Fostering Research on the Economic and Social Impacts of Information Technology (1998) / Chapter Skim
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3 Data- The Basis for New Knowledge
3 Data- The Basis for New Knowledge
Pages 78-100
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From page 78... ...
The scope and range of such data sets are illustrated by the top-level categories of the data in the archives maintained by the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (see Box 3.3~.
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From page 79... ...
DATA-THE BASIS FOR NEW KNOWLEDGE 79 3.1.1 Data from Experiments Experiments involve setting up control and experimental groups that differ only with respect to the presence or absence of the effect being studied and thus permit researchers to conclude that a difference in outcomes in the two groups is actually due to the difference in treatment. The HomeNet project is an experiment that examines the impacts of computers in the home (see section 2.1.1, "Computer Use in the Home"~.
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The versatility and potential range of uses of multipurpose longitudinal studies are illustrated by the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) administered by the Institute for Social Research4 at the University of Michigan.
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From page 82... ...
82 FOSTERING RESEARCH ON IMPACTS OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 3.1.3 Data from Time-Use Studies Data obtained from time-use studies, which can take the form of crosssectional, panel, or experimental studies, can help answer questions such as what people do with computers. Current information on that and related topics is
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From page 83... ...
On average, 43 percent of their time using computers was spent accessing the Internet for research; 34 percent for e-mail; 9 percent for game playing; 5 percent for reading online magazines and newspapers; 4 percent for online chat; 2 percent for online banking; and 1 percent each for two-way voice communications and online shopping. Although these numbers are suggestive of how computers are used by consumers, they certainly are not definitive, given that they describe computer use only by adults at a particular point in time.
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From page 84... ...
Instead, the project has been taken up by a private publisher (Cambridge University Press) in collaboration with a team of more than 70 scholars whose volunteer contributions of time and expertise indicate how important the revision of Historical Statistics is to the research community.5 Both public and private foundations devoted to funding research have tended to resist underwriting the costs of preparing metadata sets, perhaps because they view such projects as mere digitizing and collating efforts requiring little or no scholarship or research.6 Although the Historical Statistics project may prove to be commercially viable, efforts to revise and update other less widely used data compendia may not be able to attract the aid of a private-sector sponsor.
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From page 85... ...
Often a consulting firm will broadly release at least a summary of a research study in order to bolster the firm's reputation, although the proprietary nature of the results may inhibit wide dissemination in their full form. A major concern associated with the use of data collected by the private sector is that private firms often lack academic standards of quality control such as peer review.
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From page 86... ...
Another drawback is that private-sector data collectors may well change the definitions used in surveys and the nature of the groups sampled; again, the focus is often how new data relate to the latest management question, and not how recently collected data relate to past data. In fact, many such firms do not even attempt to preserve data for more than a year once it has been collected, as Brynjolfsson and Kemerer learned when they sought to estimate the value that consumers placed on various software features so that they could determine how the quality-adjusted price of spreadsheets had evolved over time (Brynjolfsson and Kemerer, 1996~.7 3.2.2 The Need for Firm-level Data As observed by Ronald Coase more than 50 years ago, firms are the dominant way of organizing economic activity (Coase, 1937~.
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From page 87... ...
This approach enabled them to identify a significant correlation between use of information technology and firm-level productivity that could not be discerned from conflicting case studies or coarser, economy-wide data. A number of lessons can be learned from prior work with firm-level data: · Firms or business units are always changing and reorganizing, thus posing challenges for measurement and data collection parallel to those arising from changes in the set of individuals that constitute a household in studies such as the Panel Study of Income Dynamics.
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From page 88... ...
Although Greenan and Mairesse had complete production data for a large sample of French firms that enabled them to estimate a variety of productivity measures, they did not have any direct data on the extent of computerization at those firms. Instead, they combined data from a separate survey of individuals, which asked whether they used a computer at work and what the name of their employer was, with the firm-level production data.
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From page 89... ...
If social science researchers are to gain insights into what information technology-related changes are taking place within the home, how Americans invent ways to interconnect, and how access to new communications media can affect economic growth and civic participation, then more, not less, statistical data on the penetration and uses of media needs to be collected, starting with use of the telephone (Box 3.6~. 3.3 NEW TYPES OF DATA 3.3.1 Documenting the Effects of Technology Deployment Many social institutions schools, libraries, hospitals, municipalities are going online.
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From page 91... ...
Longitudinal studies could document changes in a variety of social welfare indicators (perhaps, for example, changes in circulation rates, civic participation, and consumer awareness) as a function of Internet access and use.
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From page 92... ...
For example, one can see how many Usenet groups or public distribution lists exist on what topics, and what the level of activity is on each. Snapshots of publicly accessible social behavior could be captured and made available to social scientists studying group behavior on the Internet.~i It might even be possible to study the complete corpus of communication within a group of Usenet news or e-mail "listserves." However, collecting data from the Internet presents technological difficulties and may also raise legal questions.
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From page 93... ...
The need for time can lead to difficulties in synchronization of attention to the object of study, information technology effects, and ways of studying information technology. Although information technology is developing at a very rapid pace, the speed at which social science data have been acquired has changed little in the last few decades.
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From page 94... ...
Sometimes the mismatch between development of technology and research on its effects can lead to criticism of studies for relying on older data, even though more recent data of equivalent quality was not available. Examples include the RAND Corporation's analysis of home access to computing, which is based on the 1989 and 1993 Current Population Survey data (Anderson et al., 1995)
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From page 95... ...
Listed below, these approaches are intended as illustrations of ways to enable researchers in concert with government and the private sector to address the need for more extensive, more timely, and new sources of data. · Making data related to the social and economic impacts of computing and communications available to the research community through a clearinghouse.
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From page 96... ...
A possible model for such a clearinghouse is the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research located within the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. Funded by subscribing member institutions, it provides access to a large archive of computerized social science data.
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From page 97... ...
To what extent can multipurpose data sets based on such techniques as user diaries prove helpful to researchers examining the social impacts of information technology? Careful observational methods have been critical to specific deep organizational studies in such areas as computer-supported cooperative work (e.g., the study of Xerox technicians described in section 2.3.4~.
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From page 98... ...
These events can create serendipitous opportunities for cooperation that could not have been predicted or planned in formal brokering. Industry associations might also help connect the academic and industry communities in more formal roles such as the following: As an intermediary that aggregates or otherwise makes proprietary data anonymous so that firms will be more comfortable about providing it to outsiders; As a matchmaker in bringing together industry and the research community to work on projects of mutual interest; As a depository for research results based on industry-provided data (if research reports are readily available to them, industries may be more willing to provide data)
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From page 99... ...
Many such multipurpose data sets are maintained by organizations like the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR, see |
From page 100... ...
14. GenBank, an annotated collection of publicly available DNA sequences, is part of the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration, which comprises the DNA Data Bank of Japan, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory data library, and GenBank.
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