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Tech Report kmi-02-01 Abstract


Conceptualising work activity for CAL systems design
Techreport ID: kmi-02-01
Date: 2002
Author(s): Daisy Mwanza
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As computing technology has increasingly become relevant to people ’s everyday lives, emphasis is being placed on ensuring Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) tools support users in ways that are meaningful to them. This requirement has highlighted the need to understand the complex and often dynamic social and cultural organisation of collaborating individuals in context. Here, the aim is to conceptualise the natural flow and evolution of work practices so as to inform the design of these systems. This paper reports on empirical findings of an investigation into the design requirements for a CAL system for supporting knowledge sharing activities in an organisation.

Keywords:

Information systems, collaboration, mediated, professional, case study.

Correspondence:

Daisy Mwanza, Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA.
Email: D.Mwanza@open.ac.uk

Publication(s):

In the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, March, 2002 (18), issue number 1, pages 84 - 92, Blackwell Science Ltd, UK.
 
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Social Software is...


Social Software
Social Software can be thought of as "software which extends, or derives added value from, human social behaviour - message boards, musical taste-sharing, photo-sharing, instant messaging, mailing lists, social networking."

Interacting with other people not only forms the core of human social and psychological experience, but also lies at the centre of what makes the internet such a rich, powerful and exciting collection of knowledge media. We are especially interested in what happens when such interactions take place on a very large scale -- not only because we work regularly with tens of thousands of distance learners at the Open University, but also because it is evident that being part of a crowd in real life possesses a certain 'buzz' of its own, and poses a natural challenge. Different nuances emerge in different user contexts, so we choose to investigate the contexts of work, learning and play to better understand the trade-offs involved in designing effective large-scale social software for multiple purposes.