Researching Telework

This chapter examines the state of the art in telework research. The author reviews the most central scholarly literature examining the phenomenon of telework (also called home-based work or telecommuting) and develops a framework for organizing this body of work. She organizes previous research on telework into six major thematic concerns relating to the definition, measurement, and scope of telework; management of teleworkers; travel-related impacts of telework; organizational culture and employee isolation; boundaries between “home” and “work” and the impact of telework on the individual and the family. Areas for future research are suggested.

Manufacturing Knowledge

Research on the restructuring of work has tended to neglect the autonomous effects that symbolic or cultural influences can have on the utilization of new technologies. This article draws on fieldwork conducted in three pulp and paper mills to explore the symbolic boundaries that occupational groups bring to bear on the process of workplace automation. As sophisticated technologies and management methods were introduced, process engineers engaged in subtle yet important efforts to portray manual workers’ knowledge in derisive terms. Such boundary work led managers to institute credential barriers that restricted manual workers’ opportunities, eventually enabling engineers to gain exclusive control over analytic functions as their own “natural” domain. The study suggests that symbolic representations can have powerful consequences for the restructuring of work, reproducing social inequalities even when new technologies render them unnecessary.

The Role of Information Technology in Quality Education

Discusses the rise of information technology functions in higher education and the related advent of quality standards for on-line education. The limited nature of existing guidelines is emphasized, particularly in the dimension of establishing authentic relationships, empowerment of faculty and students, and the inculcation of critical thinking. The Borkian vision of the future of education is summarized and contrasted with the limits if not failure of the legacies of past large-scale educational investments in programmed learning and in computer simulation. The drift toward mandated standards in on-line/distance education is discussed as well as the tension of this with empowerment concepts. Further contrast is drawn between the competing models of the university as “community of scholars” and as “marketplace of consumers.” Cost-cutting motives for on-line course delivery are explored in some detail, raising issues about radical proposals to restructure university teaching functions. A hybrid model, involving both computer-mediated and face-to-face methods, is seen as the superior instructional strategy, but the cost of this model raises the danger that a two-tier educational system will emerge – a more expensive upper tier with sound traditional education supplemented with the benefits of electronic media, and a cheaper, inferior tier dispensing programmed training to meet objectives far narrower than the traditional goals of liberal education.

Ethics, Law and Information Technology

Following a brief consideration of the role of rhetoric in law, science and policy, this chapter explores how rhetorical accounts of new technologies influence the course of legislative, judicial and regulatory decisions. It proposes that such themes have the powerful capacity to determine outcomes and to shape modern concepts of individual as well as societal freedoms and rights.

The Co-Evolution of Society and Multimedia Technology

Multimedia technology is becoming ubiquitous in modern society, and it is having profound effects on institutions and our expectations of the future. The technology is very fluid, and its development is shaped by a great many social factors. Prediction of the co-evolution of multimedia technology and society needs to be informed by a research framework that focuses attention on the key social, psychological, political and economic influences on technology and technology use, and the emergence of stable uses, infrastructures, standards and development paths. The paper criticises ‘technological determinist’ approaches, which simply seek to extrapolate social change from technological potential. It shows how a three layer model of component, systems and application technologies can be used to integrate findings from the use and development of technology in specific sectors. Three cases of technology-based predictions are examined, and lessons for understanding technology futures are illustrated by research in different industry and user sectors.

International Network for Integrated Social Science

Computer-related developments across the social sciences are converging on an entirely new kind of infrastructure that integrates across methodologies, disciplines, and nations. This chapter examines the potential outlined by a number of conference reports, special grant competitions, and recent research awards supported by the National Science Foundation. Together, these sources describe an Internet-based network of collaboratories combining survey, experimental, and geographic methodologies to serve research and education in all of the social sciences.

Information In and On Africa

Talking about Africa’s right to information means talking about communication in Africa and in the Third World generally. In Africa the channels of communication were underdeveloped or inappropriate as a consequence of the continent’s colonial past. The resulting lack of information was, among other reasons, an impediment to national development in African states after their independence. Until the 1980s, the principal means of communication were newspapers, books, telephones, radio and TV. However, with the development of modern technology, the proliferation of satellites, the advance in the computer industry and, most recently, with the advent of Internet new forms of communication were added. This contribution outlines the initiatives and discussions from the 1960s to the 1980s on the relationship between economic development and access to information in the Third World generally and in Africa in particular. The second part deals with the new communication technologies, the areas of application in Africa and their possible impact on Africa’s development. The author takes a rather pessimistic attitude as far as the advancement of sustainable development in Africa through information technology is concerned, unless such technology is applied to local circumstances.

The Paradox of Paperless Classes

In just about every field, people are working to cut back resource use while expanding services and productivity. This extends to the teaching of college courses as many schools work to economize and/or technically enhance their liberal arts education. One approach at Carleton College has been the use of the campus computer network to create paperless courses. This chapter is about the method, experience, and important pedagogical aspects of some pioneering courses in the social sciences at Carleton College.

The World Wide Web and Local Media and the 1996 Presidential Election

The advent of technology is reshaping the landscape of political campaigns. Cable television, satellite uplinks, cellular telephones, facsimile machines, and related communications and software applications offer ever more sophisticated ways of reaching voters. With each passing month, the advertisements in Campaigns and Elections, the trade journal of consultants and political professionals, are filled with more applications of this new information and media technology. Simply collecting and keeping track of the advertisements of a rival during a campaign is now a large part of the work of a campaign. Where candidates once coveted relationships with voters in their districts, they now purchase lists of these same voters on CD-ROM and data files on the World Wide Web as a part of the new campaign technologies.

The Progress of the Internet

By simplifying communication, the Internet is causing significant, broad changes. This chapter describes some effects of the Internet on teaching and research: the use of Web pages in teaching, spread of remote statistical analysis, elimination of journal page constraints, and the impact on activities that benefit from debate and discussion. The chapter ends by pointing out that although the technical implications of an innovation are predictable, the major social implications often do not become apparent for years.