We seek to take some initial steps towards a theory of information that is adequate for understanding and designing systems that process information, i.e., information systems in a broad sense. Formal representations of information are needed in designing, using and maintaining such systems, especially when they are computer based. However, it is also necessary to take account of social context, including how information is produced and used, not merely how it is represented; that is, we need a social theory of information. Ideas from ethnomethodology and semiotics, as well as logic and the sociology of science, are used to explore the nature of information.

This paper discusses the relationship between formal, context insensitive information, and informal, situated information, in the context of Requirements Engineering; these opposite but complementary aspects of information are called "the dry" and "the wet." Formal information occurs in the syntactic representations used in computer-based systems. Informal situated information arises in social interaction, for example, between users and managers, as well as in their interactions with systems analysts. Thus, Requirements Engineering has a strong practical need to reconcile the dry and the wet. Following some background on the culture of Computing Science, the paper describes some projects in the Centre for Requirements and Foundations at Oxford. One of these is a taxonomy for Requirements Engineering methods. Another is applying techniques from sociology and sociolinguistics to requirements elicitation, and in particular, to determining the value system of an organisation. These pro...

This article presents a cognitively oriented viewpoint on design. It focuses on cognitive, dynamic aspects of real design, i.e., the actual cognitive activity implemented by designers during their work on professional design projects. Rather than conceiving designing as problem solving—Simon’s symbolic information processing (SIP) ap-proach—or as a reflective practice or some other form of situated activity—the situativity (SIT) approach—we consider that, from a cognitive viewpoint, designing is most appropriately characterised as a construction of representations. After a critical discussion of the SIP and SIT approaches to design, we present our viewpoint. This presentation concerns the evolving nature of representations regarding levels of abstraction and degrees of precision, the function of external representations, and specific qualities of representation in collective design. Designing is described at three levels: the organisation of the activity, its strategies, and its design-representation construction activities (different ways to generate, transform, and evaluate representations). Even if we adopt a “generic design ” stance, we claim that design can take different forms depending on the nature of the artefact, and we propose some candidates for dimensions that allow a distinction to be made between these forms of design. We discuss the potential specificity of HCI design, and the lack

This paper concerns the relation between people, technology and cognitive work, in planning and scheduling remote, temporally extended telerobotic action. We combined a computational theory of planning with ethnographic methods to design a framework for expressing the intent behind requested science observations for the 2004 Mars Exploration Rover mission. The evolution and usage of this framework substantiates a distinction between the purposes and methods of work, consistent with a computational view of planning. However, we also identify several other properties of intent that acknowledge it’s role as a boundary object in coordinating collaborative planning, including the identity of the source of a request and it’s priority. In addition, scientists developed artifacts to compensate for the limitations of the intent framework, including the ability to express plans that unfold across arbitrary units of time, and objects of scientific interest that have spatial extent. 1

this article, I will provide some history of SNA and its uses in library and information science. Although SNA resonates with the quantitative methodologies of bibliometricians, it has also been used in a qualitative manner to explore information seeking practices and information uses. While SNA may be a valuable tool, it is not a panacea. Recent sociological study illustrates the communication difficulties inherent in social systems. The results of these studies may provide important lessons for librarians. The article concludes with an example of how we may reconsider the bounds of codified information and social communication. In this case, I present an information retrieval system for email archives that exploits social networks in an attempt to both improve precision and address the unstated need of poorly formulated questions. Social Network Theory One of the stated goals of libraries is to provide information to patrons. In his recommendations for library service, for example, Ranganathan suggested: "Every reader his book." (1931) The world has moved on from the days of Dewey and Cutter but perhaps not as much as one would expect. Our interpretation of information for patrons is still largely "information as thing"---books, CDs, and journal articles (Buckland, 1991). The current ALA Code of Ethics mandates that "[w]e provide the highest level of service to all library users through appropriate and usefully organized resources." (Code of Ethics of the American Library Association, 1995) While we as librarians can readily describe means of accessing codified information such as books, journals, and web sites, we may struggle with the "other sources" that may not readily resemble printed codices but are vitally important information sources. One approa...

Abstract. Allowing a group of users to produce and transmit some annotations in common digital documents is nowadays a major issue for groupware systems. In this paper, we report a psychological and ergonomic study carried out on this topic in the mechanical design domain. We observed a collective design process that took place in a series of faceto-face meetings attended by the members of a design team. Our results show the minor role played by textual annotations, contrasting with the great number of figurative annotations. We also highlight that the function of annotations is not to develop parts of the solution but to provide the team members with contextual descriptions of the problem and the solution. These results are a first step towards a model of annotations in a collective face-to-face situation. They also provide interesting tracks for elaborating specifications of annotations in mediated situations.