Socio-Technical Systems
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Much of e-learning occurs in so-called socio-technical systems, whether the technology is a learning / course management system, various mash-ups of open-source tools, wikis, social networking spaces, synthetic worlds, or some combination of the above.
The concept of a “socio-technical system” (as part of “organizational development” research) was created in the 1960s by E. Trist and F. Emery (both of the Tavistock Institute for Social Research in London). This term “socio-technical system” basically considers the interaction of people in a social system or organization, with tools and technique, in a technical system. This concept encapsulates the human social and technical aspects of an organization, with the concept of “joint optimization.” Both human and technical needs have to be considered to improve overall workplace efficiencies. It is assumed that individual strengths may be magnified through the powers of the group and shared work and interests (Fischer, 2006).
“The concept of the socio-technical system was established to stress the reciprocal interrelationship between humans and machines and to foster the program of shaping both the technical and the social conditions of work, in such a way that efficiency and humanity would not contradict each other any longer,” according to G. Ropohl (1999, p. 59).
The basic concept is that individualized capabilities are “externalized and objectified into the technical system,” which then magnifies that capability to a much larger community; the technology undergoes “technical institutionalization “ and becomes part of the common culture (Ropohl, 1999, pp. 69 – 70). Ropohl notes: “Utilizing technical products means making use of alien abilities and knowledge, sometimes even to be overwhelmed by alien goals, which may be incorporated in the artifacts as well” (p. 70). Socio-technical endeavors are not values-free; rather, values are built into the uses and capabilities of the technologies.
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Human Adoption of Technologies
Plenty has been written about how people choose to accept or reject new technologies. In part, human behaviors towards technologies involve their mental conceptualizations of those systems or particular aspects of those systems. Misconceptions may make it more difficult for users to make informed decisions, such as about their own privacy and security management (Goecks, Edwards, & Mynatt, 2009). Socio-technical systems need to be designed in human-centered ways. They need to accommodate human work pattern (Ribes & Finholt, 2007). The various tools may be designed for expected and unanticipated uses per Mike Robinson’s concept (1993).
The “technological capacitation” may be increased with human “autonomy, motivation, and influence over technology deployment” (Corea, 2000, p. 45). The user friendliness of the technology, its flexibility, and technology performance monitoring also matter.
Examples of Modern Socio-Technical Systems
To use this term broadly, a range of systems are socio-technical ones. Computer mediated communications systems are socio-technical, bringing people together through computer-mediated communications. Dedicated systems in companies may capture employee knowledge, manage that knowledge, and deploy that knowledge for decision-making.
Collaborative desktops involve design features that support human coordination and human brainstorming and co-development of projects, in a typical workflow. These systems enable representations of individual presences and group social presences. Some researchers note: “Coordination is important in any system in which peoples are acting around artifacts together with negotiable goals and unfolding processes” (Tatar, Lee, & Alaloula, 2008, p. 69).
Such socio-technical systems are designed based on organizational and individual user needs, albeit within the constraints of the technologies. One endeavor is to design socio-technical spaces to mitigate for asymmetries of “media, fidelity, participation, engagement, benefit, and place” (Voida, Voida, Greenberg, & He, 2008, p. 321). Such designs may use human awarenesses and behaviors, technological designs, and human practices, to increase a more fair deployment of media tools. Many strive to build transparencies such as WYSIWIS (or “What You See is What I See”), per Stefik, et al. (1987).
Social networking sites, wikis, blogs, micro-blogging sites, tagging, and other so-called Web 2.0 tools enable rich connectivity and sharing with others. The dynamic configuring of these tools means ever more complex technical scope. Interwoven collaborative knowledge structures may be co-built. These tools enable distributed cognition, or the ability for people to connect and work through various shared challenges together in a geographically dispersed and distance-mediated way. Researchers emphasize the importance of studying such complex dynamics to design effective human computer interactions along with the complex cultural milieus of the various participants (Hollan, Hutchins, & Kirsh, 2000). Humans need basic trust and open communications for effective working relationships in socio-technical systems. Numerous self-organizing communities have emerged based on the tools that enable the building of virtual communities around shared interests.
Virtual conferences are another kind of socio-technical space…where people may interact with each other, share information, exchange digital files, and collaborate.
One “new” kind of socio-technical system has been proposed as a “service system” that brings together people and techologies in value-creation networks. The originators of this ambitious concept suggest that such service systems may be small-scale to wide-scalee:
Service system complexity is a function of the number and variety of people, technologies, and organizations linked in the value creation networks, ranging in scale from professional reputation systems of a single kind of knowledge worker or profession, to work systems composed of multiple types of knowledge workers, to enterprise systems (for example, businesses), to industrial systems, to national systems, and ultimately to the global service system (Maglio, Srinivasan, Kreulen, & Spohrer, 2006, pp. 81 – 82).
Human and Technology Interdependencies
In socio-technical systems, humans and technologies have interdependencies. Each relies on the other in a complex symbiotic relationship.
Safety Critical Socio-Technical Systems
Many such socio-technical systems also happen to be “safety-critical” ones such as in “aviation, maritime, air traffic control, telecommunications, nuclear power plants, space missions, chemical and petroleum industry, and healthcarfe and patient safety” (Qureshi, 2007, p. 47). The troubleshooting of how to maintain security in such circumstances requires strict human training and extensive technological testing and redundancies, along with the building of cultures of safety—through rules, policies, leadership structures, and other elements.
Some Implications for E-Learning
The implications of socio-technical systems are manifold for e-learning. It suggests that learning spaces need to be designed with human perception limitations and strengths in mind. This concept suggests that human cognition should be brought into play. The human usage of technologies should be considered in the versioning of future versions of that technology.
Automated learning designs need to consider the human needs and motivations.
The facilitation of human learning suggests that they must be a kind of bridge between the human learners and the technology systems, to facilitate the work there.
See Also
References
Corea, S. (2000). Technological capacitation in customer service work: A sociotechnical approach. In the proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Informaton Systems: Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, (pp. 45 – 57).
Fischer, G. (2006). Distributed intelligence: Extending the power of the unaided, individual human mind. In the proceedings of Advanced Visual Interfaces 2006 (AVI ’06): Venezia, Italy (pp. 7 – 14). Association of Computing Machinery.
Goecks, J., Edwards, W.K., & Mynatt, E.D. (2009). Challenges in supporting end-user privacy and security management with social navigation. In the proceedings of the Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS): Mountain View, California (pp. 1 – 12).
Hollan, J., Hutchins, E. & Kirsh, D. (2000). Distributed cognition: Toward a new foundation for human-computer interaction research. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction: 7(2), 174-196.
Maglio, P.P., Srinivasan, S., Kreulen, J.T., & Spohrer, J. (2006). Service systems, service scientists, SSME, and innovation. Communications of the ACM: 49(7), 81 – 34.
Qureshi, Z.H. (2007). A review of accident modelling approaches for complex socio-technical systems. In the proceedings of the 12th Australian Conference on Safety-Related Programmable Systems: Adelaide, Australia (pp. 47 – 60).
Ribes, D. & Finholt, T.A. (2007). Tensions across the scales: Planning infrastructure for the long-term. In the proceedings of GROUP ’07: Sanibel Island, Florida (pp. 229 – 238). Association of Computing Machinery.
Robinson, M. (1993): Design for unanticipated use .... In: G. de Michelis, C. Simone, and K. Schmidt (Eds.): Proceedings of the Third European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (ECSCW'93) (pp. 187 – 202). Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Ropohl, G. (1999). Philosophy of socio-technical systems. Philosophy and Technology: 4(3), 59 – 71.
Stefik, M., Foster, G., Bobrow, D.G., Kahn, K., Lanning, S. and Suchman, L. (1987). Beyond the chalkboard: Computer support for collaboration and problem solving in meetings. Comm. ACM, 30, 1, 32–47.
Tatar, D., Lee, J-S., & Alaloula, N. (2008). Playground games: A design strategy for supporting and understanding coordinated activity. In the proceedings of the Designing Interactive Systems (DIS): Cape Town, South Africa. Association of Computing Machinery (pp. 68 – 77).
Voida, A., Voida, S., Greenberg, S. & He, H.A. (2008). Asymmetry in media spaces. In the proceedings of the Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): San Diego, California (pp. 313 – 322).