From Offshore Operation to Onshore Simulator: Using Visualized Ethnographic Outcomes to Work with Systems Developers

Abstract

This paper focuses on the process of translating insights from a Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)-based study, conducted on a vessel at sea, into a model that can assist systems developers working with simulators, which are used by vessel operators for training purposes on land. That is, the empirical study at sea brought about rich insights into cooperation, which is important for systems developers to know about and consider in their designs. In the paper, we establish a model that primarily consists of a 'computational artifact'. The model is designed to support researchers working with systems developers. Drawing on marine examples, we focus on the translation process and investigate how the model serves to visualize work activities; how it addresses relations between technical and computational artifacts, as well as between functions in technical systems and functionalities in cooperative systems. In turn, we link design back to fieldwork studies.

Cyber Trust in the Norwegian Online Flea Market: An Ethnographic Study on Fraud

“…Ethnographic studies of information-systems-in-use have described how successful information systems were inseparable from the situated activities in which they existed, and user-centered and situated design was advocated [1][2][3]. Such situated, worker-oriented design might involve further development, such as safety concerns in cooperation [4]. When investigating information-systems-in-use we see unexpected unsafe results which points to the deviations from the original design goals and objectives and the unintended consequences of using online shopping platform, such as Norwegian online flea market.…”

“…For example, in the maritime domain safety issues happened sometime neither technical problems of systems nor the issues of human organizations. Safety issues occurs during the cooperation among the networked human, information systems, and interactions among humans and systems [4,6]. This understanding of safety mechanism is deviating from the safety studies in information systems.…”