Mark Rouncefield: Personal Pages.
(No,
its not me, but its the nearest I can get...)
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside
of a dog its too dark to read."
Current Research Projects
I am a Senior
Research Fellow (or 'Senior Fieldwork Donkey') in the Computing Department,
Lancaster University, concerned with carrying out a number of
ethnomethodologically informed ethnographic studies of Computer Supported
Co-operative Work.
I am currently
working on a number of Projects:
Ethnography
and Software Testing
This research reports on
testing as it is done “in the wild”… ethnographic studies of systems testing,
demonstrate some of the problems faced by testers in their work and the ways in
which these problems are worked through. This research extends the use of
ethnographic studies into new areas of software engineering by investigating
how customer-focused software test scenarios can be derived from workplace
studies. The rationale for the work is the need to focus the software testing
process so that features that are critical to the customer's business are
supported and that limited testing resources are used in the most effective
way.
CASIDE - Investigating Cooperative
Applications in SItuated Display Environments
This project seeks to understand the way
in which the physical placement and design of networked displays in semi-wild
settings influences and facilitates coordination and community. This fundamental understanding will
inform the development of suitable guidelines and methods for the design of
situated displays
Social Interaction and Mundane Technologies
A Microsoft European
Research Fellowship. This project seeks to examine and document how everyday
social interaction - issues of community, awareness, decision-making,
affectivity - are effected by, inhibited by or facilitated through the use of a
range of mundane technologies and applications. Technologies or applications that
are commonplace, that just about everybody uses. I am working on this project
with Connor Graham.
The project held an international workshop at Melbourne University, Australia –
details of the workshop and the papers presented are available here.
Technologies of Leadership
This project is funded by Xerox Research and is
concerned with understanding the everyday, practical accomplishment of
leadership and, in particular, the role of various technologies in that work. I
am working on this project with Connor Graham.
Previous Research Projects
Mobile Phones as
Props, Probes and Prototypes for Life Change
A
Nokia funded project documenting and evaluating the use of mobile phones as
research tools and as devices for
supporting life changes in a highly
mobile and changing society.
I
worked on this project with Connor
Graham and Christine Satchell
Explicating
Leadership: Leadership Skills and Learning ‘Cultures’
This
project examined the nature of leadership and leadership challenges in the
learning and skills sector and involved detailed ethnographic case studies - in
organisationally and geographically diverse settings - of different but related
aspects of leadership. The research provides more sophisticated empirically
based understandings of everyday leadership work and addressed the complex
conditions, processes and outcomes of leadership practises.
DIRC was an ESRC/EPSRC
Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration in Dependability of Computer-Based
Systems (DIRC) (see
Lancaster website). The main Project I was involved in, together with the
univerities of Edinburgh and Newcastle, was concerned with the Impact of
Organisational Culture and Trust on Dependability. Working together with researchers from the Social Informatics Cluster
at Edinburgh University, Department of Informatics, much of this project
focused on ethnographic studies of technology in healthcare settings. As part
of this project we organised a Workshop in
Dependability in Healthcare Informatics.
Other DIRC Project
activities I was involved with included:
PA5: Dependability
issues in open-source software - The aim of this activity was to carry out
a preliminary investigation of open-source software development We studied the
development of Cocoon, an open source software system developed in Java that
supports XML-based web publishing. As part of this project we held a workshop on open source
software development in Newcastle - the electronic version of the
proceedings is available to download
PA7: Dependable
Ubiquitous Computing in the Home - The primary objective of this activity
was to investigate the problems of ensuring that computer-based systems that
are installed in people's homes are dependable. This type of system is quite
different from organisational computer systems because the operating
environment of the system can't be controlled, users are incredibly diverse and
users don't have specialised training. This project cooperated with the Equator
IRC's Digital Care in
the Community project. (Also look at the SMART Thinking
website).
Equator was a six-year Interdisciplinary Research
Collaboration(IRC) supported by EPSRC that focused on the integration of
physical and digital interaction. The IRC brought together researchers from
eight different institutions and a variety of disciplines to address the
technical, social and design issues in the development of new
inter-relationships between the physical and digital.
A series of experience projects
engaged with different user communities to develop new combinations of physical
and digital worlds and how explore these may be exploit enhance the quality of
everyday life.
A series of research challenges
explored new classes of device that link the physical and the digital, research
into adaptive software architectures and new design and evaluation methods that
draw together approaches from social science, cognitive science and art and
design.
I was principally involved in the 'Digital Care'
project. This project was concerned with improving the quality of everyday
life by developing supporting technologies based on a comprehensive
understanding of user needs.
Even More Previous Research Projects
Previously I was a Research
Officer on a Project 'Evolving Legacy
Systems to Intranet-based Architectures' (with Tom Rodden and Ian Sommerville)
using ethnographic methods to study the impact of legacy systems on business
processes within a large multinational bank.
I was also involved in the ESRC
'Virtual Society' Programme working on a project called 'Where the virtual meets the real' -
Management, Skill, and Innovation in the 'Virtual Organisation' with Peter
Tolmie, Wes Sharrock and John Hughes.
The project examines 'multi-skilling' in the 'virtual organisation' through an
ethnographic study of a retail bank involved in concurrent changes in
technology, culture and working practices. A recently completed associated
project focused on e-commerce - 'Developing and
Realising Business Strategies in Electronic Commerce: An Ethnographic Study'.
From 1994-96 I was a Research
Officer on the SYCOMT
Project (Systems Development and Cooperative Work: Methods & Techniques)
working with John Hughes and Tom Rodden in a collaboration
between Lancaster University; a management consultancy; a computer company and
a major high street bank. SYCOMT was one of the nine DTI/EPSRC funded projects
researching into computer supported cooperative work (CSCW). A report
of some of the ethnographic fieldwork from this project can be found amongst
the accounts
of a number of ethnographic fieldstudies compiled as part of the COMIC
Project. Along with Jon O'Brien,
I was also involved in the development and use of computer applications in the
organisation of ethnographic data for systems designers as part of 'plucky
Strand 2' of the Esprit-funded COMIC
Project.
Together with Jon O'Brien John Hughes and
Dave Randall (Manchester Metropolitan University) I have also worked on aspects
of 'Organisational Memory' (now renamed the 'Mavis Phenomenon') as part of our
involvement in the 'CoTech
Program'. Another related project was the NCR
funded 'Building the Virtual Bank' (with Jon
O'Brien and Tom Rodden)
which was interested in the design, management and presentation of financial
services through the 'Virtual Bank'.
Publications
A list is
available . . .some of these are currently online and the rest will also
(eventually and gradually) be made available .. but don’t hold your breath…
My thesis "'Business as
Usual': An Ethnography of Everyday (Bank) Work" is available here
as pdf.
Other stuff.......
"The Theory and Practice of Fieldwork for
Systems Development"
This page contains a number of
resources for those interested in conducting ethnographic enquiries -
especially those attending our various tutorials.
M.Sc Distributed Information Systems
Students on this course will
find slide presentations of the lectures available here.