Governments at all levels use a dizzying variety of technology systems to coordinate work with each other, provide services, analyze data, and plan for the future. The use of these systems impacts all of us politically and personally, and their effective or ineffective functioning is bound up in immensely complex systems of power, ideology, and infrastructural investment. However, governments as design settings have been underexplored and undertheorized thus far in CSCW. In this one-day hybrid workshop, we will bring together a community of researchers who have an interest in organizational and political analyses of technology design and implementation in the public sector.
In so doing, we will examine current and emerging CSCW approaches to understanding organizational realities of tech development and implementation in the public sector and compile resources and a research agenda to facilitate future research.
We aim to reveal the institutional realities of government tech implementation and explore CSCW practices to enact alternative imaginations of government tech. We seek submissions that 1) bring new theoretical perspectives on government technology; 2) suggest alternative imaginations and practices of government tech design that overcome the limitations of the existing ones; or 3) provide a rich case study of information technology and system development within the public sector, demonstrating the failures and successes of certain design approaches.
We ask participants to submit a short bio and a statement of interest regarding the workshop themes listed below. Please check the Call for Participation page for more details about the format and content of submission we expect.
How have prior transformations of government structure and culture shaped the contemporary sociotechnical systems of government IT?
What do histories of data governance have to tell us about the adoption of algorithmic tools in government?
How have new forms of IT changed, or in some cases failed to change, the structures and cultures of government?
What ideological positions about the roles of government are reified in particular instantiations of government technology?
Introduction (10 mins): Introductory presentation to set out the themes, agenda, and plans of the workshop.
Keynote speech (30 mins): Dr. Chris Le Dantec (Northeastern) will give a keynote presentation.
Lightning talks and short discussions (3.5 hours): Each participant will give a brief (up to 5 minute) talk to recap their statement of interest. After every 5 to 6 talks, there will be a short synthesizing discussion. Participants will pose questions, comments, and feedback, which will be discussed further in the afternoon sessions.
Lunch (1.5 hours)
Breakout room discussions (2 hours): Participants will divide into breakout groups and discuss the inputs from the morning sessions across the four main themes.
Plenary discussion (1 hour): All participants will reconvene to share what they discussed in breakout rooms, including key insights, and points of commonality and departure.
Closing (30 mins) Summative discussion and initial plans for future development
Please contact Ridley Jones LeDoux (rajone@uw.edu) or Seolha Lee (seolhal@uci.edu).