Bridging the cultural chasm: Improving collaboration and cooperation between the computer and social sciences

This paper examines the cultural chasm between computer scientists and social scientists and suggests ways and benefits of closer interaction and possible collaboration. Specifically, it presents exploratory research on the attitudes of computer scientists concerning the need for social research in computer system design, the efficacy of social science and the utility of social scientists in this endeavor, and finally the real barriers to crossing what has been termed the great divide. It is based on in-depth, ethnographic interviews conducted in 2001 with 30 academics and practitioners from a research university, a national laboratory, and industry sites in new Mexico. It finds computer scientists, though they recognize the benefits of social science, seldom seek out social scientists to collaborate and know little about social science.