HCC-Large: Decentralized Virtual Activities and Technologies: A Socio-Technical Approach

该项目采用实证社会技术研究方法来了解如何从分散的虚拟活动系统（DVASs）中获得最大利益。我们看到对分散系统和虚拟世界环境的开发和使用日益增长的广泛兴趣，这些环境可能是参与协作工作活动的新场所。人们对刺激新技术创新产生了广泛的兴趣，这些创新使人们能够通过社交网络、文件或媒体共享以及大型多人在线游戏走到一起。新一代的网络计算环境似乎朝着增加社会化、交互、通信和协作的方向发展，这些都是跨越多个组织边界的主要目的。但我们如何从这里到达那里呢？仅仅让企业供应商和技术创新者的市场简单地决定谁需要什么就足够了吗？计算的历史揭示了许多开发和部署计算系统的失败或有问题的努力的遗留问题，这些努力是由于缺乏对人们的工作和社会活动位于组织和技术环境中的方式的理解或认识而产生的。这些上下文配置、约束或允许某些类型的活动蓬勃发展，而其他类型的活动则被无意或有意地取代。研究的核心是对六个关键变量的个人和集体研究：表征和现实、相互冲突的政策和实践、关系工作、流程和协调、隐私和意识、安全和信任。DVAS研究需要对问题有广泛的跨学科理解，并采用广泛和跨学科的方法来解决问题。这个项目是一个大型的多地点、多合作伙伴的跨学科团队的研究努力，它提供了最大的实践机会，从现场研究和技术原型工作的比较分析中得出可推广的结果。五个研究伙伴在该项目中扮演多种角色。首先，它们是项目要解决的实际问题的来源。其次，当组织面临分布式开发的日常问题时，合作伙伴将这些问题视为实际问题，并且他们将直接与研究团队一起开发策略和解决方案。第三，它们可以作为新解决方案早期评估的试验台。换句话说，与研究伙伴的合作确保了在项目的各个阶段与现实世界的持续接触。DVASs的研究将对社会产生重要影响。随着DVASs的开发和使用变得更加普遍，并且随着组织继续变得更加分散，需要确定和测试新的方法和策略，以使人们能够成功地协作。本研究具有经济价值，因为它将帮助组织有效地进行分散的工作，更顺畅地协调，从而更好地在全球市场上竞争。DVASs将能够适应环境破坏，因为协作将能够从任何地点、任何时间进行，使用人员、工件和活动的表示。了解去中心化和虚拟活动中工作的独特挑战，以及设计DVAS技术来应对挑战，将具有理论和实践的双重影响。从理论上讲，该项目将确定去中心化活动的轮廓，允许与其他社会形式进行比较，如传统的等级制度、实践社区和理性的官僚机构。最后，结果也将有利于高等教育，因为新进入劳动力市场的人将需要获得开发DVASs的技能，以及在分散的虚拟世界和环境中工作的技能。

This project employs an empirical socio-technical research approach to understand how to gain maximum benefit from decentralized virtual activity systems (DVASs). We see growing, widespread interest in the development and use of decentralized systems and virtual world environments as possible new places for engaging in collaborative work activities. There is widespread interest in stimulating new technological innovations that enable people to come together through social networking, file or media sharing, and massively multi-player online game play. This new generation of networked computing environments seems headed towards increased socialization, interaction, communication, and collaboration that span multiple organizational boundaries as its primary purpose. But how do we get there from here? Is it sufficient to just let the market of entrepreneurial vendors and technological innovators simply decide who needs what? The history of computing reveals a legacy of many failed or problematic efforts to develop and deploy computing systems that arise from a lack of understanding or recognition of the ways in which people's work and social activities are situated in organizational and technological contexts. These contexts configure, constrain, or enable some types of activities to flourish while others are displaced, either unintentionally or intentionally.The core of the research focuses on both the individual and collective study of six critical variables: representations and realities, conflicting policies and practices, relationship work, processes and coordination, privacy and awareness, and security and trust. DVAS research requires a broad interdisciplinary understanding of the problems and a broad and interdisciplinary approach to their solution. This project is a large multi-site, multi-partner research endeavor with an interdisciplinary team, that provides the greatest practical opportunity for generalizable results from comparative analyses of both in-situ field studies and technology prototyping efforts. Five research partners serve multiple roles in this project. First, they serve as a source of real-world problems for the project to tackle. Second, as organizations facing the daily problems of distributed development, the partners view these as practical problems, and they will engage directly with the research team in developing strategies and solutions. Third, they serve as test-beds for early evaluation of proposed new solutions. In other words, working with the research partners ensures a continuous engagement with real world settings at all stages of the project.Research on DVASs will have a vital impact on society. As development and use of DVASs becomes more common practice and as organizations continue to become more decentralized, new methods and policies will need to be identified and tested to enable people to collaborate successfully. This study has economic value as it will help organizations to carry out decentralized work effectively with smoother coordination, so that they can better compete in the global market. DVASs will be resilient to environmental disruptions as collaboration will be able to be conducted from anywhere, anytime, using representations of people, artifacts, and activities. Understanding the unique challenges of work in decentralized and virtual activities, as well as designing DVAS technologies to meet the challenges, will have both theoretical and practical impact. Theoretically, the project will determine the contours of decentralized activity, allowing comparison to other social forms such as traditional hierarchies, communities of practice, and rational bureaucracies. Finally, the results will also benefit higher education as new people entering the workforce will need to gain skills in developing DVASs, and in working in decentralized virtual worlds and environments.