Collaborative Research: A Workshop on Values in the Design of Information Technology, University of California, San Diego, Summer 2005

New York University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

This multi-disciplinary graduate student workshop focuses on values in the design of computer and information technology. Despite a growing body of excellent research and scholarship dedicated both to theoretical and practical dimensions of this general subject, as well as workshops and other scholarly gatherings, institutional responses have been sporadic and somewhat sparse. Thus, a source of great concern for members of this emergent field, is that no matter what great strides are made by the creative efforts of individual researchers and scholars, without the institutional support accorded to traditional fields, with built-in mechanisms of faculty self-governance and graduate programs, its long term sustainability is at risk. This workshop, designed to engage a wide representation of backgrounds and disciplines, provides a test of one avenue for passing down the achievements and research findings of one generation to the next. With advice from a broad based Steering Committee, the principal investigators will design the curriculum. The workshop will last for two weeks; it will take place at the University of California, San Diego. During the first week of the workshop students would cover a curriculum of topics and readings selected from a substantial bibliography. For the second week, three to four outstanding scholars in the field will spend 2-3 days each with the group, leading discussions and presenting new work. Broad representation will be a fundamental guiding principle for selection of participants (faculty and students), curriculum, approaches and methodologies. The workshop seeks not only geographic, gender, and cultural balance, but a balance of disciplinary contribution, including STS, philosophy, computer science and engineering, information science, social sciences, history, communication and media studies, etc.. Several goals have motivated the design of the workshop. The immediate ones are to deepen knowledge and understanding of the complex interplay between social, moral, political and cultural values and technology through the aggregation and study of a diverse canon of works; create opportunities for collaborations among researchers and scholars (current and future) historically separated by institutional, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries; reveal relevant literatures, approaches, and methodologies to graduate students, who might not, in the normal course of their respective programs, see them; and promote further development of collegial networks among established scholars as well as students. In the long term, the workshop may project ideas of values in design into the future and into broader domains of academic and research efforts; b) create model course curricula and readings, particularly for use in institutions that do not support specialization in these areas; and increase chances of technologies that are responsive to social, moral, political, and cultural values.