The Emergence and Historical Development of Informatics and Computing Disciplines in Selected European Countries and the USA

Smutný, Zdeněk; Doležel, Michal

doi:10.18267/j.aip.109

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 66 publications

(99 reference statements)

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“…The reason for the observed conceptual struggles was that in the Soviet Union the term "informatics" had been previously reserved for a field akin to library science [15], and Czechoslovakia closely followed an official taxonomy of scientific disciplines established in the Soviet union [38]. The Soviet understanding was in turn influenced by the dominance of cybernetics [3].…”

Section: From Numerical Mathematics To Mathematical Informaticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Emergence of Computing Disciplines in Communist Czechoslovakia: What’s in a (Sovietized) Name?

Doležel

Smutný

2019

Histories of Computing in Eastern Europe

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Drawing upon archival evidence from the Czechoslovak government and its ministries from the 1970s, this paper presents a preliminary snapshot of the institutional processes that drove the emergence of computing disciplines separate from the rubric of Soviet cybernetics in Communist Czechoslovakia (nowadays, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic). We show that the new disciplines were created by a top-down order of the Czechoslovak government, which, in turn, was motivated by a larger scale initiative in the East Bloc. The disciplines created in the 1970s were as follows: Numerical Mathematics for an area of education akin to computer science, Electronic Computers for an area of education akin to computer engineering, and Automated Management/Control Systems for applied computing education. The evidence suggests that the cybernetics metaphor lost its organizing power in 1973 over the broad field of information processing in Czechoslovakia. This disciplinary shift, albeit not immediate, redistributed power between cybernetics and informatics. Indeed, it appears that even nowadays the distribution of power between the two disciplines in the Czech Republic is still in negotiation; what we term a "residual drift" has continued for almost 50 years as an impressive afterglow of the past fame of cybernetics in the east. In sum, the paper raises awareness of the fact that the emergence of computing disciplines behind the Iron Curtain was very different from the West. It also suggests that while academic research analogous to computer science thrived, other computing disciplines in Czechoslovakia were in more complicated positions. Although this paper focuses on Czechoslovakia, the method is generalizable and the data on enrollments may be compared to other countries. Thus, we provide a framework for the further study of similar disciplinary efforts in the remaining East Bloc countries.

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Section: From Numerical Mathematics To Mathematical Informaticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Emergence of Computing Disciplines in Communist Czechoslovakia: What’s in a (Sovietized) Name?

Doležel

Smutný

2019

Histories of Computing in Eastern Europe

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“…Problems can also arise from the term informatics . When implementing computers in the US during the 1960s, three subareas emerged (Gupta, ; Hjørland, ; Jesiek, ; Smutny & Dolezel, ): (a) the design of computers and computer systems (computer and electrical engineering), (b) computational processes (computer science), and (c) information processes (library and information science and information systems). Europe, which was divided for almost 50 years into the Western and Eastern Blocs, saw efforts to incorporate these subareas into a single umbrella term.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Informatics Research: Schools of Thought, Methodological Basis, and Thematic Conceptualization

Smutný

Vehovar

2019

Asso for Info Science & Tech

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Research activities related to social informatics (SI) are expanding, even as community fragmentation, topical dispersion, and methodological diversity continue to increase. Specifically, the different understandings of SI in regional communities have strong impacts, and each has a different history, methodological grounding, and often a different thematic focus. The aim of this article is to connect three selected perspectives on SI—intellectual (regional schools of thought), methodological, and thematic—and introduce a comparative framework for understanding SI that includes all known approaches. Thus, the article draws from a thematic and methodological grounding of research across schools of thought, along with definitions that rely on the extension and intension of the notion of SI. The article is built on a paralogy of views and pluralism typical of postmodern science. Because SI is forced to continually reform its research focus, due to the rapid development of information and communication technology, social changes and ideologies that surround computerization and informatization, the presented perspective maintains a high degree of flexibility, without the need to constantly redefine the boundaries, as is typical in modern science. This approach may support further developments in promoting and understanding SI worldwide.

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Academic Conferences During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Personal Look Back at XP 2020

Doležel¹

2020

AIP

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The Emergence and Historical Development of Informatics and Computing Disciplines in Selected European Countries and the USA

Cited by 3 publications

References 66 publications

The Emergence of Computing Disciplines in Communist Czechoslovakia: What’s in a (Sovietized) Name?

The Emergence of Computing Disciplines in Communist Czechoslovakia: What’s in a (Sovietized) Name?

Social Informatics Research: Schools of Thought, Methodological Basis, and Thematic Conceptualization

Academic Conferences During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Personal Look Back at XP 2020

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