From ethnographic record to system design

This paper explores the issues involved in moving from ethnographic explorations of work in context to a practical contribution to system design. It does so using the example of an interdisciplinary research project involving sociologists and computer scientists in the domain of air traffic control systems. It forms a pair with another paper (Sommerville et al., 1992) exploring these questions from the perspective of our computer science partners. We characterise ethnography as a research method, and consider the differences between undertaking it for strictly sociological or anthropological purposes by contrast with interdisciplinary and design purposes. We summarise some of our results in ethnographic explications of the work of air traffic controllers, and the sociality which it manifests. We describe the dialogues involved in rendering these observations informative for systems design, and the mutual translations implied in attempting to reconcile sociological with software engineering questions about supporting the work. We conclude by specifying some features of cooperative work which an engineering approach is in danger of overlooking; the ways, and limits, in which ethnographers can form a bridge between users and designers; and some of the conflicts of interest entrained in generating technical change.The research is funded by the UK MRC/SERC/ESRC Cognitive Science/HCI Initiative with the title Social Analysis of Control Systems for HCI Design, grant number SPG 8931598. The computer science partners are Professor Ian Sommerville, Dr Tom Rodden, Dr Pete Sawyer and Mr Richard Bentley. Thanks are due to Val King, Kjeldt Schmidt, Ian Sommerville and Tom Rodden for very helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.     

基于SharePoint平台的知识协同管理系统的设计

本文从湖北广播电视总台技术管理服务中心知识协同管理系统建设的实践出发,阐述了团队协同的重要性,介绍了基于SharePoint开发的知识协同管理系统,包括系统技术架构和知识存储、知识发现和测量、团队协作、权限管理以及系统管理五大功能模块。     

Key elements on team achievement: a retrospective analysis

This study is a historical reconstruction and in-depth scrutiny of one very successful team initiative within a Quality Improvement (QI) program in a municipal government organization. The identification of the essential concepts that contributed to the team's success and their integration into a local explanatory theory of team achievement is the final purpose of the study. The focus of this retrospective study is on the team process, with primary attention given to team members’ perspectives and reflections on the project development. Data collection and analysis were conducted with methods drawn from the qualitative research tradition and from Quality Management.

Main findings point to the importance of consistent management support, correct team composition with an emphasis on the team leader choice and demeanor, and to the central role of training in the group conduct. The negotiated approach to decision-making employed by the team, which reflected its organizational context, and the effort and mechanisms that allowed the group to reach equilibrium between internal and external interests proved critical for its ultimate achievement.     

Learning from designing the RoboFesta—Blue Peter robots

Can children and adults learn anything from building robots? In 2001 we ran a robot design competition with the BBC TelevisionBlue Peter, program. Some 32 000 children, aged between 5 and 16 years, submitted paper designs. We built prototypes of the four winners' robots for a Robot Design MasterClass at the London Science Museum. It is widely believed that across the curriculum, robotics is a powerful force in motivating education. We ask what the children learned from the robot design process. Our answer is that they learned many things, both inside and outside the science and technology curriculum.     

G3＆G5系统在电力廊道综合监控系统中的应用

电力廊道因其特殊的应用环境,严格的安全性要求,复杂的系统构成,对作为其中央综合监控的控制系统有着特殊的要求。G3＆G5系统作为一套大型的支持分布测控的先进控制系统．其技术特点十分完美得契合了电力廊道系统对综合监控系统的要求,在杭州湘湖电力廊道中已得到成功应用。     

Managing emergencies and abnormal situations in air traffic control (part II): Teamwork strategies

Team performance has been studied in many safety-critical organizations including aviation, nuclear power plant, offshore oil platforms and health organizations. This study looks into teamwork strategies that air traffic controllers employ to manage emergencies and abnormal situations. Two field studies were carried out in the form of observations of simulator training in emergency and unusual scenarios of novices and experienced controllers. Teamwork strategies covered aspects of team orientation and coordination, information exchange, change management and error handling. Several performance metrics were used to rate the efficiency of teamwork and test the construct validity of a prototype model of teamwork. This is a companion study to an earlier investigation of taskwork strategies in the same field (part I) and contributes to the development of a generic model for Taskwork and Teamwork strategies in Emergencies in Air traffic Management (T²EAM). Suggestions are made on how to use T²EAM to develop training programs, assess team performance and improve mishap investigations.     

Social psychophysiological compliance in a four-person research team

A continuous, non-invasive and objective measure of teamwork effectiveness could be very useful to the human factors design community. Social psychophysiological compliance (SPC), estimated by scoring the extent that heart rate variation was synchronous across team members, was explored as a predictor of teamwork effectiveness during 20 real planning meetings over a 6-month period. Speech activity and heart rate variability of all four (2 male, 2 female) team members were continuously monitored. Exploratory analyses tested if team member ratings of various aspects of teamwork effectiveness were predicted by SPC scored (1) over whole meetings, (2) during one team member's speech, (3) during periods in which two team members spoke in sequence or (4) over 30-s periods and averaging highest values. SPC during periods of sequential speech negatively predicted team members' ratings of Team productivity, Quality of communication, and Ability to work together. SPC shows potential as an objective, non-invasive means to monitor teamwork effectiveness but this relationship warrants further investigation and replication before use in ergonomics applications.