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Meta-design: Transforming and Enriching the Design and Use of Socio-technical Systems

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Designing Socially Embedded Technologies in the Real-World

Part of the book series: Computer Supported Cooperative Work ((CSCW))

Abstract

The meta-design of socio-technical systems (STSs) is an approach which complies with the need of integrating two different types of structures and processes: technical systems which are engineered to provide anticipatable and reliable interactions between users and systems and social systems which are contingent in their interactions and a subject of evolution. Meta-design is focused on objectives, techniques, and processes to allow users to act as designers. In doing so, it does not provide fixed solutions but a framework within which all stakeholders (designers and users) can contribute to the development of technical functionality and the evolution of the social side such as organizational change, knowledge construction, and continuous learning.

This paper describes the possibilities of transforming and enriching the design and use of STSs grounded in the conceptual framework of meta-design. It explores cultures of participation, seeding, evolutionary growth and reseeding, and underdesign as specific components of the framework. Two specific examples of meta-designed STSs illustrate the conceptual framework, and findings derived from the assessment of these developments in practice are briefly discussed. Based on the combination of conceptual and methodological consideration, initial guidelines for the meta-design of STSs are derived.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank the members of the Center for LifeLong Learning & Design at the University of Colorado (specifically Hal Eden, the main developer of the EDC, and Stefan Carmien who developed MAPS as part of his PhD) and the team of the Information and Technology Management group at the University of Bochum, Germany, who have made major contributions to the ideas described in this paper.

The research at CU Boulder was supported in part by:

  • Grants from the National Science Foundation, including (a) IIS-0613638 A Meta-Design Framework for Participative Software Systems, (b) IIS-0709304 A New Generation Wiki for Supporting a Research Community in ‘Creativity and IT,’ and (c) IIS-0843720 Increasing Participation and Sustaining a Research Community in ‘Creativity and IT’

  • Google research award Motivating and Empowering Users to Become Active Contributors: Supporting the Learning of High-Functionality Environments

  • SAP research project Giving All Stakeholders a Voice: Understanding and Supporting the Creativity and Innovation of Communities Using and Evolving Software Products

The research at the University of Bochum was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, including:

  • SPIW: Logistics agencies in the web – 01 HT 0143

  • Service4home: Coordination of services for elderly people by micro-systems technology input devices – 01 FC08008

The first author was supported in part for this work by a fellowship of the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg (an Institute for Advanced Study) in Delmenhorst, Germany.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Gerhard Fischer

  2. University of Bochum, Bochum, Germany

    Thomas Herrmann

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  1. Gerhard Fischer
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Correspondence to Gerhard Fischer .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Media and Information, University of Siegen, Siegen, Germany

    Volker Wulf

  2. Department of Organization, Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark

    Kjeld Schmidt

  3. School of Media and Information, University of Siegen, Siegen, Germany

    David Randall

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Fischer, G., Herrmann, T. (2015). Meta-design: Transforming and Enriching the Design and Use of Socio-technical Systems. In: Wulf, V., Schmidt, K., Randall, D. (eds) Designing Socially Embedded Technologies in the Real-World. Computer Supported Cooperative Work. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-6720-4_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-6720-4_6

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  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-6720-4

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