The Arachnet Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture __________________________________________________________________ ISSN 1068-5723 February 28, 1994 Volume 2 Issue 1 SHADE V2N1 COMPUTER-SUPPORTED COOPERATIVE WORK AND ACADEMIC CULTURE Leslie Regan Shade shade@Ice.CC.McGill.CA ABSTRACT [These notes were generously contributed to the special is- sue. They present several directions for further inquiry into the potential changes in academic culture and scholarly practices that may result from new electronic opportunities for collaboration and publication. They were written shortly before the founding of EJVC. JLL] [1] Janice Radway (1988) is one scholar who has mused about the possibilities of an altered research practice which would involve extensive collaboration and whose purpose would be to "map the complex, collective production of 'pop- ular culture' across the terrain of everyday life". Col- laboration would be "not a panacea solution to all of the problems involved in elaborating an appropriate point of view for the study of the cultural terrain but as a practi- cal, though flawed, way of overcoming some of the limita- tions of the individual scholar". Her proposed project would involve ethnographic fieldwork conducted by a team of scholars who "would fan out across a range of sites" in or- der to study how leisure and play are "elaborated within and across a range of different practices". The purpose of the collaborative team would be to "collectively and compara- tively survey" the range of leisure activities, such as var- ious hobbies and avocations, that individuals in a single heterogeneous community engage in (she doesn't specify what kind of community). Although Radway doesn't elaborate the practicalities of how such a collaborative project would be carried out (management of the investigative team, funding, problems with co-authorship, and communication between team- members), her idea is interesting in that she is attempting to transcend the constraints of the lone scholar and expand the ethnographic enterprise to include groups of col- laborators, so that a potentially unwieldy project can be- come an actual reality. [2] Radway's ruminations have yet to materialize, at least to my knowledge, but certainly her idea of scholarly col- laboration has become a recent and very tangible reality in the academic community with the proliferation and use of "groupware". Here, "groupware" applications will be defined as including electronic mail and wide-area computer- conferencing systems (e.g., scholarly computer conferences known as "lists" available through the various networks such as Bitnet, Usenet, Internet). This paper will explore the notion of collaboration in the scholarly community through examination of some of the more recent uses of groupware designed for the communication studies field (electronic journals and conferences); and delve into some of the prob- lematics involved in designing and supporting Computer- Supported Cooperative-Work (CSCW). [3] Michael Schrage, in Shared Minds (1990) explores the texture of collaboration in the workplace and various crea- tive fields: why it is necessary, what makes it successful, and what some of the new collaborative designs and tools do. He believes that these tools (typically sophisticated computer systems which allow for interactive shared spaces involving video and sound, although it can include the mundane blackboard and chalk) will create a fundamental par- adigm shift and alter our sense of community. For Schrage, collaboration, both conceptual and technical, is a neces- sary way of coping with the increasing complexity of every- day life in an era of specialization. [4] Collaboration in the humanistic and social sciences has always met with some resistance. In a publish-or-perish en- vironment which tends to exalt the lone scholar, the act of co-authoring papers has always been a dubious enterprise - who gets top billing? In the typical politicized university environment where funding is as cantankerous as national deficit woes, graduate students quickly become used to guarding their research agendas. The feminist community, at least on paper,and in line with elaborating new concep- tions of what feminist research would involve, seems to be one of the few groups to encourage collaborative interac- tion with other scholars and with their research subjects. Nonetheless, it does seem that given the diverse cross and trans-disciplinary nature of much of communications studies, solitary research endeavors are not very practical anymore. There is increasing evidence, furthermore, that, via tech- nological intermediation, the nature and role of scholarly collaboration and publishing are being transformed in very exciting ways. [5] Ann Okerson (1991) suggests that electronic scholarly journals (defined as those delivered via networks) will sup- plant paper scholarly journals and hence, change,and perhaps improve,the nature of scholarly discourse. (Currently, of some 30 networked journals in diverse subject areas,eight are refereed or lightly refereed, and there exist at least 100 networked electronic newsletters). Electronic journal advocates cite as some of the advantages of computer networking over print publication the speed of dissemina- tion, the relatively low costs of production and dissemina- tion, and the ability to proliferate scholarship more widely as well as the potential to link it up with interconnected databases. One of the advantages electronic journals have over their paper counterparts, of course, is that they bypass the "serials crisis" whereby individual libraries are unable to purchase journals because of their skyrocket- ing subscription costs. Electronic formats of journals allow for individual retrieval of an entire issue or one article, and such retrieval can be done either by an intermediary (i.e., librarian) or by the scholar him/herself. (We assume that academic computing connections allow for relatively free access to Bitnet or Internet). For Okerson, electron- ic journals force us to re-think the nature of both informal and formal systems of scholarly communication. She believes that communication will be altered in "ways that are most effective and comfortable for specific disciplines and indi- viduals, utilizing electronic conversations, squibbs, mega- journals, consensus journals, and models not yet dreamt of. Diverse forms of academic currency co-exist, and fewer writ- ings are considered the 'last word' on any subject". Lindsay (1991) has further suggested that electronic journals would be ideal forums for extending critical peer review by the dissemination of proposals, hypotheses, experimental de- signs, and criticism. Here would be created a space to "reward those who excel at idea generation but eschew the later stages...[a space] devoted to projects destined to be inconclusive". [6] Most of the electronic journals are university-based, and pose a challenge to traditional publishers. Have aca- demics regained control of the distribution of their intel- lectual output, or are electronic journals not accorded the same stature as their printed competition? Will the same amount of credibility and prestige be accorded to publishing in electronic journals? Will academics need to be persuaded to contribute articles and referee in electronic journals? [7] There are, of course, technical and legal difficulties with electronic publishing. In the technical arena, users must have access to computer systems and/or be somewhat knowledgeable about networking systems. As well, "network communication can be clunky, cranky, and inconsistent", and therefore serve only the most computer-literate or tena- cious. There are limitations on what can be sent over the network; it is only text-based now, and this can be restric- tive.The design of electronic journals is still in its in- fancy, and reading electronic text can be a grievous task. Usually ASCII formats must be used as the display because word-processing systems are not universally compatible with the variety of computing equipment that can display text. Convincing scholars to convert to electronic texts will re- quire improvements in legibility (advanced video monitors) and more flexiblility in manipulating text. [8] In the legal venue, the problematic of copyright and pricing is extremely contentious, and will have to be hashed out in the international arena. Network users might be frus- trated as well by the chaos created by a firm lack of bibli- ographic control. And what happens to access, if, in the fu- ture, networks are no longer subsidized but are in private hands? Harrison, et. al (1991) describe the approach they took in designing an electronic journal for the communica- tion studies field. The Electronic Journal of Communica- tion/La Review Electronique de Communication (EJC/REC) was strategically introduced within the broader context of an electronic service known as Comserve, to lend both more credibility to it and access to a wider public. As well, they insured that the journal would be available through university libraries via diskettes, and investigated the possibilities for bibliographic control of the journal through standard citation sources. [9] Started in 1986, Comserve is an electronic information and discussion resource that uses national and global com- puter networks (Bitnet,Internet,etc.) to provide various services to communication scholars and students. These ser- vices include a "white pages" directory; indexes to a multi- plicity of disciplinary journals; a database containing var- ious research and teaching information, and approximately 20 online conferences relevant to teaching and research. These conferences include ones devoted to the study of CMC, mass communications, medical communications, gender, job announc- ements, new book announcements, a CCA newsline, etc. Professional academics and students can subscribe to any and all conferences and solicit help, with respondents able to reply to the original poster or to the group as a whole. Comserve boasts a membership of over 20,000 individuals, who have sent more than 250,000 commands, "from nearly every major academic institution in the United States, Canada, and Mexico (as well as in 35 other countries)", with approxi- mately 5,000 individuals maintaining subscriptions to one or more of Comserve's electronic conferences. [10] Does this electronic interchange foster collabora- tion? Presumably so. Some of the advantages CMC users boast about is the ability to access a wealth of information; the ability to share ideas and information with like-minded col- leagues; and the ability to locate new colleagues and kindred spirits - and by transcending time and space limita- tions! Jennings (1991), however,mentions the initial fas- cination some academics had with networks, lists and bul- letin boards as a medium, and "the nagging we felt as we wasted our time in extended and stimulating, but profes- sionally unproductive conversations." [11] As well, users of CMC tend to like to write about their experiences with CMC, and so, a new and growing sub- field within communication studies has emerged. Research has focused on both the micro and macro levels of CMC: human- computer interaction (see Heim, Walther); organizational im- pact of e-mail/networking (see Sproul & Kiesler); the role of networking in international politics (see Frederick);the historical shift from oral-to-print-to-electronic Xanadu cultures (see Bolter; Brent; Harnad); post-structuralist takes on hypertext (see Poster, Landow) and postmodern reflections on the "consensual hallucination" dubbed "cyberspace" (see Benedikt, Moulthrop). [12] Fortunately, due to some important and timely research on the impact of collaborative computing (networking, e- mail, hypermedia, and various windowing environments), scholars don't have to feel stranded in the ethernet.Computer-supported cooperative-work (CSCW) examines how people work in groups and how technology can support them. As Kling (1991) puts it, CSCW is not a field, "it is an arena, in which people from many fields gather to demonstrate their work and learn from others". [13] CSCW places an emphasis on examining the interconnec- tedness of individual and group behavior and the nature of workplace environments. CSCW systems, in Kling's opinion, should attempt to support "interesting means for reducing the complications of intellectual teamwork". What is par- ticularly promising and refreshing about CSCW is its empha- sis on designing technological artifacts to fit the needs of people's work activities and enhance their task-building. As Norman (1991) puts it, "technology alone cannot provide the answers when we deal with human activities. The tasks, the culture, the social structure, and the individual human are all essential components of the job, and unless the com- putational tools fit 'seamlessly' within this structure, the result will be failure". [14] I don't think that it is pure coincidence that the ideas generated about CSCW sound analogously like the tenets of social constructivism. Case histories of technological systems delve into the myriad social actors (human and not- so-human) that impact on their design, development, and dif- fusion. Such a methodology, is, in essence, collaborative by virtue of its insistence on consorting with a multiplicity of agencies and diverse instrumentalities. Given that the scholarly enclave is changing rapidly due to its electronic buddies, a CSCW examination into the academic arena would be a propitious endeavor indeed. WORKS CITED Benedikt, Michael, ed. Cyberspace:first steps. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,1991. Bolter, Jay David. Writing Space: the computer, hypertext, and the history of writing. Hillsdale, N.J.:Lawrence Erlbaum Asooc. Pub., 1991. Brent, Doug. "Oral Knowledge, Typographic Knowledge, Elec- tronic Knowledge:Speculations on the History of Ownership". E- Journal v.1, issue 3 (November 1991). Frederick, Howard H. Global Communication and International Relations. Wadsworth Pub. Co., 1992. Harnad, Stevan. "Post-Gutenberg Galaxy: The Fourth Revolu- tion in the Means of Production of Knowledge." The Public- Access Computer Systems Review 2, no. 1 (1991): 39-53. Harrison, Teresa M., Timothy Stephen, and James Winter. "OnlineJournals: Disciplinary Designs for Electronic Scholarship." The Public-Access Computer Systems Review 2, no. 1 (1991): 25-38. Heim. Michael. Electric Language: a philosophical study of word processing. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987. Jennings, Edward M. "EJournal: An Account of the First Two Years." The Public-Access Computer Systems Review 2, no. 1 (1991): 91-110. Kling, Rob. "Cooperation, coordination and control in computer-supported work". Communications of the ACM v.34, n.12 (December 1991):83-88. Landow, George P. Hypertext: the convergence of contemporary critical theory and technology. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hop- kins Univ. Press, 1991. Lindsay, Robert K. "Electronic journals of proposed re- search". E-Journal v.1, issue 1 (March 1991). Moulthrop, Stuart. "You say you want a revolution?: hyper- text and the laws of media". Postmodern Culture, v.1.n.3 (May 1991). Norman, Donald A. "Collaborative computing: collaboration first, computing second". Communications of the ACM v.34, n.12 (December 1991):88-90. Okerson, Ann. "The Electronic Journal: What, Whence, and When?" The Public-Access Computer Systems Review 2, no. 1 (1991): 5-24. Poster, Mark. The Mode of Production. Polity Press, 1990. Radway, Janice, "Reception study: ethnography and the prob- lems of dispersed audience and nomadic subjects". Cultural Studies v.2, n.3 (1988):359-76. Schrage, Michael. Shared Minds: the new technologies of collaboration. NY: Random House, 1990. Sproul, Lee; Sara Kiesler. Connections: new ways of working in the networked organization. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991. Walter, Joseph. 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