SIGCAS' Crisis and Its Role in Advancing Social Analysis in Computer Science: Rob Kling(*) Department of Information & Computer Science University of California -- Irvine Irvine, CA 92717, USA kling@ics.uci.edu || 714-856-5955 January 3, 1994 -- Draft 2.8 For: "Computers and Society" (The Quarterly Bulletin of the ACM's SIG on Computers and Society)(March 1994). vol 24: INTRODUCTION These are remarkable times for social analysis within academic computer science. In contrast with the 1970s, today tens of millions of people, especially well-educated professionals and managers, directly use computer systems of some kind, including PCs and networked systems. This spread of hands-on computing has sensitized many people to some social aspects of computerization because it has affected their own worklives or personal lives. It has also created job opportunities for tens of thousands of graduates of academic CS programs. A rationalist might expect academic CS faculty to have seized these opportunities in effectively educating students in the principles that underlie new information technologies and their social dimensions. One might also have expected that the popularity of computing and the increasing visibility of diverse social issues would have lead to SIGCAS being at its peak of intellectual vitality and influence. The rationalist would be wrong about these matters. First, CS departments have been losing students, and not expanding their instruction in a way that helps them address the shifting occupational roles of CS graduates. While U.S. CS departments currently certify about 30,000 students each year with BS degrees and 10,000 students with MS degrees, CS enrollments have declined about 25% since the late 1980s. A large and growing fraction of CS graduates take jobs close to the application of computing, such as helping to develop or consulting about computing applications intended to improve the performance of organizations. However, these CS graduates do not have key social analytical competencies that they need to do these jobs well. Expanding the educations of CS majors so that they can effectively analyze computing in organizations might simultaneously improve their competence and also possibly draw new students to CS[1]. However, many computer science faculty explicitly exclude social and organizational analysis in any form as a legitimate and routine part of CS instruction. Second, SIGCAS, the ACM's SIG that has a special stake in researching and teaching about the social aspects of computing is relatively invisible, even to many ACM members. I've been learning that many ACM members who research, teach, or write about social aspects of computing don't belong to SIGCAS. Its membership has declined in the last few years, and SIGCAS risks being disbanded. Newer organizations for computer professionals, such as Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), are visibly and more effectively addressing some key public issues for computing professionals and members of the larger public. Lively new magazines, such as Wired or Impact! examine social aspects of computing in ways that are more accessible to computing professionals than most SIGCAS' publications. The decline of CS enrollments and SIGCAS' crises are both byproducts of the unwillingness of many CS faculty to appreciate the social dimensions of computerization. I am glad that advocacy organizations like CPSR and EFF are playing visible public roles in key public policy arenas. However they cannot effectively take on the vital role that SIGCAS should play in stimulating research and teaching within the CS academic community. This article examines how the efforts of some SIGCAS members to add new activities to the SIG can help invest it with new life, and reinvigorate academic CS programs for the next century. SIGCAS CRISES SIGCAS is the primary ACM SIG that has a systematic history of supporting the relevant teaching and research in CS[2]. But CS faculty who identify with SIGCAS are often isolated within their own departments, at least regarding their SIGCAS teaching, research, and professional activities. As an extreme example, one previous SIGCAS Chair confided to me that he felt that he had to hide his involvement with SIGCAS from his CS colleagues. There are several dimensions to this isolation. One source comes from the way that many computer scientists identify mathematics and exploring engineering prototypes as the core CS activities. They (wrongly) view social and ethical analyses as "soft" and intellectually substandard. Another source derives from the isolated role of computers and society courses our curricula. Few "computers and society courses" teach a set of analytical skills which other CS faculty value. Many CS departments, especially at the major research universities, refuse to offer such courses regularly. Sadly, such courses are effectively available to only a small fraction of the 40,000 students who earn CS degrees in the U.S. each year. I've spoken with many CS faculty who diverse topics with important social content who feel intellectually intimidated by the dogma that "CS theory is mathematical." I will explain below why this dogma has become grossly outdated, and explain why our reliance on social analysis can provide important intellectual integrity for SIGCAS' ventures. Unfortunately, many CS faculty and influential ACM members misunderstand SIGCAS' role and possibilities. I've spoken with influential ACM members who are sympathetic to computer scientists dealing actively with social issues, but who view SIGCAS as irrelevant because they believe that it has been 'displaced" by organizations like CPSR and EFF. This view confuses the role of advocacy groups like CPSR and EFF with ACM SIGs that are dedicated to serving as forums to facilitate research and teaching. The official SIGCAS descriptions identify the following scope and topics: Scope: Forum for computer specialists, those in related fields and public at large to gather and report information, exchange ideas, and arouse concern about impact of computers and society. The main concern is ethical and philosophical implications. Topics: Societal issues raised by computing technology including quality of life, ethics and information infrastructure impacts. This description confounds the roles of SIGCAS with the activities of organizations like CPSR or even the Social Impacts Section of the Boston Computer Society. Oddly missing is the role of SIGCAS to nourish teaching and systematic research about the social and ethical dimensions of computing. It's important for SIGCAS to provide forums for diverse computer specialists. But the current descriptions are mute about SIGCAS roles for ACM members whose primary interest and expertise is in researching and teaching about the social aspects of computing. I believe that SIGCAS revival significantly depends upon its serving as an effective support organization for such specialists. SIGCAS played this role 20 years ago, and lost it in the 1980s. The SIGCAS leadership can and should play a more effective role in creating forums and opportunities to reduce SIGCAS' faculty sense of isolation. (Using electronic forums on the Internet might be one cost-effective way to begin). It is harder for the SIGCAS leadership to play such a role than it is for the leaders of SIGs whose members are blessed with substantial research funding and who are readily able to organize annual research conferences (ie., SIGACT, SIGART, SIGCHI, SIGPLAN). In fact, Ron Anderson's efforts to develop a SIGCAS research conference in 1990 lead to an intellectually lively and financially disastrous event which undermined SIGCAS operations during the following two years. The current SIGCAS leadership is working hard to revitalize SIGCAS by finding new ways to stimulate and support members' activities under difficult financial circumstances. The support for SIGCAS within the ACM headquarters staff has declined in recent years. During the late 1980s, the ACM developed a more professional headquarters staff to support the SIGs. These professionals to have careers in "association management" and view the SIGs as self-supporting voluntary organizations. They are not automatically sympathetic to SIGCAS because its members have special expertise in topics like computer ethics or public policy issues of computing. For them, each SIG must be a self-supporting enterprise [3]. They would be happy to see SIGCAS thrive as a economically viable volunteer group. But they seem to have no special sympathy for a SIG whose economic viability is in question, regardless of it its substantive focus. NEW SIGCAS FOCI SIGCAS crises cannot be adequately resolved by its leadership "working a little bit harder." They face a daunting task to mobilize and help channel the energies of volunteer members into a lively set of sustainable activities. As Dianne Martin noted in her recent editorial, SIGCAS has had a weak tradition of member involvement. And important parts of SIGCAS "intellectual turf" have been taken over by vigorous volunteer organizations such as CPSR, EFF, and some other ACM SIGs. Part of the challenge for SIGCAS leadership is to help the members carve out new roles that are congruous with the issues of this period and the new institutional map of related groups. The efforts of SIGCAS members to develop the new ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct (Anderson et. al., 1993) is an important professional contribution. But one does not find tens of thousands of ACM members joining SIGCAS and discussing ethical issues of computing as a consequence. SIGCAS distinctive role could be to serve as a critical support organization for computer ethicists, rather than simply as a forum for all computer specialists. However, SIGCAS "main concern" (about) ethical and philosophical implications" of computing should be explicitly expanded so that the SIG can function as a going concern. Part of SIGCAS revitalization rests on its becoming an unambiguous focus of new socially rich topics that synergize with teaching and research in the academic CS community[4]. Studies of the ethical and philosophical implications of computing are important activities which must be nourished and sustained. But they do not provide an adequate bridge to other activities in CS because CS faculty do not understand them and denigrate their importance. Their role in defining the boundaries of SIGCAS leaves the SIG as a kind of tolerated parlor activity in CS. For example, the primary SIGCAS course, "computer and society" rarely introduces students to core ideas which faculty build on in courses on other CS topics which deal with human behavior, such as software engineering or HCI. SIGCAS could develop additional intellectual foci for teaching and research that CS faculty in other areas would value as routine parts of the curriculum. Two candidates are cyberspace issues (Anderson, 1993) and Organizational Informatics. Each of the ACM's strongest SIGs, "owns" identifiable technological domains. SIGACT, SIGART, SIGCHI, SIGPLAN, and SIGSOFT each evoke distinctive foci. Today, the cyberspace issues, including the ferment over "national information infrastructure," is not yet owned by any SIG. While members of some SIGs, such as SIGCOMM (ie. communication protocols), focus on a specific cyberspace technology, none has taken on a rich array of cyberspace issues, including privacy, equity of access, etc. There are a number of cyberspace conferences springing up, and SIGCAS members can play a visible role in helping to identify key issues, encourage public agencies to effectively examine social dimensions of various proposal etc[5]. Cyberspace issues may be one set of high-profile topics where there may be resources to help the SIGCAS leadership to develop a viable SIG. ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATICS IN COMPUTER SCIENCE I want to devote the rest of this paper to discussing the nature of Organizational Informatics, its roles in CS and for SIGCAS. Organizational Informatics [6] includes studies of the usability of computerized information systems and communication systems in organizations. It also includes studies of their effective implementation, use, organizational value, conditions that facilitate risks of failures, and their consequences for people and an organization's clients. It is an intellectually rich and also practical research area which can synergize with other areas of CS teaching and research, including HCI, CSCW and Software Engineering. Since Organizational Informatics is a relatively new label and not well understood in the ACM, I'd like to explain some of its themes. >From Computability to Usability The growing emphasis on usability is one of the most dominant trends in computing. The usability tradition has deep roots in CS, and extends back into the design of programming languages, and operating systems. But each of these topics also rested on mathematical analysis which Computer Scientists could point to as "the foundations" of the respective subdisciplines. However, the growth of non-numerical applications for diverse professionals, including text processing, electronic mail, graphics, and multimedia has placed a premium on making computer systems relatively simple to use. Human Computer Interaction (HCI) is now considered a core subdiscipline of CS. The integration of HCI into the core of CS requires us to expand our conception of the theoretical foundations of the discipline. While every computational interface is reducible to a Turing computation, the foundational mathematical models of CS do not (and could not) provide a sound theoretical basis for understanding why some interfaces are more effective for some groups of people than are others. The theoretical foundations about effective computer interfaces must rest on sound theories of human behavior and their empirical manifestations (cf. Ehn, 1991; Grudin, 1994). Unfortunately, the dogma that "CS theory is mathematical" makes it hard for many CS faculty to offer courses about the effective development and use of computing based on such theories. Mathematics can provide useful tools for specific analyses. But the applicability of mathematics has been transformed from a scientific tool into an arthritic dogma in many CS departments. Speaking truth to our colleagues who pray at the Church of Mathematics won't be framed in stronger theorems or more elegant formalism for framing "the elusive human element." It will require us to speak lucidly and forthrightly about the appropriate roles and limitations of mathematical analyses in understanding computerized systems in use. Interfaces support capabilities beyond the primary information processing features of a technology. They provide ways that people can learn about the system and ways to manage the diverse data sets that routinely arise in using many computerized systems (Kling, 1992). Understanding the diversity and character of these interfaces, which are required to make many systems usable rests, in an understanding the way that people and groups organize their work and expertise with computing. Appropriate theories of the diverse interfaces that make many computer systems truly useful must rest, in part, on theories of work and organization (Grudin, 1994). >From Usable Computing to High Performance Organizations Computer scientists often argue that computerized systems will improve the performance of organizations (Hartmanis and Lin, 1992). These are important claims, for which critics can ask for systematic evidence. For example, one can ask about the evidence that 20 years of major computing R&D and corporate investment in the US has helped provide proportionate economic and social value. It is easy to identify examples where computer-based systems have provided value to people and organizations. The tough question is whether the overall productive value of these investments has been worth the overall acquisition and operation costs. In the last few years economists have found it hard to give unambiguously affirmative answers to this question. The issue has been termed "The Productivity Paradox," based on a comment attributed to Nobel laureate Robert Solow who remarked that "computers are showing up everywhere except in the [productivity] statistics (Dunlop and Kling, 1991a; Brynjolfsson, 1993)." Economists are still studying the conditions under which computerization contributes to organizational productivity, and how to measure it (Dunlop and Kling, 1991a). But there is no automatic link between computerization and improved productivity. While it is easy to show that many computer systems have been usable and useful, productivity gains require that their value exceed all of their costs. There are numerous potential slips in translating high performance computing into cost-effective technological support to improve organizational performance. Some technologies require extensive technical support which adds hidden costs (Kling, 1992). Some technologies are superb for well-trained experts, but are difficult for less experienced people or "casual users." Further, a significant body of empirical research has shown that the social processes by which computer systems are introduced and organized makes a substantial difference in their value to people, groups and organizations (Kraemer, et. al. 1985; Clement, 1994). Most seriously, some computer applications do not fit a person or groups's work practices. While they may make sense in a simplified world, they can actually complicate or misdirect real work. Group calendars are but one example of systems which can sound useful, but which often are useless because they impose burdensome record keeping demands (Grudin, 1994). On the other hand, email is one of the most popular applications in office support systems, even when other capabilities, like group calendars, are ignored (Bullen and Bennett, 1991). The social consequences of most computerized systems can not be effectively ascertained from precise statements of their basic design principles and social purposes. Their use must be analyzed within the social contexts in which they will be used. Effective social analyses go beyond accounting for formal tasks and purposes to include informal social behavior, available resources, and the interdependencies between key groups (See Cotterman and Senn, 1992; Clement, 1994). Many of the BS and MS graduate of CS departments find employment on projects where improved computing should enhance the performance of specific organizations or industries. Unfortunately, few of these CS graduates have developed an adequate conceptual basis for understanding when computerized information systems will actually improve organizational performance. Consequently, many of them have been prone to recommend systems-based solutions whose structure or implementation would be problematic. For example, it is common for computer specialists to overestimate the value of new information technologies and underestimate the practical complexity for many people to learn or use them (cf. Orlikowski, 1992; Clement, 1994). Organizational Informatics is primarily a research area whose studies have strong repercussions for responsible professional action by those who select, develop, integrate or implement computing applications. With the massive growth of decentralized end-user computing, CS graduates are more likely to routinely face such issues than they did when mainframes in "the glass house" dominated the computing landscape. ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATICS IN CS EDUCATION Computer Scientists faculty have a responsibility is to educate a significant fraction of CS students to be more effective in conceiving and implementing systems that will actually enhance organizational performance. Today, most of the tens of thousands people who obtain BS and MS degrees in CS have no opportunities for systematic exposure to reliable knowledge about the organizational practices which help create value from computing in a social world. Yet a substantial fraction of these students go on to work for organizations attempting to produce or maintain systems which improve organizational performance without a good conceptual basis for their work. Consequently, many of them develop systems which underperform, and are sometimes even counterproductive, in organizational terms. In the last 20 years a substantial body of scientific research in Organizational Informatics has developed (see Kling, 1993). The best of the research in North America is conducted by faculty in the Information Systems departments in Business schools and by scattered social scientists (cf. Boland and Hirschheim, 1987; Galegher, Kraut and Egido, 1990; Cotterman and Senn, 1992). But Computer Scientists cannot effectively delegate the research and teaching of Organizational Informatics to business Schools or social science departments as a national-scale solution. Like CS, faculty in these other disciplines prefer to focus on their own self-defined issues. And they rarely ask questions with attention to fine grained technological variations which are important for CS. For example, the professional discussions of computer risks have been best developed by ACM sponsored activities related to SIGSOFT[7]. They are outside the purview of business School faculty and sociologists seem disinterested. Further, faculty in these other disciplines are not organized to effectively teach tens of thousands of CS students about systems development and use in organizations. In North America there is currently no well developed institutional arrangement for educating students who can effectively take leadership roles in conceptualizing and developing complex organizational computing projects. Computer Scientists have virtually no scholarship to draw upon to understand when high performance networks, like NREN, will catalyze social value proportional to their costs. Consequently, many of the "obvious" claims about the value of various computing technologies that we Computer Scientists make are more akin to the lore of home remedies for curing illness. Some are valid, others are based on ungrounded speculation. More seriously, the theoretical bases for recommending home medical remedies and new computer technologies are not advanced without having sound social analysis research programs. WHAT IS NEEDED The CS community needs an institutionalized research capability to produce a reliable body of knowledge about the usability and value of computerized systems and the conditions under which computer systems improve organizational performance. In Western Europe there are some Organizational Informatics research projects in a few Computer Science departments and some research funding through the EEC's Espirit program (Kyng and Greenbaum, 1991). In Germany, there are four professorial chairs specifically identified for "computers and society," and several Scandinavian CS departments have strong social analytical research and teaching programs. These research and instructional programs in Western Europe give social analysis and Organizational Informatics a significantly more effective place in CS education and research than it now has in North America. The CS community has had many years of experience in institutionalizing research programs, especially through ARPA and the NSF. There are many approaches, including national centers and individual investigator research grants. All such programs aim to develop and sustain research fields with a combination of direct research funds, the education of future researchers, and the development of research infrastructure. They entail multimillion dollar investments. Today, NSF devotes about $125,000 annually to Organizational Informatics as part of the Information Technology in Organizations program. This start is far short of the level of funding required to develop this field within CS. The North American CS curricula must include opportunities for students to learn the most reliable knowledge about the social dimensions of systems development and use (Denning, 1992). The study of Organizational Informatics builds upon both the traditional technological foundations of CS and the social sciences. But social science faculty at most universities will not develop it as an effective foundational topic for CS because the study of the social dimensions of technology is marginalized within the social sciences. On specific campuses, CS faculty may be able to develop good instructional programs in collaboration with colleagues in social sciences or schools of management. But relying upon any specific discipline outside of CS doesn't provide a national scale solution for CS education. ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATICS AND SIGCAS FUTURES I do not have specific statistics about SIGCAS membership, finances, and activities to contrast with other viable ACM SIGs. However, SIGCAS has been close to bankruptcy and effectively suspended operations for over a year. My discussions with numerous colleagues about the state of SIGCAS lead to a strong conclusion that it is in serious crisis that will not simply be resolved by "just getting back to business"[8]. SIGCAS membership is diverse. Like many ACM SIGs, it includes more practicing computer specialists than academics. SIGCAS' academic members identify with many disciplines. This diversity is generally a strength. But it should not blind us to the way that SIGCAS viability requires that it be strongly supported by some specific academic community and that CS is the most likely choice. Like any viable intellectual endeavor, the study of social and ethical issues of computing requires a critical mass of people who can devote most of their time to the topic. Today, no academic discipline effectively supports such studies, but Computer Science provides the most support. CS support was even more plausible in the 1970's when SIGCAS monopolized its intellectual turf, and there were few regular publications which examined social and ethical issues in computing. This institutional landscape has become magnificently transformed, with the rise of advocacy organizations like CPSR and EFF, the appearance of magazines like Wired and Impact!, and the genesis of numerous Usenet newsgroups whose participants discuss some social issues of computing (ie., comp.society, comp.society.privacy, comp.risks). It's critical for the SIGCAS members and leadership to rethink the roles that make it worth preserving, in light of this new institutional map. I hope that this article will help expand the range of constructive debate about the foci and future of SIGCAS. One key challenge for the SIGCAS leadership is to organize effective forums for the membership to discuss their interests. "Computers and Society" will continue to be an important forum for special articles, and SIGCAS could not survive without it. The new task forces will be helpful, but they seem to involve only a few members and are working very slowly. It's overdue for SIGCAS to create and utilize appropriate electronic discussion forums to can serve as responsive media for a larger fraction of the membership (Anderson, 1993). It's unlikely that SIGCAS will sponsor any substantial conferences in the next few years. Specialized electronic forums could help develop affinity groups for SIGCAS members who teach about the social and ethical issues in computing, research ethical issues, etc. [9]. These forums could help reduce the isolation that many SIGCAS members feel, as well as to help more constructively mobilize the SIG's membership. This could be a major service of the SIG to its members, and could help advance the field as well. The ACM's SIGs play a special role in nurturing relevant teaching and research within the ACM community, and especially within academic CS. I have suggested two additional substantive foci which would give SIGCAS a distinguishable expertise in CS curricula, in addition to computer ethics and philosophical implications of computing: cyberspace issues (Anderson, 1993) and Organizational Informatics. These are not exclusive alternatives, but they have different features. Cyberspace issues can link SIGCAS to high-profile current developments, such as the nature of National Information Infrastructure, NREN, the character of digital libraries, cryptographic policy, etc. Despite these advantages of adding a Cyberspace focus, SIGCAS efforts on these topics raises important questions of SIGCAS' distinctive role. Advocacy organizations, such as CPSR and EFF, have already developed important visibility for some of their policy analyses of specific cyberspace issues. What additional expertise and capabilities does SIGCAS bring to the table? The Cyberspace theme does not help build many strong bridges between SIGCAS and research/teaching in other areas of CS Expanding SIGCAS to incorporate Organizational Informatics offers an important opportunity for SIGCAS to develop a stronger bridge to CS and support from our CS colleagues in areas like HCI, CSCW and Software Engineering [10]. It provides new opportunities for us to offer regular CS courses which can acquaint a larger number of the CS students with systematic social, organizational, and ethical analyses of computing. These courses could more effectively prepare CS students to understand the social dimensions of the computing systems that many of them will be hired to help select, develop, manage, and support. These courses, as well as a broader emphasis upon other socially rich computing topics, can provide a growth path for CS departments. And they provide an important growth path for SIGCAS [11]. SIGCAS members can develop an Organizational Informatics focus by developing a workable forum for discussing Organizational Informatics within CS, revising SIGCAS' official descriptions, developing/collecting teaching materials for Organizational Informatics courses for CS students, and organizing workshops to advance relevant research. I realize that many of my colleagues in SIGCAS will be skeptical about this aggressive extension into these particular directions. However, SIGCAS is facing a deep crisis, and it's time for bold thinking. Many talented ACM members who are interested in social and policy aspects of computing devote their energies to organizations like CPSR or EFF, and feel that SIGCAS should gracefully die. I don't share their views, because I see SIGCAS as having a special role in nurturing teaching and research in CS and allied disciplines. But SIGCAS is in a very fragile state, and can be downgraded from full SIG status in the next SIGBOARD review in November 1994. The careful focus of SIGCAS' energies on a few specific topics through a variety of forums and task- forces can help mobilize some existing members, bring in new energetic members, and help the SIG contribute to a part of the computing world as a going concern. It is time for the SIGCAS leadership to help mobilize the members into developing a vision for the SIG which will be intellectually, institutionally, and financially viable. This will, in part, require new behaviors by many of the SIG participants, since communication between the elected officers and members has been very fragmentary and episodic. I am hopeful that well designed electronic forums can help facilitate this, since SIGCAS does not have alternative social frameworks for developing workable consensus and actions, such as local chapters, significant working groups or annual conferences. There are important opportunities for cooperation on particular projects between SIGCAS and other organizations, like CPSR or specific IFIP working groups. But SIGCAS has to have a distinctive role, rather than primarily working in the shadows of other organizations. I have suggested two specific topics that can add to the intellectual foci of the SIG and bring important intellectual and institutional vitality. But most seriously, I have argued that SIGCAS' viability depends upon its intellectual agenda being cherished by some CS faculty in other areas and by SIGCAS courses being more effectively integrated into CS curricula. Making SIGCAS into a viable organization will require us to "think boldly and broadly" about our new roles -- the kind of thinking that we often advise others to do. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Thanks to Rick Weingarten for encouraging an early version of this paper, and to Dianne Martin and Bruce Jawer for encouraging me to revise it for "Computers and Society." John King has been a source of good sage advice about some SIGCAS strategic options. Mark Ackerman, David Bellin, Larry Press and Ben Shneiderman provided some helpful comments on this manuscript. REFERENCES Anderson, Ronald E. 1993. "Message from the Chairperson." Computers and Society 23 (#1-2)(July):1-2. Anderson, Ronald E. et. al. 1993. "Using the new ACM Code of Ethics in Decision Making." CACM 36(2)(Feb):98-108. Boland, Richard and Rudy Hirschhiem (Ed). 1987. Critical Issues in Information Systems, New York: John-Wiley. Bullen, Christine and John Bennett. 1991. Groupware in Practice: An Interpretation of Work Experience" in Dunlop and Kling, 1991b. Brynjolfsen, Eric. 1993. "The Productivity Paradox of Information Technology" Communications of the ACM,36(12) (December):66-77 Clement, Andrew. 1994. "Computing at Work: Empowering Action by 'Low-Level' Users" Communications of the ACM,37(1) (January):52-63. Cotterman, William and James Senn (Eds). 1992. Challenges and Strategies for Research in Systems Development. New York: John Wiley. Denning, Peter. 1992. "Educating a New Engineer" Communications of the ACM. (December) 35(12):83-97 Dunlop, Charles and Rob Kling, 1991a. "Introduction to the Economic and Organizational Dimensions of Computerization." in Dunlop and Kling, 1991b. Dunlop, Charles and Rob Kling (Ed). 1991b. Computerization and Controversy: Value Conflicts and Social Choices. Boston: Academic Press. Ehn, Pelle. 1991. "The Art and Science of Designing Computer Artifacts." in Dunlop and Kling, 1991. Friedman, Batya and Peter H. Kahn. 1994. "Educating Computer Scientists: Linking the Social and the Technical" Communications of the ACM,37(1) (January):64-71. Galegher, Jolene, Robert Kraut, and Carmen Egido (Ed.) 1990. Intellectual Teamwork: Social and Intellectual Foundations of Cooperative Work. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Grudin, Jonathan. 1994. "Groupware and Social Dynamics: Eight Challenges for Developers." Communications of the ACM,37(1) (January):92-105. Hartmanis, Juris and Herbert Lin (Eds). 1992. Computing the Future: A Broader Agenda for Computer Science and Engineering. Washington, DC. National Academy Press. [Briefly summarized in Communications of the ACM,35(11) November 1992] Kling, Rob. 1992. "Behind the Terminal: The Critical Role of Computing Infrastructure In Effective Information Systems' Development and Use." Chapter 10 in Cotterman Senn. Pp. 153-201. Kling, Rob. 1993. "Organizational Analysis in Computer Science." The Information Society. 9(2) (Mar-May):71-87 Kraemer, Kenneth .L., Dickhoven, Siegfried, Fallows-Tierney, Susan, and King, John L. 1985. Datawars: The Politics of Modeling in Federal Policymaking. New York: Columbia University Press. Kyng, Morton and Joan Greenbaum. 1991. Design at Work: Cooperative Work of Computer Systems. Hillsdale, NJ.: Lawrence Erlbaum. Orlikowski, Wanda. 1992. "Learning from Notes: Organizational Issues in Groupware Implementation." CSCW 92 Proceedings. ------------ NOTES (*) Rob Kling is Professor of Information and Computer Science at UC-Irvine. Of greatest relevance to this article: He has been a SIGCAS member since 1971. He served on the editorial board of Computers and Society, and has organized conferences sessions for SIGCAS at national conferences. In recent years he has spoken at conferences organized by SIGCHI and SIGOIS, and he serves on SIGOIS' Executive Committee. He is a member of the ACM's Committee on Computers and Public Policy and serves on the Executive Committee of the USACM -- the ACM's Committee for US Public Policy Issues. [1] Many CS faculty scorn such "merely vocational" concerns. But they would have trouble explaining the relative number of CS majors and majors in a humanities disciplines like philosophy without serious reference to job markets and students' vocational aspirations. [2] SIGOIS and SIGCPR have also recently been the locus of some relevant research. [3] While SIGCAS members played a key role in reformulating the ACM's Code of Ethical and Professional Conduct, SIGCAS has been otherwise rather quiet. For example, articles about social issues in computing appear in Communications of the ACM by people associated with SIGSOFT (ie. Peter Neumann's "Computer-Risks" column), EFF and CPSR much more frequently than by people who are explicitly identified with SIGCAS. [4] The ACM includes many members who identify with fields other than CS, such as EE or Information Systems. However, the successful SIGs within the ACM are aligned with an active research community which is at least moderately integrated into one or more academic disciplines. While SIGCAS overlaps several scholarly communities, it doesn't serve as a major support organization for fields which are integrated into CS. [5] SIGCAS has been a 25% sponsor the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conferences, but plays no significant visible in actually organizing sessions. [6] Organizational Informatics is a new term, and I have found that some people instantly like it while others are put off. I've experimented with alternative labels, like Organizational Computing, which has also resulted in strong and mixed reactions. Computing is a more common term than Informatics, but it's too narrow for some researchers. Informatics also can connote "information," which is an important part of this field. Sociological Computer Science would have the virtues of being a parallel construction of Mathematical Computer Science, but doesn't connote information either. I have not yet found a short distinctive label which characterizes the field and whose connotations are rapidly grasped by both outsiders and insiders. [7] Peter Neumann's famous comp.risks Usenet newsgroup is not limited to SIGSOFT members, or even ACM members. But he publishes digests of key events in SIGSOFT's "Software Engineering Notes". For the last few years he has also produced a monthly column about computer risks for Communications of the ACM. See Kling (1993) for a bibliography of his CACM columns. [8] These colleagues and discussants include past and present SIGCAS officers, ACM staff members, members of the SIG Board, officers of organizations like CPSR and EFF, as well as many colleagues whose publications about the social and ethical issues of computing are very well known. [9] The Usenet group comp.society could serve as a ready-made electronic forum for SIGCAS members. However, the most active scholars in various fields rarely contribute to the relevant Usenet newsgroups. In contrast, the LISTSERVs which are a bit more closed seem to be more effective forums for discussions among specialists. Organizations like the American Association of Information Science and the Academy of Management operate a collection of LISTSERVs which serve as lively forums for their members. [10] See Friedman and Kahn (1994) for related ways to link social analysis to teaching other "technical" topics in CS. [11] At UC-Irvine, my colleagues and I have developed an undergraduate sequence of three courses: a "computers and society" course required for all of our majors; an analytical Organizational Informatics course; and a "lab course" in which students study social aspects of computing in a specific organization. Many of our students value this sequence. In addition, it helps provide appropriate TA opportunities for our PhD students who are interested in the social aspects of computing.