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Page 101
4
Options for Fostering Interdisciplinary
Research and Improving Access to Results
Use of information technology within the workplace, the home,
and community and other organizations continues to evolve at a
rapid pace. Mainframe computers, desktop personal computers, and,
more recently, computers linked by both corporate networks and the
Internet all have changed the nature of communication. At least in
some segments of society, use of computing and communications
technology is rapidly becoming a mass phenomenon. The implications
are now topics for consideration in a variety of contexts.
Advances in identification and application of social and
economic principles basic to understanding interrelationships
between information technology and society are important to those
who make public policy as well as to those who design, deploy, and
use the technology. Yet to help guide such efforts, there is today
relatively little interdisciplinary research, as well as
insufficient dialog between the technology and social science
communities and insufficient contact between the research and
public policy communities. Sociologists collaborate relatively
infrequently with economists, much less with computer scientists.
As interactions at the June 1997 workshop suggested, however, a
collaborative approach to problem solving can lead to a clearer
understanding of where technology is moving and what the social
impacts may be. Few social scientists, for example, possess the
detailed technical knowledge required to build useful data sets
from the new kinds of data available from the Internet. But social
scientists and computer scientists working collaboratively could
develop tools and techniques that would make such data logs
available to a wider community of social scientists for use in
their research.
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Based on discussions at the June 1997 workshop and points in the
position papers submitted by its participants, the workshop
steering committee identified several options for fostering
interdisciplinary research and making the results of such research
more accessible to the public and policy makers.
4.1 Encouraging Interdisciplinary
Studies
And Collaboration
Discussion at the June 1997 workshop indicated that there is a
great deal of interest in and value to be gained from pursuing
interdisciplinary work. Although some regularly held conferences
such as the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference or the
Aspen Institute Telecommunications Roundtable are essentially
interdisciplinary, workshop participants observed that established
means of facilitating working relationships among social and
computer scientists are currently lacking. Approaches suggested for
encouraging fruitful interactions included interdisciplinary
workshops, curricula, and fellowships.
•Interdisciplinary workshops. Participants in the June
1997 workshop remarked on the value of convening researchers from
various relevant field to explore interdisciplinary approaches to
studying the impacts of computing and communications. Workshops and
summer programs in a number of interdisciplinary areas would be
useful in fostering increased collaborative work. At a minimum,
workshops bringing together investigators previously funded by the
National Science Foundation (NSF) to do joint technology/social
science work might be convened. Expanding the focus of such
workshops to include people from industry who could comment on
non-NSF-funded collaborative research could also prove useful. In
addition, it is important for funding agencies to be able to
recognize good interdisciplinary work and for industry managers and
academic principal investigators to be able to understand some of
the management challenges involved—opportunities for
cross-communication that interdisciplinary workshops can
facilitate.
•Interdisciplinary curricula. Workshop participants
suggested that serious interdisciplinary work might also be
promoted by preparing students directly to engage in it. For
example, although computer science curricula already include
courses in performance analysis, the systems analyzed are not
typically embedded in large-scale social systems, and so joint
course development for analysis of the performance of complex
systems could produce useful results. This step might be taken
initially in the context of postdoctoral training and master's
degree programs, given that currently not enough is known to be
codified at the textbook level. It was observed that development of
interdisciplinary curricula would help to strengthen the
interdisciplinary research community as well as raise awareness of
interdisciplinary issues in computer science and engineering and
social science fields.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
computer scientists
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•Interdisciplinary
fellowships.Also noted by workshop
participants was the potential value of having graduate or
postgraduate fellowships for social scientists interested in
becoming familiar with social and economic aspects of information
technology and for computer scientists interested in exploring
social issues arising from the use of information technology. Such
fellowships would encourage the intellectual cross-fertilization
and professional networking crucial to fostering productive
research relationships.
4.2 Funding To Strengthen
Interdisciplinary Research
Arising from the June 1997 workshop activities were a number of
suggestions for leveraging funding so as to strengthen
cross-disciplinary work in computer and social sciences.
•Evaluation of large technology system research proposals that
recognize the value of including an interdisciplinary
component. Some workshop participants expressed the view that
behavioral, social, legal, and economic implications of the design
and deployment of technology should be considered in evaluating
proposals for research on large technology systems.
Interdisciplinary research has for some time been a significant
component of a number of NSF-sponsored computer science research
programs, such as the national supercomputing centers.
Increasingly, support for interdisciplinary research has come to
include a social science component. For example, the second phase
of the multiagency-supported Digital Libraries Initiative1 includes a ''human-centered" research
component to investigate both the impacts of digital libraries and
ways of enhancing the potential uses of such libraries. Part of
this component covers research on the long-term social, behavioral,
and economic implications and effects of new digital library
capabilities.
•Synergistic use of major research programs that build or
deploy prototypes of computing and communications systems for use
by individuals or organizations. As workshop participants
suggested, research programs that field new information technology
offer important opportunities to improve understanding of the
technology's impacts and to enhance the organizational or social
outcomes of the research. Funding that targets investigating the
social impact of new technologies has a precedent in the Department
of Energy and National Institutes of Health set-asides of about 3
to 5 percent of the total research budget of the Human Genome
Project to fund research and public education on ethical, legal,
and social issues (ELSI) related to the project. Although computing
and communications research is not centered in a single very large
research effort like the Human Genome Project, overall advances in
computing and communications are, as workshop participants noted,
posing societal challenges of a similar magnitude.
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•Collaboration with private foundations. In considering
ways to strengthen interdisciplinary research, workshop
participants observed that government agencies are not the only
source of research funding. Private foundations, such as the
Kellogg, Markle, Mellon, and Sloan foundations, have become
interested in the economic and social impacts of using information
technology and have funded some related initiatives. Moreover,
important opportunities for collaboration lie at the intersection
of basic research questions, which are often addressed by
government investment in the development of new scientific and
engineering knowledge, and pressing social needs, which the grants
and programs of foundations often are designed to address.
•Collaboration with industry. Another suggestion arising
from the workshop was that researchers increase their collaboration
with industry. Industry research covers such social science-related
topics as consumer behavior—including who uses computers, how
they are used, and related human factors in computer use.
Researchers at several major computer companies were asked to
estimate the fraction of total research and development spending
devoted by their companies to social science research. One
researcher separated out social science from other research and
development by identifying which units in the research laboratory
conducted social science investigations, an approach indicating
that about 1 percent of the company's research and development
spending was used for social science research. Taking a different
approach—conducting a rough assessment of social science
content across the research and development portfolio—research
managers in two companies estimated spending on social science
research there at about 10 percent of the companies' total research
budget.
The private sector has funded a number of useful surveys and
applied research projects. Several such research programs mentioned
in this report are the result of cooperation between private
industry and academic researchers. A current example of a major
investment in social and economic research, the IBM Institute for
Advanced Commerce, was announced in December 1997 and is intended
as a research partnership between academia and industry to study
electronic commerce and the changing nature of technology, work,
and industry structure. The planned partnership, with initial
funding of $10 million, stems from IBM's need for more academic
research on the Internet's impact on electronic commerce, an area
in which IBM is expanding its business (Narisetti, 1997).
As several participants in the workshop indicated, collaboration
between industry and academia could benefit both social science
researchers and the private sector. For example, industry consortia
funding for independent gathering and publishing of basic
information and analysis by independent scientists could foster
significant advances and ensure fair reporting of results. Pooling
of funding through consortia would allow for larger investments
than any one corporation might be willing to make on its own. In
collaborative projects for development
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of technology prototypes, both industry and social scientists
might benefit from routine inclusion of performance assessment or
evaluation up front.
4.3 Making The Results Of
Interdisciplinary
Research More Accessible
Workshop participants expressed a belief in the need for more
effective communication of the results of interdisciplinary social
science research on computing and communications issues to both the
public and policy makers.
•Availability of an online guide to current, relevant
research. It was noted that a perceived disconnect between
research results and critical legal and policy decision making is
perhaps due in part to the dispersed nature of relevant
interdisciplinary research. One suggested approach to improving
access to pertinent results was to have an online resource (e.g., a
Web page) containing headlines and abstracts of policy-relevant
social science research, along with pointers to the print and/or
online published results. Such a site could also contain regularly
updated literature reviews summarizing the state of the art in
various areas, as well as directories of specialists in particular
areas. With some effort, such a resource could serve as a medium
for communication not only among researchers but also with
individuals in the policy and business worlds. The bibliography
prepared as part of this report could become part of such a
resource. An electronic newsletter providing regular updates on
research findings would also be useful.
•Supplemental ways of disseminating research results. Some
at the workshop also pointed out that research results need to be
presented in ways that are most useful to policy makers—in
some cases written materials alone may not suffice.
Interdisciplinary researchers might seek out and take advantage of
opportunities to provide testimony at hearings; professional
societies might organize specialized briefings for policy
makers.
Note
1. A research program jointly sponsored by the National Science
Foundation, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, National
Library of Medicine, Library of Congress, National Aeronautics and
Space Administration, and National Endowment for the
Humanities.