We present a brief observational, 'ethnographic', study of the Roughing Mill in a steel plant and... more We present a brief observational, 'ethnographic', study of the Roughing Mill in a steel plant and use material from recorded activities to provide 'illustrative vignettes' of some aspects of the accomplishment and problems of everyday work. The account provides a 'bottom up' method for developing a more sophisticated and situated view of the problems of dependability. The paper documents the social organisation of work in the Roughing Mill, the interaction between the computer scheduler and the skill of the mill operator in accomplishing 'dependable' production of steel plates from slabs. Introduction: dependability and socio-technical systems "Dependability is defined as that property of a computer system such that reliance can justifiably be placed on the service it delivers." (Randell, 2000
This paper is a modified version of a chapter in the PA2 'Trustbook' (Clarke et al. Forthcoming) ... more This paper is a modified version of a chapter in the PA2 'Trustbook' (Clarke et al. Forthcoming) that uses our ethnographic studies of everyday work to illustrate sociological approaches to explicating some temporal features of dependability.
This paper presents data and analyses from a long term ethnographic study of the development of a... more This paper presents data and analyses from a long term ethnographic study of the development of an electronic patient records system in a UK hospital Trust-TA 'Dependable Deployment'. The project is a public private partnership (PPP) between the Trust and a US based software house (USCo) contracted to supply, configure and support their customizable-off-the-shelf (COTS) healthcare information system in cooperation with an in-hospital project team. We use data drawn from our observational studies to highlight a range of responsibility issues in designer-user relationships.
Organizations have increasingly been seeking to interact with their customers using more 'remote ... more Organizations have increasingly been seeking to interact with their customers using more 'remote channels', such as telephone and computer based technologies. This process has been a part of dramatic technological upheavals as technology enters into customer interactions. This paper examines examples of this changing relationship, documenting the role of technology in delivering banking services over remote channels. We present details from two ethnographic studies concerning physical and digital representations of artifacts, talk and the organization of customer-facing work and their relevance in 'designing for the expanded interface'. In telephone banking, sharing of objects and reconciliation between different instantiations is achieved through conversation. In videoconferencing, despite visual access to the same artifact, operators still need to guide customers around objects, explaining what they are seeing, what is happening. We look at the use of scripts designed to standardize operator interactions; the demeanour work undertaken by operators to account for the behaviour of technology; discuss attempts to configure customer interactions and consider issues of trust in such technologically mediated communication. CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION 2. SETTINGS 3. METHODS 4. AMICABLE BANK: TECHNOLOGY AND TALK 5.1 Analysis of telephone talk Overall Call Organisation Markers Conveying The System: Interaction Requirements Conveying The System: Interaction Process Conveying The System: Interaction Outcomes Transforming and Reconciling Objects Summary 5. AMIABLE BANK: talking through the technology-the work to make the videolink work: 6. DISCUSSION: Talk and the organisation of customer-facing work. 6.1 Designing for the Expanded Interface 6.2 Scripting 6.3 Demeanour Work 6.4 Configuring The Customer 6.5 Conclusion: Remote Banking, Technology and 'Trust' "MAKING THE ORGANISATION COME ALIVE": TALKING THROUGH AND ABOUT THE TECHNOLOGY IN REMOTE BANKING. "people... talk their way to solutions, talk themselves into working agreements.... talk their organisational agendas .... through their talk they not only reproduce the institutionalised arrangements of the organisation and its environment, but significantly create and recreate fine distinctions that actually make the organisation come alive." (Boden 1994 :52
This special issue arises from a workshop held on 8-9 March 2006 at the National e-Science Centre... more This special issue arises from a workshop held on 8-9 March 2006 at the National e-Science Centre on the topic of 'Integrated Health Records: Practice and Technology'. The workshop oriented to signifi cant developments in integration technologies, progress with (and controversy surrounding) implementation programmes (for example, the National Programme for IT [NPfIT] in England), as well as a shift towards closer integration between clinical practice and medical research. Although the principal goal of integrated health records (IHRs) remains improving care through timely and location-independent access to medical records, it is obvious that this (complex enough) objective is becoming increasingly linked with ambitious agendas relating to e-health (e.g. personal access to health services and information) and e-science (e.g. use of clinical data for research). At the same time, many of the anticipated problems associated with IHR delivery have come to the fore (e.g. data quality, clinical acceptance, confi dentiality, meshing national and local priorities and systems, fi t with clinical practice). It was therefore timely to refl ect on and share experiences of delivering IHRs, as well as on the emerging relations with e-science and e-health. This workshop brought together healthcare practitioners, social care workers, clinical researchers, social scientists, e-scientists and policy makers interested in the problems of accessing and integrating healthcare data for service delivery and research, and focused on a range of sociotechnical issues pertaining to the deployment of robust, secure, trusted, ethically acceptable and usable systems. While the problems raised by data integration in healthcare mirror those encountered in many areas of e-science, the use of grid technologies does not yet feature strongly in IHR delivery plans. We saw this event in part as an opportunity for the e-science community to learn of the context and problems of clinical record system integration (where, for example, the boundaries between clinical practice and research are becoming increasingly blurred), and for the community of healthcare practitioners and researchers grappling with record integration to learn how e-science and grid technologies may be of benefi t to them.
This article considers some of the everyday practicalities of delivering an electronic health rec... more This article considers some of the everyday practicalities of delivering an electronic health record project within an NHS hospital trust. Using ethnographic, observational data we document how and in what ways the orderly character of project work is achieved against a background of battles and negotiations to deliver the project within and despite various organizational contingencies and constraints.
We present a brief observational, 'ethnographic', study of the Roughing Mill in a steel plant and... more We present a brief observational, 'ethnographic', study of the Roughing Mill in a steel plant and use material from recorded activities to provide 'illustrative vignettes' of some aspects of the accomplishment and problems of everyday work. The account provides a 'bottom up' method for developing a more sophisticated and situated view of the problems of dependability. The paper documents the social organisation of work in the Roughing Mill, the interaction between the computer scheduler and the skill of the mill operator in accomplishing 'dependable' production of steel plates from slabs. Introduction: dependability and socio-technical systems "Dependability is defined as that property of a computer system such that reliance can justifiably be placed on the service it delivers." (Randell, 2000
This paper is a modified version of a chapter in the PA2 'Trustbook' (Clarke et al. Forthcoming) ... more This paper is a modified version of a chapter in the PA2 'Trustbook' (Clarke et al. Forthcoming) that uses our ethnographic studies of everyday work to illustrate sociological approaches to explicating some temporal features of dependability.
This paper presents data and analyses from a long term ethnographic study of the development of a... more This paper presents data and analyses from a long term ethnographic study of the development of an electronic patient records system in a UK hospital Trust-TA 'Dependable Deployment'. The project is a public private partnership (PPP) between the Trust and a US based software house (USCo) contracted to supply, configure and support their customizable-off-the-shelf (COTS) healthcare information system in cooperation with an in-hospital project team. We use data drawn from our observational studies to highlight a range of responsibility issues in designer-user relationships.
Organizations have increasingly been seeking to interact with their customers using more 'remote ... more Organizations have increasingly been seeking to interact with their customers using more 'remote channels', such as telephone and computer based technologies. This process has been a part of dramatic technological upheavals as technology enters into customer interactions. This paper examines examples of this changing relationship, documenting the role of technology in delivering banking services over remote channels. We present details from two ethnographic studies concerning physical and digital representations of artifacts, talk and the organization of customer-facing work and their relevance in 'designing for the expanded interface'. In telephone banking, sharing of objects and reconciliation between different instantiations is achieved through conversation. In videoconferencing, despite visual access to the same artifact, operators still need to guide customers around objects, explaining what they are seeing, what is happening. We look at the use of scripts designed to standardize operator interactions; the demeanour work undertaken by operators to account for the behaviour of technology; discuss attempts to configure customer interactions and consider issues of trust in such technologically mediated communication. CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION 2. SETTINGS 3. METHODS 4. AMICABLE BANK: TECHNOLOGY AND TALK 5.1 Analysis of telephone talk Overall Call Organisation Markers Conveying The System: Interaction Requirements Conveying The System: Interaction Process Conveying The System: Interaction Outcomes Transforming and Reconciling Objects Summary 5. AMIABLE BANK: talking through the technology-the work to make the videolink work: 6. DISCUSSION: Talk and the organisation of customer-facing work. 6.1 Designing for the Expanded Interface 6.2 Scripting 6.3 Demeanour Work 6.4 Configuring The Customer 6.5 Conclusion: Remote Banking, Technology and 'Trust' "MAKING THE ORGANISATION COME ALIVE": TALKING THROUGH AND ABOUT THE TECHNOLOGY IN REMOTE BANKING. "people... talk their way to solutions, talk themselves into working agreements.... talk their organisational agendas .... through their talk they not only reproduce the institutionalised arrangements of the organisation and its environment, but significantly create and recreate fine distinctions that actually make the organisation come alive." (Boden 1994 :52
This special issue arises from a workshop held on 8-9 March 2006 at the National e-Science Centre... more This special issue arises from a workshop held on 8-9 March 2006 at the National e-Science Centre on the topic of 'Integrated Health Records: Practice and Technology'. The workshop oriented to signifi cant developments in integration technologies, progress with (and controversy surrounding) implementation programmes (for example, the National Programme for IT [NPfIT] in England), as well as a shift towards closer integration between clinical practice and medical research. Although the principal goal of integrated health records (IHRs) remains improving care through timely and location-independent access to medical records, it is obvious that this (complex enough) objective is becoming increasingly linked with ambitious agendas relating to e-health (e.g. personal access to health services and information) and e-science (e.g. use of clinical data for research). At the same time, many of the anticipated problems associated with IHR delivery have come to the fore (e.g. data quality, clinical acceptance, confi dentiality, meshing national and local priorities and systems, fi t with clinical practice). It was therefore timely to refl ect on and share experiences of delivering IHRs, as well as on the emerging relations with e-science and e-health. This workshop brought together healthcare practitioners, social care workers, clinical researchers, social scientists, e-scientists and policy makers interested in the problems of accessing and integrating healthcare data for service delivery and research, and focused on a range of sociotechnical issues pertaining to the deployment of robust, secure, trusted, ethically acceptable and usable systems. While the problems raised by data integration in healthcare mirror those encountered in many areas of e-science, the use of grid technologies does not yet feature strongly in IHR delivery plans. We saw this event in part as an opportunity for the e-science community to learn of the context and problems of clinical record system integration (where, for example, the boundaries between clinical practice and research are becoming increasingly blurred), and for the community of healthcare practitioners and researchers grappling with record integration to learn how e-science and grid technologies may be of benefi t to them.
This article considers some of the everyday practicalities of delivering an electronic health rec... more This article considers some of the everyday practicalities of delivering an electronic health record project within an NHS hospital trust. Using ethnographic, observational data we document how and in what ways the orderly character of project work is achieved against a background of battles and negotiations to deliver the project within and despite various organizational contingencies and constraints.
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