Invisible Work of Telephone Operators: An Ethnocritical Analysis

This paper applies principles derived from ethnocriticism to help explain differential outcomes with different methods used to analyze the work of Directory Assistance telephone operators in a large US telecommunications company. The work of Directory Assistance operators provides a subtle case of computer-supported cooperative work. Collaborative work between operator and customer is supported and shaped by digitized-voice and database technologies. Our work also involved the introduction of additional voice-recognition technologies to this human-to-human collaboration. In a previous paper, we used methods from participatory design to show that knowledge work is a major component of the operators' conversations with customers. By contrast, other research using formal cognitive task analyses had described operators' work as routine and as involving no active problem solving. How had evidence that we had found so compelling been invisible to other analysts? I analyze the concept of “invisible work” as an attribute not of the work, but rather of the perspectives from which that work appeared to be invisible. Ethnocritical heuristics help us to contrast the analytical methods and their outcomes.     

具备隐形协商空间的服务连续双向拍卖策略研究

针对Web服务市场化交易中,买卖双方单一报价交易成功率低的难点,提出了具备隐形协商空间的服务连续双向拍卖策略,定义了由交易双方的成本、报价形成的买卖方报价协商空间,根据不同的服务供需环境,对议价采用不同的快速协商模式。模拟实验表明,该策略提高了服务交易成功率,又使得服务交易双方由传统单一固定的收益转变为根据市场环境获得区间内可变的收益,客观上有利于指导服务双方根据市场变化调整服务报价。     

Layers of Silence, Arenas of Voice: The Ecology of Visible and Invisible Work

No work is inherently either visible or invisible. We always see work through a selection of indicators: straining muscles, finished artifacts, a changed state of affairs. The indicators change with context, and that context becomes a negotiation about the relationship between visible and invisible work. With shifts in industrial practice these negotiations require longer chains of inference and representation, and may become solely abstract.This article provides a framework for analyzing invisible work in CSCW systems. We sample across a variety of kinds of work to enrich the understanding of how invisibility and visibility operate. Processes examined include creating a non-person in domestic work; disembedding background work; and going backstage. Understanding these processes may inform the design of CSCW systems and the development of related social theory.     

The Invisible World of Intermediaries: A Cautionary Tale

Many observers consider traditional intermediaries such as brokers, lenders and salespersons anachronisms in a world where consumers can communicate directly with providers of products and services over computer networks. Under the same rubric, information mediators such as journalists, editors, librarians and customer support representatives are being targeted for elimination. Drawing on our ethnographically-informed studies of customer support analysts and librarians, we demonstrate that the expertise and experience of intermediaries is often invisible – to the consumer, to the organization in which these intermediaries work, and even to the intermediaries' managers. The valuable services provided by intermediaries are not made unnecessary by end-user access. We argue for a richer understanding of intermediation, and a reallocation of functions and roles in which new intermediaries – people, software or a combination of the two – aggregate, personalize and assure the quality of information.     

Interactivity and the Invisible: What Counts as Writing in the Age of Web 2.0

This study asks: what counts as writing in a Web 2.0 environment? How do the vocabularies, functionalities, and organizing structures of Web 2.0 environments impact our understanding of what writing is in these spaces and how that writing is performed? Results suggest that we, as scholars and teachers, need to pay more attention to, first, the interactivity that is embedded in and afforded by Web 2.0 applications and, second, the processes that are invisible to the composer. Successful compositional engagement with Web 2.0 applications requires an evolving interactive set of practices similar to those practiced by gamers, comics, and electronic literature authors and readers. What we learn about these practices has the potential to transform the way we understand writing and the teaching of writing within and outside of a Web 2.0 ecosystem.     

Challenges for Cooperative Work on the Web: An Analytical Approach

This paper investigates some of the issues which willdetermine the viability of the World Wide Web as aninfrastructure for cooperative work. In fact, takinga weak definition of collaboration, the Web is alreadya very successful collaborative environment. Inaddition, it is already being used as the basis forexperimental and commercial groupware. The paper takesthis as a starting point and uses analytic methodsdeveloped in the field of Computer SupportedCooperative Work to investigate the reasons for theWeb's present success, its strengths and weaknesses asa platform for CSCW, and prospects for future development.     

基于互联网的区域农业产业结构调整决策支持系统

基于网络的决策支持系统技术应用于农业领域是农业信息化的一个新的有着光明前景的发展方向。介绍了一个基于网络的区域农业产业结构调整决策支持系统-AHASO(AnHuiAgriculture Structure Optimization)。详细描述了它的组成结构、主要功能、开发工具、运行环境、各模块设计思想及技术特点、优化实例,最后探讨了基于网络的区域农业产业结构调整决策支持系统的未来发展方向。     

基于Web结构数据挖掘技术的数学方法

引入传统的数学方法，线性方程组表示Web页结构之间的关系及通过求解齐次线性方程组来计算Web页的PageRank的键值，进而发现Web结构中重要的Web页的知识，可以被用来改进搜索引擎的性能。     

The Semantic Web: Collective Intelligence on the Web

The World Wide Web has turned hypertext into a success story by enabling world-wide sharing of unstructured information and informal knowledge. The Semantic Web targets the sharing of structured information and formal knowledge pursuing objectives of achieving collective intelligence on the Web. Germane to the structure of the Semantic Web is a layering and standardization of concerns. These concerns are reflected by an architecture of the Semantic Web that we present through a common use case. Semantic Web data for the use case is now found on the Web and is part of a quickly growing set of Semantic Web resources available for formal processing.     

基于网页结构树的Web信息抽取方法

提出了网页结构树提取算法及基于网页结构树的Web信息抽取方法。抽取信息时,在网页结构树中定位模式库中的待抽取信息,用模式库中的待抽取信息和网页结构树的叶结点对应的网页信息进行匹配。因而对网页信息的抽取,可以转化为对网页结构树的树叶结点信息的查找。实验证明,该方法具有较强的网页信息抽取能力。     

一种层次结构的Web内容自适应模型

目前Web服务以表格结构为主的网页技术无法提供Web内容自适应,本论文提出了以层为主要结构设计网页,利用该结构的可移动定位参数,并通过中间件技术设计实现了一个基于层次结构的Web服务模型.通过对该模型的仿真实验证明,该模型能够有效地改善Web服务服务质量和提供内容自适应.     

基于WEB网络性能管理扩展架构的研究

文章针对目前网络管理急需要解决的问题，即网络性能管理问题，提出了一种通用的网络性能管理的扩展架构，并介绍了这种网络性能管理扩展架构的功能，指出了该系统可以在多个采集服务器之间进行负载均衡，因此克服了由于使用ＳＮＭＰ协议在网络拥塞时无法保证数据传输的可靠性，从而进一步提高网络的整体性能。     

基于WEB网络性能管理扩展架构的研究

文章针对目前网络管理急需要解决的问题,即网络性能管理问题,提出了一种通用的网络性能管理的扩展架构,并介绍了这种网络性能管理扩展架构的功能,指出了该系统可以在多个采集服务器之间进行负载均衡,因此克服了由于使用SNMP协议在网络拥塞时无法保证数据传输的可靠性,从而进一步提高网络的整体性能。     

“It's Just a Matter of Common Sense”: Ethnography as Invisible Work

Anthropologists have been using ethnographic methods since the 1970s to support the design and evaluation of software. While early use of such skills in the design world was viewed as experimental, at least by computer scientists and engineers, ethnography has now become established as a useful skill in technology design. Not only are corporations and research laboratories employing anthropologists to take part in the development process, but growing numbers of non-anthropologists are attempting to borrow ethnographic techniques. The results of this appropriation have brought out into the open a kind of paradox: while ethnography looks and sounds straightforward, this is not really the case. The work of untrained ethnographers tends to overlook things that anthropologists see as important parts of the research process. The consistency of this pattern suggests that some aspects of ethnographic fieldwork are invisible to the untrained eye. In short, ethnography would appear to constitute an example of invisible work. Drawing on my own decade of experience as an anthropologist working in design, I attempt to clarify the nature of ethnographic expertise, describe six misconceptions about ethnography that I have encountered among scientists, and present real-life examples to illustrate why quasi-ethnographic work based on these misconceptions is likely to be superficial and unreliable.     

基于最长顺序频繁词组的Web文献检索结构

目前,大多数Web文献不能满足不同层次科研人员的查询要求.分析了这一问题产生的原因,提出建立辅助的Web文献检索结构以帮助用户更准确地获取所需文献的思想.基于该思想,设计了通过挖掘最长顺序频繁词组抽取文献特征的算法,提出了能够表现特征之间、文献之间、特征与文献之间关系的扩展的特征层次树结构及其构建方法.实验表明,挖掘最长顺序频繁词组在抽取文献特征方面比常用的TFIDF具有更大的优势.理论分析说明,扩展的特征层次树具有压缩的存储结构、词组与文献关系的表现方式和更好的辅助检索功能.     

Corporate E-Cruiting: The Construction of Work in Fortune 500 Recruiting Web Sites

Corporate recruitment efforts have evolved from traditional newspaper want ads to highly sophisticated, rhetorically powerful recruiting Web sites or "career sites." This e-cruiting phenomenon offers a unique opportunity not only to examine organizations' persuasive attempts to recruit potential applicants online, but also to uncover contemporary corporate representations of the meaning(s) of work. Using a random sample of recruitment Web sites of Fortune 500 companies, we employ content analysis and rhetorical criticism to catalogue content types, identify persuasive structure, and analyze rhetorical themes in representations of work. The investigation reveals that career sites are not merely places to post job openings, but reflect corporations' attempt to sell a glorified image of work, one which positions workers as powerful actors and employers as kind benefactors. In view of current reports on working conditions, we argue these glorified representations reflect a rhetoric of idealization and discuss potential consequences of such a strategy.     

基于工作过程系统化的动态网页设计课程重构

基于工作过程系统化的动态网页设计课程重构从学生就业岗位出发,将典型工作任务分析,转换成系列项目课程,通过学习情境的设置使学生掌握设计方法。课程模糊了理论教学与实践教学的界限,除对学生进行专业知识与技能的培训外,更加注重学生组织、合作、自主学习等关键能力的培养,本文对基于工作过程的课程重构进行了初步的探索。     

基于Bullant技术的三层结构Web应用解决方案

文章在分析现有Web应用解决方案和基于Bullant的两层结构方案的优势与不足的基础上,讨论了如何利用Bullant的的远程对称、ACID存储技术、零摩擦力引擎等关键技术的优势,构建高性能的三层结构Web应用解决方案和已有资源以及成熟系统的复用问题。