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Site Visit and Quarterly Reports send comments or questions to: l-neuma1@uiuc.edu |
User EvaluationSocial Science Research- Social Science TeamQuarterly Report (work from July through September, 1996) Overall Activities During the past quarter, the Social Science Team worked on system instrumentation, registration, and usability testing of the custom client in order to provide user feedback to system designers. Naturalistic studies of work practices of UIUC faculty were planned and initiated; these will contribute to knowledge about how the digital information infrastructure is integrated with knowledge management activities in academia. Work on developing the Team's own digital infrastructure continued. Efforts to contribute to the emerging research community interested in social aspects of DLs also continued, with team members hosting and contributing to conferences and engaging in other professional activities in this area. Specific Activities The Social Science Team organized usability testing for the three different interfaces currently under development; usability tests for the custom client were completed while the other two systems will be tested in the next quarter. Transaction logging was implemented in the custom client and monthly reports on usage activity were initiated. Team members met with NCSA to review the transaction logging system and suggest changes and extensions to the current system design for storing and manipulating these instrumentation data. Based upon feedback from users and project members, the user registration process was redesigned in October and procedures for statistical analysis of the registration data were designed and tested. Implementation of the redesigned registration system will occur during the next quarter. In addition, the Social Science Team began working with the developers of other Illinois DL components to consider the interoperability of the registration process with future Web-capable interfaces and the integration of transaction logs from the current and future interfaces. Social Science Team members worked on two workplace studies. In the first, a plan to further develop concepts brought out in research done last spring was completed. This research involves interviewing and observing people about their work, information finding habits, and use of on-line resources. Several initial interviews were carried out. In the second, an investigation of desktop and office classification work was initiated. Team members also conducted an introductory meeting with members of a campus microelectronics research group assumed to be especially important as potential users of the DLI testbed. Research group members were presented with background material about the DLI project, the custom client system which had been set up in their lab was demonstrated, their participation in evaluation studies was solicited, and their comments and questions about the system were relayed to the Testbed Team. Activities related to developing and maintaining the Social Science Team's own digital infrastructure included revising the Team's homepage, testing procedures to collect instrumentation and registration data and port data to SPSS for analysis, and learning to use StorySpace software in preparation for its potential adoption as a tool to support the analysis of qualitative data. Contributions to the emerging community of social science DL research took several paths. Team members took the lead in conducting the 1996 Allerton Institute, a research forum on social aspects of DLs. They also continued preparing and revising papers based on their work, made several presentations to national audiences, and participated in planning future activities centered on human-centered computing and DLs. Publications G. Bowker and S. L. Star, "How Things (Actor-Net)work," Philosophia, in press for early 1997. L. Neumann and S. L. Star, "Making Infrastructure: The Dream of a Common Language," Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference 1996 (PDC '96), Cambridge, MA: Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility/ACM. Expanded version also submitted to Journal of the American Society for Information Science. S. L. Star, "Grounded Classifications: Grounded Theory and Faceted Classifications," submitted to IFIP WG 8.2 Conference on Information Systems and Qualitative Research, June, 1997. S. L. Star, co-PI, Advanced Information Technologies Group, UIUC, ROffice and Desktop Classification,S $10,500, June 1996- May 1997. Professional Activities A. P. Bishop, Co-Chair, Allerton Institute on "Libraries, People and Change: A Research Forum on Digital Libraries," Oct. 27-29, 1996. S. L. Star, Steering Committee member, Allerton Institute on "Libraries, People and Change: A Research Forum on Digital Libraries," Oct. 27-29, 1996. Co-organizer, discussion on classification and cataloguing and large-scale digital resources. S. L. Star, Participant in preparation of a report to the National Science Foundation, Mathematics Directorate, "Machinery for Predictability of Complex Systems," September, 1996. S. L. Star, Completed year 2 of 3 year assignment to the Ethics and Values in Science Panel, NSF. Presentations Bishop, Ann. "Human-Centered Research Issues in Digital Libraries," American Society for Information Science, Baltimore, MD, Oct. 21, 1996. Bishop, Ann. "Social Informatics for Digital Libraries," American Society for Information Science, Baltimore, MD, Oct. 23, 1996. Sandusky, Robert. "Digital Library Management Issues: Where Are We Headed?" Allerton 1996: Libraries, People, and Change: A Research Forum on Digital Libraries, the 38th Allerton Institute 1996, Monticello, Illinois, October 27-29, 1996. Sandusky, Robert. "Outcome Measures for the Emerging Virtual Library," LITA/LAMA National Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, October 13-16, 1996. Star, Susan Leigh. "Infrastructure and Materials," To conference on the Material Basis of Organizational Memory, Institute for Research on Learning, Menlo Park, CA, June, 1996. |