Accession Number:

ADA355528

Title:

Augmenting the Social Construction of Knowledge and Artifacts

Descriptive Note:

Final rept. Mar 97-Feb 98

Corporate Author:

TEMPLE UNIV PHILADELPHIA PA DEPT OF COMPUTER AND INFORMATION SCIENCES

Personal Author(s):

• Nosek, John T.

Report Date:

1998-06-01

Pagination or Media Count:

42.0

Abstract:

Within many domains, complexity encompasses many nuances of ill definition, fluidity, organizational variation, uncertainty, conflicting constraints, and multiple solutions. Responses to these areas of complexity necessitate the social construction of knowledge among various multi-disciplinary team members. Based on the literature, multi-theoretical foundations for augmenting the social construction of knowledge and artifacts were identified. These foundations include the recasting of such issues as task equivocality and task uncertainty, ecological and constructionist perspectives, and the interconnectedness of cognition, intelligence, and knowledge the capacity to act. Group Cognition is offered as the basis of all cognition, and is explained as a combination of Distributed and Coordinated Cognition that directly affects the creationrecreation of distributed and similar knowledge within a team. Based on these foundations, initial guidance is offered for augmenting the social construction of knowledge and artifacts. It is important to remember that this report must be considered a work in progress, a snapshot of one exploration of a very complex subject.

Descriptors:

• *SOCIAL COMMUNICATION
• *COOPERATION
• *INTELLIGENCE(HUMANS)
• DECISION MAKING
• PERFORMANCE(HUMAN)
• COGNITION
• TEAMS(PERSONNEL)

Subject Categories:

• Psychology

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE