ACM Sigsoc Bulletin最新文献

{"title":"The use of empirical observations in the development of formal models","authors":"L. Miller","doi":"10.1145/1103002.1103004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/1103002.1103004","url":null,"abstract":"The Xerox 800 is a very simple word processing machine. At Xerox, however, we are finding that a large number of people are calling up their service representative and saying, \"Take this machine out - I don't want it.\" This, of course, causes a great deal of concern. The main reason for recalls of this machine is not because it breaks down, not because it produces results that are unsatisfactory, but because it is virtually impossible to use, and to learn to use! One of the reasons this problem occurs is that, for the type of people who are using these very low level, simple kinds of computer systems, there is an extremely high turnover rate in the offices. In the Los Angeles area, the turnover rates for secretaries in law offices (for example) can be anywhere from 50 per cent to 200 per cent per year; that means that a person stays for an average of six months or less. Most of the people who are using these kinds of systems and who only stay around for a short period of time can be described as naive or inexperienced users of the system. If they are having this kind of trouble with a very simple system like the 800 typing system, I think we can imagine the kinds of problems that we can expect in much more complex systems, such as fully automated text editors, graphics packages, forms handlers, data base inquiry systems, management information systems, etc.","PeriodicalId":129356,"journal":{"name":"ACM Sigsoc Bulletin","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1979-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127661852","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Automation of instrument design, coding, data entry, data cleaning, and codebook generation","authors":"K. Steinbrenner","doi":"10.1145/1103676.1103678","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/1103676.1103678","url":null,"abstract":"In reviewing the survey process, it is clear that for all surveys certain common operations are involved which are independent of where the survey is done or who is in charge of it. To show how these various steps could become part of an integrated data processing system, I first want to describe each step separately, as it is accomplished normally. The description which follows is based on procedures executed at NORC, but similar steps are followed almost everywhere else. Certain terms might be unique to NORC, but their meaning should become clear from the context.","PeriodicalId":129356,"journal":{"name":"ACM Sigsoc Bulletin","volume":"128 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1979-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128215412","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A perspective on interactive survey analysis","authors":"E. Meyers","doi":"10.1145/1103676.1103677","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/1103676.1103677","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, interactive survey analysis is broadly conceived so that discussion is not limited simply to researchers fondling data files. The digital computer -- especially the time-shared type -- has potential for constructive use by researchers well beyond the process of analyzing survey data. Consideration is given to accomplished resources, projects under development, and capabilities which might be developed; so it is worth keeping an eye on what is fact and what is fantasy.","PeriodicalId":129356,"journal":{"name":"ACM Sigsoc Bulletin","volume":"51 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1979-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126684841","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Computers and politics in China","authors":"Andrew C. Gordon","doi":"10.1145/1103669.1103670","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/1103669.1103670","url":null,"abstract":"Consider the following observations about the People's Republic of China:A team of \"workers, peasants and soldiers\" adhering in 1976 to the principle that \"education must serve proletarian politics and be combined with productive labor,\" and working in a \"simple workshop built through self-reliance\" successfully developed a 1024-bit MOS random access memory chip for computers \"with 5000 transistors on a chip one-fourth of the size of a fingernail.\"","PeriodicalId":129356,"journal":{"name":"ACM Sigsoc Bulletin","volume":"56 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1978-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115020933","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Review of \"Computer Models in the Social Sciences, by Robert B. Coats and Andrew Parkin\", Winthrop, 1977","authors":"Robert Marcus","doi":"10.1145/1103669.1103672","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/1103669.1103672","url":null,"abstract":"I fear that many readers will skip this review after a brief glance at the book's title. One can hardly blame them; much of the literature on modelling and simulation is highly theoretical , and beset with an incredible amount of mathematics and jargon, making it unsuitable for use by the majority of social scientists. Happily, this book is different. The authors neatly dispel the myth that rigorous mathematical knowledge is a prerequisite to understanding and constructing computer models. From the Preface: \"To understand this book you need only simple algebra, a little statistics and an alert mind. Quite a large part of the book can be understood without the first two of these.\" A practical, rather than a theoretical, approach is taken in this easy-to-read, entertaining , and thought-provoking introduction to computer modelling. Another quote from the Preface sets the tone for what follows: \"Using a computer becomes worthwhile only when analyzing a system of some complexity which cannot easily be analyzed in more conventional ways. Practical techniques of analyzing complex systems is the unifying theme of the various parts of this book.\" The first part of the book discusses the principles used in designing, constructing, and experimenting with computer models. The second half consists of in-depth studies of diverse models, including a queuing model, an associative model of memory, a model of bed usage at a hospital, and an economic model. In each case the reader follows through the thought processes that go into the design and construction of the model. The excellent discussion questions are suitable for use either by the individual reader, or in a classroom situation. Unfortunately, this excellent reference source is buried in the middle of the book, where it can easily escape the attention of someone merely skimming through the book. Another nice feature of the book is that it confronts the special human problems encountered when trying to build a model in the social sciences. The authors are aware that quanti-fication often proves impossible, and that the human element affects systems in unpredictable ways. They never lose sight of the fact that the goal is the creation of practical, workable models that will benefit people, rather than an abstract theory of modelling which is of little practical use. In short, if you're after a solid foundation in the Why and How of computer models, which will give you the knowledge to construct …","PeriodicalId":129356,"journal":{"name":"ACM Sigsoc Bulletin","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1978-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114687882","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Review of \"MASH, A Computer System for Microanalytic Simulation for Policy Exploration, by George Sadowsky\", The Urban Institute, 1977","authors":"William Gotham","doi":"10.1145/1103680.1103685","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/1103680.1103685","url":null,"abstract":"The authors...describe this excellent book as a handbook rather than a text. That it is -and more. It is designed for the analyst who has received a set of completed survey schedules and is faced with processing them through a final statistical analysis... Another potential audience class is the computer scientist who is called upon to act as consultant or aide to the social scientist. The computer scientist who can absorb the background problems and common sense suggestions that are contained in the book will enhance many times over his value to the survey practitioner.","PeriodicalId":129356,"journal":{"name":"ACM Sigsoc Bulletin","volume":"52 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1978-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114569829","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Review of \"Survey and Opinion Research: Procedures for Processing and Analysis, by John A. Sonquist and William C. Dunkelberg\", Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1977","authors":"J. Moshman","doi":"10.1145/1103680.1103683","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/1103680.1103683","url":null,"abstract":"The authors...describe this excellent book as a handbook rather than a text. That it is -and more. It is designed for the analyst who has received a set of completed survey schedules and is faced with processing them through a final statistical analysis... Another potential audience class is the computer scientist who is called upon to act as consultant or aide to the social scientist. The computer scientist who can absorb the background problems and common sense suggestions that are contained in the book will enhance many times over his value to the survey practitioner.","PeriodicalId":129356,"journal":{"name":"ACM Sigsoc Bulletin","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1978-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129157078","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The social dynamics of instrumental computer use","authors":"R. Kling, W. Scacchi, Phillip Crabtree","doi":"10.1145/1103680.1103681","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/1103680.1103681","url":null,"abstract":"During the last three decades, computing has far surpassed its early role as a laboratory device for scientific computation. Computers are presently used for a wide array of purposes. In most of its uses it is portrayed as a problem-solving <u>tool</u> and as a material or intellectual object. Despite continuing technical advances, computer use is still costly in its demands for attention and special skills by people (instrumental users) who try to use it to further their own work, whether they program or not. These problems occur because much computer use is inextricably embedded in a complex set of problematic social relationships between groups of service providers and consumers. In particular, serious and continual use of computing forces users to attend to issues associated with:1. The work setting of computer use;2. Understanding the capabilities of computing;3. The scope and rate of technical change;4. Insuring that data is accurate, complete, and timely;5. Control over computing resources;6. The overall time that attention to these social and technical issues require.The opportunities and problems of instrumental computer use vary when users utilize different technologies and different organizational arrangements for supporting them. However, as software and hardware developments progress, the social arrangements of computer use will increasingly dominate the attention of users.","PeriodicalId":129356,"journal":{"name":"ACM Sigsoc Bulletin","volume":"208 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1978-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123378010","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Review of \"Human Choice and Computers, by E. Mumford and H. Sackman\", North-Holland Publishing Co., 1975","authors":"J. Morris","doi":"10.1145/1103680.1103684","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/1103680.1103684","url":null,"abstract":"The authors...describe this excellent book as a handbook rather than a text. That it is -and more. It is designed for the analyst who has received a set of completed survey schedules and is faced with processing them through a final statistical analysis... Another potential audience class is the computer scientist who is called upon to act as consultant or aide to the social scientist. The computer scientist who can absorb the background problems and common sense suggestions that are contained in the book will enhance many times over his value to the survey practitioner.","PeriodicalId":129356,"journal":{"name":"ACM Sigsoc Bulletin","volume":"185 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1978-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123733488","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Considerations in selecting a terminal","authors":"G. Marks","doi":"10.1145/1103299.1103300","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/1103299.1103300","url":null,"abstract":"The computer terminal marketplace is expanding and changing rapidly. Prices are dropping as a result of both technological factors and because of sales volume. An increasing variety of special features and capabilities are appearing. However, the selection process can be a confusing one. This article is intended to help anyone interested in terminals by setting forth the major trade-offs and considerations that may be relevant.","PeriodicalId":129356,"journal":{"name":"ACM Sigsoc Bulletin","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1978-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121145475","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}