW, the exact nature of this role has been a subject of much reflection and debate over the years. So far, the deliberation has been inconclusive, and, moreover, in the last few years a certain sense of disillusionment and even skepticism has arisen concerning the ways in which and the extent to which such studies in fact contribute to CSCW systems design.

Keywords

Social SciencesComputer Science