From: kling@ics.uci.edu (Rob Kling) Subject: EDUC: UC Irvine PHD program, SOCIAL ASPECTS OF COMPUTING Date: 29 Nov 92 19:26:14 GMT Message-ID: <9211291126.aa29662@q2.ics.uci.edu> Crossposted from comp.human-factors COMPUTING, ORGANIZATIONS, POLICY AND SOCIETY at the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE C O R P S Our CORPS PhD concentration provides a fascinating opportunity to study a vital topic: the social aspects of computerization. We encourage reflective inquiry, lively discussions, and avoiding the hype that often surrounds new technologies. The computerization of society is taking place at dizzying speed. Almost every week we're bombarded with information about new computer technologies, and predictions about their influence on emerging social changes. But the real social choices and consequences of computerization aren't really well understood. Public, professional and even many scholarly discussions of alternative ways to computerize are often oversimplified. These are important issues and discussion is being advanced through high quality university-based research. We offer a PhD concentration in the Department of Information and Computer Science (ICS) for people who would like to do systematic research and/or teaching about the social aspects of computerization in their careers. CORPS faculty and students work together across departmental boundaries on specific research projects and seminars with faculty in other schools at UC-Irvine. The CORPS faculty has published many books and articles in this area since the early 1970s. The CORPS concentrations focus upon related areas of inquiry: 1. Developing strategies for designing computer-based systems so that they best enhance the performance of groups and organizations; 2. Understanding the processes and social consequences of computerization within organizations and in society. 3. Understanding the work and organizational worlds where people design, develop, market, distribute, implement, and sustain computerized systems. 4. Evaluating strategies for managing the implementation and use of computer-based technologies. 5. Evaluating and proposing public policies which encourage the development and use of computing in pro-social ways. CORPS studies of these questions have examined many kinds of computerized systems. They include complex information systems, computer-based modeling, decision-support systems, office automation, electronic funds transfer systems, expert systems, instructional computing, personal computers, groupware, computer supported manufacturing and computing at home. Most of these studies are done in the U.S. But CORPS faculty have also collaborated in studies in Europe and the Pacific Rim countries. The central questions vary from study to study. They have included questions about the effects of computerized technologies, ways to manage them, the social choices that computing opens up or closes off, the kind of social and cultural life that develops around computing, their political consequences, and their social carrying costs. CORPS studies at Irvine have a distinctive orientation: 1. focusing on both public and private sectors, 2. examining computerization in public life and homelife as well as within organizations, 3. examining computer-based technologies ``in vivo" in typical settings, 4. employing theories and methods drawn from the social sciences, and 5. encouraging critical inquiry while avoiding utopian and anti-utopian positions. CORPS Faculty The primary faculty in the CORPS concentration hold appointments in the Department of Information and Computer Science and the Graduate School of Management. Additional faculty in the Department of History, the School of Social Sciences, and the Program on Social Ecology, have collaborated in research or have taught key courses for students in the CORPS concentration. The Public Policy Research Organization, an interdisciplinary research institute at UCI, administers the CORPS research projects. The CORPS faculty are recognized nationally and internationally for their scholarship about computerization in organizations and public life. The faculty have published numerous books and articles about these topics during the last 20 years. In addition, they regularly give talks at major conferences about the sociology and management of computing and also serve on the editorial boards of several major journals. Mark Ackerman (Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology) -- Assistant Professor of ICS. Design of systems for experts in large organizations; social worlds of software developers. J. Yannis Bakos (Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology) -- Assistant Professor of Management;Economic impacts of information technology; Strategic Information Systems; Corporate Information System Architectures James Danziger (Ph.D. Stanford University) -- Professor of Political Science; Politics of Computing; Computerization and Changes in Work; Computing in the Social Sciences Julian Feldman (Ph.D. Carnegie Institute of Technology) -- Professor Emeritus of Information and Computer Science; Management of Computing Resources Jonathan Grudin (PhD University of California, San Diego). -- Assistant Professor of Information and Computer Science; Computer Supported Cooperative Work; Social Strategies for System Development; Human-Computer Interaction Vijay Gurbaxani (Ph.D. University of Rochester) -- Associate Professor of Management; Economics of Information Systems Management; Information Systems Investment Strategies; Performance Measurement of Information System Organizations; Organizational Implications of Information Technology John King (Ph.D. University of California, Irvine) -- Professor of Information and Computer Science and Management; Management and Economics of Computing; Social and Organizational Impacts of Computing; National Policies about Computerization Rob Kling (Ph.D. Stanford University) -- Professor of Information and Computer Science and Management; Social and Organizational Impacts of Computing; Computing and Public Policy; Computerization and Social Theory; Computerization and Utopian Thought; Management of Information Systems and New Workplace Technologies Kenneth Kraemer (Ph.D. University of Southern California) -- Professor of Administration and Information and Computer Science; Director, Public Policy Research Organization; National Computer Policy; Investment and Procurement Policy; Management of Computing; Organizational Impacts of Computing; Use of Computers in Policy Making Mark Poster (Ph.D. New York University) -- Professor of History; Director - Critical Theory Institute; Postmodernism; Mode of Information; Poststructuralist European Intellectual Movements Alladi Venkatesh (Ph.D. Syracuse University) -- Associate Professor of Administration; Information Technology and the Consumer; Philosophy of Science Perspectives; Sociology of Consumption Nicholas Vitalari (Ph.D. University of Minnesota) -- Associate Professor of Administration and Information and Computer Science; Home Computing; Decision Support Systems; Systems Analysis Organizational Arrangements for CORPS The CORPS concentration is a special track within the PhD program the Department of Information and Computer Science. The ICS faculty evaluates CORPS applicants with the similar criteria to those they use for their other PhD students. CORPS students need strong quantitative and verbal skills. In addition, some prior study of the social sciences is recommended. This concentration is particularly appropriate for students with strong scientific or technical backgrounds who wish to expand their horizons and skills by studying issues of computerization from a social scientific perspective. The program provides an superb opportunity for students with scientific or technical backgrounds to leverage their educations into a new and vital areas. CORPS is a full-time residential PhD program. Financial support is available in the form of teaching assistantships, research assistantships and Regents fellowships for truly outstanding students. CORPS faculty conduct their research through the Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations (CRITO). CRITO provides key office space and support for research seminars. In addition to CORPS, the ICS Department has research groups in the areas of artificial intelligence, computer systems design, parallel processing, software, computer networks and distributed systems, algorithms and data structures. ICS faculty emphasize traditional computer science as well as research in emerging areas of the discipline, with effective interdisciplinary collaborative ties to colleagues in neurobiology, cognitive science, management, engineering, and the social sciences. ICS currently has 29 full-time faculty positions and more than 110 Ph.D. students, including CORPS. The department is well endowed with computing equipment and networks, including multiprocessor Sequents, and networked workstations. Access is available to all major national and international networks. UC Irvine is located in Orange County, three miles from the Pacific Ocean adjacent to Newport Beach, and approximately forty miles south of Los Angeles. It is within easy drives of 10,000 foot mountains, vast deserts, and beautiful Pacific beaches. The campus is situated in the heart of a national center of high-technology enterprise. The Irvine campus also houses the Western Regional offices of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering. Both the campus and the enterprise area are growing rapidly and offer exciting professional opportunities. The Irvine are offers substantial cultural opportunities in music, the arts and theater. Please write for additional information to: Professor Rob Kling Department of Information and Computer Science University of California - Irvine Irvine, CA 92717 Kling@ics.uci.edu 11/10/92.