1 © 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen
Building a Socially EmbeddedFuture Internet
-Some Research Challenges
Volker Wulf
University of Siegen and Fraunhofer FIT
European Society for Socially Embedded Technologies (EUSSET)
www.eusset.eu
2 © 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen
Future Internet: A Socio- technical System
Internet and its applications are becoming an infrastructure for all/different aspects of life
The quality of IT design lies finally in its transformative impacts on social practices» … „to ‘augment’ lives, work, business and spaces in ways that add value” …..
(FIA roadmap)
FIA Roadmap describes societal and business challenges» “The Future Internet is not just a technological, but a socio‐technical system” (FIA
roadmap)
» however: research agenda still lacks an IT design-oriented linkage between the social and the technical
» however: work program, especially sections 6.1 and 6.2 (business and societal applications): mainly technical targets
» Human Computer Interaction: focus on technical mechanisms
3 © 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen
Understanding and Designing Social-Embedded Technologies
Research vision: Support / augment social practices instead of pure automatization
Basic approach: Grounding IT research in an analysis of (IT enhanced) social practices
Bringing together» Understanding of existing social practices
» Design of innovative technologies
» Unterstanding the transformative impacts towards ‚augmented‘ practices and social innovations
Insights are situated and require a new approach of careful generalizations
Traditional CS methods do not take the social embeddedness of technologies sufficiently into account
4 © 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen
Design Case Studies: Understanding IT-augmented Practices
Design Case Studies» Empirical analysis of given practices in a specific field of
application,» (Participatory) Design of an innovative ICT artifact related to the
findings of the empirical analysis» Investigation into the appropriation of the ICT artifact over a longer
period of time.
Definition describes an ideal type of studies, fragments are often interesting, interleaving temporal order of phases
Prestudy Design Appropriation
5 © 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen
Understanding Navigation Practices of Firefighters
Intense work with firefighters
Paris firefighters
Cologne firefighters
Empirical Prestudies
Semi-structured Interviews
Participatory Observation
Problem: Navigation in buildings
8 © 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen
Des
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Cas
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S
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pplic
atio
n D
omai
nsEnd User
Develop ment
Security &
Privacy
Cross-cutting Issue: Concept building
Health & Aging
Sustain-ability
Smart Cities &Communities
KnowledgeWork
Pro-sumption
9 © 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen
Proposal for a Research Line
Extending Living Labs in the real world in a practice-based manner» Cooperative work and coordination in different industries / services» Multinational supply chains» Energy production, distribution, and consumption» …..
Building a corpus of design case studies Comparative analysis for (situated) design principles and
augmentation moves /changes in practices Findings on the application layer needs to interact with
research on technological infrastructure
10 © 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen
Europe: Competitive Strengths
Europe has a strong intellectual tradition to ground the field» Philosophical foundations: Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Latour
» Tradition of Socio-technical Systems
» Scandinavian movement of Participatory Design
Sophisticated practices in knowledge-based, highly competitive organizations
Evolutionary model of innovation in organizations (Mayor) Industrial players engaging in practices-based
computing» Philipps, SAP, PSI, Pixelpark, itsme, ….
12 © 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen
Infrastructuring: Toward an Integrated Perspective on the Design and Use of Information Technology (Pipek/Wulf 2009)
13 © 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen
Knowledge building in a situated research approach
Current state of the art» Theories and concepts without evaluation and scope of validity» Accumulation of (design) case studies without knowledge
building on top of them
(Design) case studies within a constructionist paradigm» Linked to specific practices and IT design options» Case studies offer thick descriptions» Situated in specific context
Theory and concept building is through comparison of multiple cases (corpus of studies)
14 © 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen
Domains of Research with Societal Relevance
Internationally competitive production systems: technologies and work organization
Ecological production and consumption of energy and raw materials
Aging society: health care and social caring New forms of political participation and democratic
legitimation New forms of multinational cooperation and economical
regulation Migration: integration and reference to home community Issues of specific developmental needs: Agriculture, raw
material production, education, health, global cooperation
15 © 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen
Research Challenges
Practices are hidden, partly digitalized, complex, developing
Design: creatively linked to practices Technologies: design space is influenced by history of
their emergence Appropriation: creatively inspired by innovative
technological artefacts and transformativly linked to given practice
Changes in practice: driven by multitude of factors Conceptual and theoretical problems- competition rather
than cooperation
16 © 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen
Europe: Institutional Problems
EU-IST FP 7 (and 8?) does not provide much funding for EUSSET domains» Periperal work packages in a large variety of domains» Lacking funding in topic areas central to the community» National funding schemes work operate similarly
Cooperation between academia and IT industries and IT user (organizations) does not work perfectly» European funding model ‚in theory‘ perfectly suited but needs
some improvements» Better schemes and techniques required to bridge the gap
between very different communities pf practice
17 © 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen
Europe: Institutional Problems - 2
European academic conferences suffer from international competition» Less submissions» Smaller participation» Missing plattform for publication, other than (expensive)
commercial publishers or (US-dominated) ACM-DL
European academic community» Segregated and distributed across different fields, little
shared discourse» Stagnating in size and ageing core actors
18 © 2012 Volker Wulf, University of Siegen
Open Issues: Academically
Looking for an appropritate research and design paradigm for the EUSSET community» Bridging between technological innovation and
ethnographical depth
Building knowledge in a situated design community: issue of transferability beyond cases
Bridging among disciplines Opening towards practitioners