Social Informatics is the study of how information and communication technology coexist and influences society, or an organisation. Social Informatics is therefore undoubtedly a inter-disciplinary course (Sawyer & Rosenbaum, 2000), and a part of what might be called the socio economical research field that studies the different ways technology and social groups are shaped by social conditions inside an organization, the political life or society its self (Williams & Edge, 1996). Within this field it’s common to use the coexistence between a biological society and its environment as a picture of the coexistence between tools and how humans use the different tools.
Professor Rob Kling, who was one of the foremost researchers in the field of Social Informatics, defined Social Informatics as follows: “Social Informatics (SI) refers to the body of research and study that examines social aspects of computerization – including the roles of information technology in social and organizational change, the uses of information technologies in social contexts, and the ways that the social organization of information technologies is influenced by social forces and social practices” (Kling 2001).
Emeritus Ingar Roggen at the University of Oslo, who created the course in Web Sociology in the early 90ies at that university, defines Social Informatics as a “modern study of information technology from a social and cultural point of view “(Roggen, 1996).
Emeritus Ingar Roggen at the University of Oslo, who created the course in Web Sociology in the early 90ies at that university, defines Social Informatics as a “modern study of information technology from a social and cultural point of view “(Roggen, 1996).
In Norway Social Informatics was, in its early stages, called “Socio Informatics”, and was a field based on psychology, sociology and informatics (Computer Science).
Resources
The Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics (Indiana University)
Social Informatics.org (University of Ljubljana)
Social Informatics Resources (Nesna University College)Resources
The Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics (Indiana University)
Social Informatics.org (University of Ljubljana)
Consortium for the Science of Sociotechnical Systems (US NSF Supported)
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