Oya Y. Rieger

In-car gps navigation: engagement with and disengagement from the environment

Although in-car GPS navigation technology is proliferating, it is not well understood how its use alters the ways people interpret their environment and navigate through it. We argue that GPS-based car navigation might disengage people from their surrounding environment, but also has the potential to open up novel ways to engage with it. We present an ethnographically-informed study with GPS users, showing evidence for practices of disengagement as well as new opportunities for engagement, illustrating our findings using rich descriptions from the field. Grounded in our observations we propose design principles for GPS systems that support richer experiences of driving. We argue that for a fuller understanding of issues of disengagement and engagement with the environment we need to move beyond a focus on the (re)design of GPS devices, and point to future directions of work that embrace a broader perspective.

Supporting scholarly inquiry: Incorporating users in the design of the digital library

Abstract A digital library that effectively supports scholarly users must address the behaviors and activities of users engaged in research. Using focus groups, semi-structured interviews, and questionnaires, this study concludes that scholars will benefit from adaptive, flexible user interfaces that enable easy navigation of a complex information landscape.

Cutting into collaboration: understanding coordination in distributed and interdisciplinary medical research

Coordinating goals, schedules, and tasks among collaborators is difficult, and made even more so when there are disciplinary, geographic and institutional boundaries that must be spanned. Designing CSCW tools to support coordination in these settings, however, requires an improved under-standing of the constraints and conflicts that impede effective collaboration. We present findings from a study of distributed collaborations between academic surgeons and biomedical engineering researchers. These two groups differ significantly in their work priorities and institutional contexts, but are nonetheless able to work together and co-ordinate effectively. They accomplish this via human mediation, frequent ad hoc communication, and optimizing the use of their limited face-to-face interaction opportunities.

Assessing the Value of Open Access Information Systems: Making a Case for Community-Based Sustainability Models

ABSTRACT In 2010, the Cornell University Library adopted a new business model to broaden the funding base for arXiv.org. Although this community-based interim model has garnered strong support, it also generated a range of questions in regard to the sustainability of open-access online resources with a global user base such as arXiv. Making a case for such systems requires more than reliance on common quantitative measures that indicate submission and usage, statistics. Based on a sociotechnical systems approach, this article proposes a set of principles with which to evaluate return on investment as we consider the sustainability of open access subject repositories.

Enduring Access to Rich Media Content: Understanding Use and Usability Requirements

Through an NEH-funded initiative, Cornell University Library is creating a technical, curatorial, and managerial framework for preserving access to complex born-digital new media objects. The Librarys Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art provides the testbed for this project. This collection of complex interactive born-digital artworks are used by students, faculty, and artists from various disciplines. Interactive digital assets are far more complex to preserve and manage than single uniform digital media files. The preservation model developed will apply not merely to new media artworks, but to other rich digital media environments. This article describes the projects findings and discoveries, focusing on a user survey conducted with the aim of creating user profiles and use cases for born-digital assets like those in the testbed collection. The projects ultimate goal is to create a preservation and access practice grounded in thorough and practical understanding of the characteristics of digital objects and their access requirements, seen from the perspectives of collection curators and users alike. We discuss how the survey findings informed the development of an artist questionnaire to support creation of user-centric and cost-efficient preservation strategies. Although this project focuses on new media art, our methodologies and findings will inform other kinds of complex born-digital collections.