This section contains some references to online resources that deal with the various theoretical approaches that may employ ethnographic methods of data collection.
PROFESSOR GARFINKEL VISITS THE SOOTHSAYERS: ETHNOMETHODOLOGY AND MAMBILA DIVINATION - by David Zeitlyn University of Oxford
"Garfinkel's techniques of ethnomethodological analysis permit a focus on 'moments of crisis' in dialogue. It is at such moments that the 'negotiation of meaning' is clearest. ...The article demonstrates how conversational analysis can be used as a powerful analytical tool of 'processual' anthropology".
Reality analysis in a classroom storytelling Stephen Hester and David Francis The British Journal of Sociology Volume 48 No. 1 March 1997 Pages 97-114
Technomethodology: Paradoxes and Possibilities by Graham Button and Paul Dourish (1996)
"In this paper, we discuss the range and application of ethnomethodological investigations of technology in working settings, describe how ethnomethodologically-affiliated work has approached system design and discuss ways that ethnomethodology can move from design critique to design practice: the advent of technomethodology."
Hazards of Design: Ethnomethodology and the Ritual Order of Computing - Philip E. Agre Department of Information Studies University of California, Los Angeles
Ethnomethodology and the Study of Online Communities: Exploring the Cyber Streets - by Steven R. Thomsen, Joseph D. Straubhaar and Drew M. Bolyard from the IRISS '98: Conference
There are a number of bibligraphies of ethnomethodology that, although rapidly dating, may be interesting to anyone who wishes to pursue the subject in more depth. The Ethno/CA News bibligraphy (and links to other bibliographies) is available here. The Ethno/CA News website also contains lots of resources.
An online tutorial in Conversational Analysis is available from Charles Antaki's online resources - here.
Grounded Theory Methodology on the Web - contains a series of links to topics and papers of interest.
What is Grounded Theory? - It is about time that researchers study the problem that exists for the participants in the area, not what is supposed to exist or what professionals says is important [GLASER98, p. 116]". Outlines what Grounded Theory IS and IS NOT and the various assumptions associated with the theory.
The Creation of Theory: A Recent Application of the Grounded Theory Method - by Naresh R. Pandit (The Qualitative Report, Volume 2, Number 4, December, 1996)
"This paper outlines a particular approach to building theory that was employed in a recent doctoral research project (Pandit, 1995). Three aspects used in conjunction indicate the project's novelty: firstly, the systematic and rigorous application of the grounded theory method; secondly, the use of on-line computerised databases as a primary source of data; and, thirdly, the use of a qualitative data analysis software package to aid the process of grounded theory building"
The impact of access to electronic and digital information resources on learning opportunities for young people: a grounded theory approach - by Alison Jane Pickard
You may be interested in the Grounded Theory Institute
Achieving Cooperative System Design: Shifting from a Product to a Process Focus* by Kaj Grønbæk, Jonathan Grudin, Susanne Bødker and Liam Bannon
"This paper discusses issues arising out of efforts to establish cooperation between users and developers in systems development projects. At first glance, many projects seem to present immense obstacles to user involvement. At the same time, there is a growing recognition of the need for greater user-developer cooperation and research projects are providing new tools and techniques that assist in engaging users as full participants in system developmen
Participatory design: Readings - a collection of annotated references on Participatory Design - also a detailed notes for two classic PD articles, "Knowledge Strategy for Trade Unions" by Kristen Nygaard, and "Out of Scandinavia" by Christiane Floyd.
Activity Theory: Basic Concepts and Applications - CHI97 tutorial by Victor Kaptelinin and Bonnie A. Nardi
Activity theory - this is a huge archive of links to resources on Activity Theory constructed by Martin Ryder at the University of Colorado at Denver
Activity Theory - an introduction - brief description and links to What is Activity Theory?; Activity theory and Cognitive Sciences; Activity Theory as a basis for design for all; Plans as Situated Action: An Activity Theory Approach to Workflow Systems; Activity Theory and Cultural Psychology; Learn About Activity Theory.
Plans as Situated Action: An Activity Theory Approach to Workflow Systems - (ECSCW97) by Jakob E. Bardram
"Within the community of CSCW the notion and nature of workflow systems as prescriptions of human work has been debated and criticised. Based on the work of Suchman (1987) the notion of situated action has often been viewed as opposed to planning work. Plans, however, do play an essential role in realising work. Based on experiences from designing a computer system that supports the collaboration within a hospital, this paper discusses how plans themselves are made out of situated action, and in return are realised in situ. Thus, work can be characterised as situated planning. This understanding is backed up by Activity Theory, which emphasises the connection between plans and the contextual conditions for realising these plans in actual work.
ACTIVITY THEORY AS A BASIS FOR DESIGN FOR ALL - presentation for 3rd TIDE Congress 23-25 June 1998 by Hannele Hyppönen
"This paper will present an activity theory based framework for studying user needs and for iteratively evaluating developing technology. The paper starts with presenting reasons for a applying a theory-based approach to studying user needs and usability of technology. The theory based tools and their application are then presented as answers to questions about user, user needs and usability evaluation.
Activity Theory as a Framework for HCI - a short paper by Tom Drewes
Activity Theory - by Richard Dunne - This article traces the rationale for activity theory from an historical backdrop of constructivist thought from Piaget to Vygotsky to Leont'ev.
Some pages by Yrjö Engeströ
* Center for Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research
* Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT)
Some papers on Activity theory by Helen Hasan
* An Overview of Techniques for applying Activity Theory to Information Systems
* Integrating IS and HCI Using Activity Theory as a Philosophical and Theoretical Basis - This paper describes the basic principles of Activity Theory as they apply to IS and HCI, with particular emphasis on those systems which provide knowledge about the progress of their organisation to senior managers. Activity Theory principles will be used in a longitudinal case study to analyse an extensive project which attempted, with limited success, to produce management support systems in an organisation. The Activity Theory analysis indicates that an integrated IS and HCI approach would have improved the outcomes of this project.
A brief introduction to Distributed Cognition by Yvonne Rogers
"Distributed Cognition is a hybrid approach to studying all aspects of cognition, from a cognitive, social and organisational perspective. The most well known level of analysis is to account for complex socially distributed cognitive activities, of which a diversity of technological artefacts and other tools and representations are an indispensable part.
Distributed Cognition: an alternative framework for analysing and explaining collaborative working - By Yvonne Rogers and Judi Ellis (Published in Journal of Information Technology, 1994, vol 9(2), 119-128).
An annotated bibliography on distributed cognition by Paul Hildreth can be found here
Distributed knowledge and information technology supported collaborative tasks by Christer Garbis
"In this paper it is argued that the framework of distributed cognition needs to be elaborated and clarified in a number of points. Issues such as the nature of distribution and whether cognition can actually reside in artefacts are examined."
The BPR Online Learning Center - presents a number of online tutorial modules on BPR.
The Business Process Resource Centre - at Warwick University
"provides access to BPR research and global events, DTI Management Best Practice and EPSRC and the Innovative Manufacturing Initiative materials, and documentation of industry practice. The BPRC supports self-sustaining networks of researchers and practitioners in business process analysis and management"
Kai Simon has a number of papers on BPR including:
*Towards a theoretical framework for Business Process Reengineering an M.Sc. thesis - downloadable pdf -
"Business Process Reengineering is the latest buzzword within the field of change management. The concept is supposed to enable radical improvments in several critical measures, such as costs, cycle-times aso., by organizing the corporation around value adding business processes, and supporting them with current IT. Despite the claims of the concept's advocates, several aspects of the approach appear to be conventional wisdom built on theories that have been existing for a long time, rather than revolutionary new thing. The thesis briefly describes the concept of BPR, and relates it to existing theories within the areas of organization theory, marketing, and informatics".
*Turning Bureaucracies into Process Networks - downloadable pdf -
"Even though the process approach to organization design gains increased popularity, there is still a lack of methodologies for managing the migration process from functional, hierarchical organizations to process networks. While current change management approaches, such as BPR, often emphasize an organizational redesign "from scratch", i.e. a total disregard of the current structure, combined with the design of a new, idealized organization, many organizations have considered this radical redesign as being inapplicable and require methodologies for managing a migration from bureaucratic structures to a dynamic, process based organizational form. This paper will discuss the challenge of turning bureaucracies into process networks, potential gains and pitfalls will be identified, and a methodology will be introduced".
Our paper'Chalk and Cheese: BPR and Ethnomethodologically Informed Ethnography', Randall, D., Hughes, J. and Rouncefield, M., 1995, Proceedings of ECSCW '95, Stockholm, Sweden compares the BPR approach with ethnography
"Contrasts the analytic work done under the auspices of the BPR ‘Process Walkthrough’ and ethnographic study, and makes the point that method resides in the analysis rather than the ‘hanging around’."
Soft Systems Methodology: A report - by Dale Couprie , Alan Goodbrand , Bin Li and David Zhu; Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary -
"This document deals with Soft Systems Methodology as developed by Professor Peter Checkland. This methodology is a way of dealing with problem situations in which there is a high social, political and human activity component. This distinguishes SSM from other methodologies which deal with HARD problems which are more technologically oriented".
Soft Systems Methodology: An Alternative Approach to Knowledge Elicitation in Complex and Poorly Defined Systems - by Andrew Finega
"The complex systems associated with human activity are often poorly defined. Soft Systems Methodology provides an effective and efficient way to carry out a systems analysis of processes in which technological processes and human activities are interdependent. As an example, it is here used to develop a systems model of technology transfer for applications of remote sensing in Australia. The model identifies rules that are suitable for developing an expert system".
Andrew Finegan also provides a webpage devoted to SSM Internet Resources - it includes:
An interactive map of Systems Thinking Practice - as well as online lecture notes and papers.
The Soft Systems Methodology Homepage - contains links to pages and papers relating to SSM- including:
Not covered in the tutorial (although it may be) but often associated with fieldwork methods.
Actor Network Theory - there is a huge archive of links to resources on Actor Network Theory constructed by Martin Ryder at the University of Colorado at Denver
The Actor Network Resource - managed by John Law is available at Lancaster University - it contains an organised and annotated list of references as well as links to online papers.
* Michel Callon's Actor-Network Theory - The Market Test
* Bruno Latour's On Recalling ANT
* John Law's Toplogy and the Naming of Complexity