NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #26/NN_1992_26.iso/spool/comp/edu/1894

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-11 | 10.1 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!ukma!darwin.sura.net!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!news.service.uci.edu!ucivax!gateway
From: [e-mail] (Rob Kling)
Subject: PhD program: Social Aspects of Computing
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Lines: 195
Date: 11 Nov 92 19:40:56 GMT



              COMPUTING, ORGANIZATIONS, POLICY AND SOCIETY
                at the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE
                             C  O  R  P  S

Our CORPS PhD concentration provides a fascinating opportunity to study a
vital topic: the social aspects of computerization. We encourage reflective
inquiry, lively discussions, and avoiding the hype that often surrounds new
technologies. The computerization of society is taking place at dizzying
speed. Almost every week we're bombarded with information about new
computer technologies, and predictions about their influence on emerging
social changes.  But the real social choices and consequences of
computerization aren't really well understood. Public, professional and
even many scholarly discussions of alternative ways to computerize are
often oversimplified. These are important issues and discussion is being
advanced through high quality university-based research.

We offer a PhD concentration in the Department of Information and Computer
Science (ICS) for people who would like to do systematic research and/or
teaching about the social aspects of computerization in their careers.
CORPS faculty and students work together across departmental boundaries on
specific research projects and seminars with faculty in other schools at
UC-Irvine. The CORPS faculty has published many books and articles in this
area since the early 1970s.

The CORPS concentrations focus upon  related areas of inquiry:
   1. Developing strategies for designing computer-based systems so that
      they best enhance the performance of groups and organizations;
   2. Understanding the processes and social consequences of computerization
      within organizations and in society.
   3. Understanding the work and organizational worlds where people design,
      develop, market, distribute, implement, and sustain computerized
      systems.
   4. Evaluating strategies for managing the implementation and use of
      computer-based technologies.
   5. Evaluating and proposing public policies which encourage the
      development and use of computing in pro-social ways.

CORPS studies of these questions have examined many kinds of computerized
systems. They include complex information systems, computer-based modeling,
decision-support systems, office automation, electronic funds transfer
systems, expert systems, instructional computing, personal computers,
groupware, computer supported manufacturing and computing at home. Most of
these studies are done in the U.S. But CORPS faculty have also collaborated
in studies in Europe and the Pacific Rim countries.

The central questions vary from study to study. They have included questions
about the effects of computerized technologies, ways to manage them, the
social choices that computing opens up or closes off, the kind of social and
cultural life that develops around computing, their political consequences,
and their social carrying costs.

CORPS studies at Irvine have a distinctive orientation:
   1. focusing on both public and private sectors,
   2. examining computerization in public life and homelife as well as
      within organizations,
   3. examining computer-based technologies ``in vivo" in typical settings,
   4. employing theories and methods drawn from the social sciences, and
   5. encouraging critical inquiry while avoiding utopian and anti-utopian
      positions.

CORPS Faculty

The primary faculty in the CORPS concentration hold appointments in the
Department of Information and Computer Science and the Graduate School of
Management.  Additional faculty in the Department of History, the School of
Social Sciences, and the Program on Social Ecology, have collaborated in
research or have taught key courses for students in the CORPS concentration.
The Public Policy Research Organization, an interdisciplinary research
institute at UCI, administers the CORPS research projects.

The CORPS faculty are recognized nationally and internationally for their
scholarship about computerization in organizations and public life. The
faculty have published numerous books and articles about these topics during
the last 20 years. In addition, they regularly give talks at major
conferences about the sociology and management of computing and also serve
on the editorial boards of several major journals.

Mark Ackerman (Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology) -- Assistant
   Professor of ICS. Design of systems for experts in large
   organizations; social worlds of software developers.

J. Yannis Bakos (Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology) -- Assistant
   Professor of Management;Economic impacts of information technology;
   Strategic Information Systems; Corporate Information System
   Architectures

James Danziger (Ph.D. Stanford University) -- Professor of Political
   Science; Politics of Computing; Computerization and Changes in Work;
   Computing in the Social Sciences

Julian Feldman (Ph.D. Carnegie Institute of Technology) -- Professor
   Emeritus of Information and Computer Science; Management of Computing
   Resources

Jonathan Grudin (PhD University of California, San Diego). -- Assistant
   Professor of Information and Computer Science; Computer Supported
   Cooperative Work; Social Strategies for System Development;
   Human-Computer Interaction

Vijay Gurbaxani (Ph.D. University of Rochester) -- Associate Professor of
   Management; Economics of Information Systems Management; Information
   Systems Investment Strategies; Performance Measurement of Information
   System Organizations; Organizational Implications of Information
   Technology

John King (Ph.D. University of California, Irvine) -- Professor of
   Information and Computer Science and Management; Management and
   Economics of Computing; Social and Organizational Impacts of
   Computing; National Policies about Computerization

Rob Kling (Ph.D. Stanford University) -- Professor of Information and
   Computer Science and Management; Social and Organizational Impacts of
   Computing; Computing and Public Policy; Computerization and Social
   Theory; Computerization and Utopian Thought; Management of Information
   Systems and New Workplace Technologies

Kenneth Kraemer (Ph.D. University of Southern California) -- Professor of
   Administration and Information and Computer Science; Director, Public
   Policy Research Organization; National Computer Policy; Investment and
   Procurement Policy; Management of Computing; Organizational Impacts of
   Computing; Use of Computers in Policy Making

Mark Poster (Ph.D. New York University) -- Professor of History; Director -
   Critical Theory Institute; Postmodernism; Mode of Information;
   Poststructuralist European Intellectual Movements

Alladi Venkatesh (Ph.D. Syracuse University) -- Associate Professor of
   Administration; Information Technology and the Consumer; Philosophy of
   Science Perspectives; Sociology of Consumption

Nicholas Vitalari (Ph.D. University of Minnesota) -- Associate Professor of
   Administration and Information and Computer Science; Home Computing;
   Decision Support Systems; Systems Analysis



Organizational Arrangements for CORPS

The CORPS concentration is a special track within the PhD program the
Department of Information and Computer Science. The ICS faculty evaluates
CORPS applicants with the similar criteria to those they use for their
other PhD students. CORPS students need strong quantitative and verbal
skills. In addition, some prior study of the social sciences is
recommended.

This concentration is particularly appropriate for students with strong
scientific or technical backgrounds who wish to expand their horizons and
skills by studying issues of computerization from a social scientific
perspective. The program provides an superb opportunity for students with
scientific or technical backgrounds to leverage their educations into a new
and vital areas. CORPS is a full-time residential PhD program. Financial
support is available in the form of teaching assistantships, research
assistantships and Regents fellowships for truly outstanding students.

CORPS faculty conduct their research through the Center for Research on
Information Technology and Organizations (CRITO). CRITO provides key office
space and support for research seminars.

In addition to CORPS, the ICS Department has research groups in the  areas
of artificial intelligence, computer systems design, parallel processing,
software, computer networks and distributed systems, algorithms and data
structures.  ICS faculty emphasize traditional computer science as well as
research in emerging areas of the discipline, with effective
interdisciplinary collaborative ties to  colleagues in neurobiology,
cognitive science, management, engineering, and the social sciences.  ICS
currently has 29 full-time faculty  positions and more than 110 Ph.D.
students, including CORPS.  The department is well  endowed with computing
equipment and networks, including multiprocessor Sequents, and networked
workstations. Access is available to all major national and  international
networks.

UC Irvine is located in Orange County, three miles from the Pacific  Ocean
adjacent to Newport Beach, and approximately forty miles south of Los
Angeles.  It is within easy drives of 10,000 foot mountains, vast deserts,
and beautiful Pacific beaches. The campus is situated in the heart of a
national center  of high-technology enterprise. The Irvine campus also
houses the Western Regional offices of the National Academy of Sciences and
National Academy of Engineering. Both the campus and the enterprise area
are growing rapidly and offer exciting professional opportunities. The
Irvine are offers substantial cultural opportunities in music, the arts and
theater.

Please write for additional information to:

Professor Rob Kling
Department of Information and Computer Science
University of California - Irvine
Irvine, CA 92717
[e-mail]                                           11/10/92.