Interview with Jay Nunamaker on “Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing”

Abstract

Jay F. Nunamaker Jr. is Regents Professor and Soldwedel Professor at the University of Arizona. He founded the MIS department at University of Arizona in 1974, and the Center for the Management of Information in 1985. Dr. Nunamaker has over 40 years of experience in analyzing, designing, testing, evaluating, and developing information systems. His multidisciplinary research is built on a foundation of computer supported collaboration, decision support, deception detection and determination of intent. Nunamaker’s research has led to major breakthroughs in collaboration, decision support systems, and automated systems analysis and design. He is known for developing generalizable solutions to important classes of unsolved real-world problems, and testing his systems with scientific rigor. He was elected a fellow of the Association for Information Systems in 2000, and in 2002, he was the recipient of the LEO (lifetime achievement) Award from the Association of Information Systems, at ICIS in Barcelona, Spain. In a 2005 article in Communications of the Association for Information Systems, he was recognized as one of the most productive information systems researchers, ranking no. 4–6 for the period from 1991–2003 based on the number of papers in top IS journals. He received his Ph.D. in systems engineering and operations research from Case Western Reserve University. BISE: You were a pioneer in the field of group support systems. What do you see as some of the major accomplishments of the early years of collaboration systems, CSCW, and Social media? Nunamaker: Perhaps the most fundamental breakthrough was conceptual – the notion that teams could use technologies in ways that made them more successful. Once we had the concept, there were a lot of opportunities to explore. A lot of studies showed that groups using group support systems (GSS) could cut their project cycle times by 90 %, and cut labor hours by 50 %, while producing higher-quality deliverables. You may have heard the old saying, ‘‘Faster, better, cheaper – you can have any two, but you can’t have all three.’’ Well, collaborative work with GSS could faster, better, and cheaper – so it was a paradigm shift. Prof. R. O. Briggs (&) College of Business Administration, San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, CA 92182-8230, USA e-mail: rbriggs@mail.sdsu.edu URL: http://cbaweb.sdsu.edu/faculty/profile/Robert-O.-Briggs