Future Perspectives in CSCW

Invited Panel at
9th International Conference on the Design of Cooperative Systems
http://www.coopsys.org/

Panelists:
- Myriam Lewkowicz, UT Troyes (chair)
- Kari Kuutti, University of Oulu, Finland
- Gary Olson, University of California, Irvine, USA
- Kjeld Schmidt, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
- Volker Wulf, University of Siegen, Germany

Theme: Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) has continued to
establish itself institutionally: by running an annual ACM-CSCW
conference, by defining a track at the ACM-CHI conference, and by
developing COOP into a second European series of conferences.  While the
institutional development looks promising, there is a certain danger
that the field may lose some of its intellectual coherence.

Being of interdisciplinary nature, CSCW has always been characterized by
a multiplicity of research foci and methods. These differences are also
grounded in different modes of scientific career building and academic
funding. Kjeld Schmidt has recently elaborated on the research
paradigmatic differences within the CSCW community. He suggests to
refocus CSCW following a methodological understanding which connects
design and use and to reorient its applications towards work settings
(in its mundane meaning). On the other hand, we see conferences
directing themselves towards the investigation of web 2.0 applications,
often without relating it to work settings they may be embedded in.

So, the question is how to define the common ground in the field and
where to move from here. The panel will deal with the definitional as
well as the research methodological implications of this question.

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