Social Informatics Experience: A Case Study on Learning and Teaching Sociological Basics in a Technical Context

Christa Weßel

doi:10.18267/j.aip.170

Abstract

To be able to play an active role in the design, creation and development of a networked society, students, scholars and practitioners need basic knowledge in social informatics. Students at a university of applied sciences attended a one-term seminar that consisted of eight two-day workshops. The students learned and used theories, concepts and methods of social informatics (SI), focusing on the sociological part of SI. The learning and teaching approach is grounded in competency-based learning. It enables students to explore a certain field. This is implemented by means of organization development, project-based learning, agile learning and teaching plus blended learning. It empowers teachers and students to work together efficiently, effectively and with joy. To learn how and why this approach worked, an embedded case study investigated the design, implementation and evaluation of the workshop series. Finally, the paper describes impediments to the communication and understanding of the term and the field of social informatics and sketches ideas how to deal with it concerning study programmes and the value social informatics can contribute to challenges like a pandemic.

Highlights

To be able to play an active role in the design, creation and development of a networked society, students, scholars and practitioners need basic knowledge in social informatics
The aim of this paper is to answer the research questions, "How can the concepts of continued multidisciplinary project-based learning (CM-PBL) and agile learning and teaching (ALT) be transferred to a one-term seminar setting in social informatics?" – "Does it work?" – "How does it work?" – "Why does it work?" – "What is necessary to make it happen?" The study should answer especially the "how" questions to offer interested colleagues, students and other stakeholders in learning and teaching, such as university managers, an example and perhaps inspiration for their own work
The learning and teaching approach is based upon the theories and concepts of competencybased learning (CBL) and uses concepts, methods and tools of continued multidisciplinary project-based learning (CM-PBL), agile learning and teaching (ALT) and blended learning (BL)

Summary

Introduction

To be able to play an active role in the design, creation and development of a networked society, students, scholars and practitioners need basic knowledge in social informatics. It enables students to explore a certain field This is implemented by means of organization development, project-based learning, agile learning and teaching plus blended learning. Social informatics; Socioinformatics; Project-based learning; Continued multidisciplinary projectbased learning; CM-PBL; Competency-based learning; CBL; Agile learning; Blended learning; Organization development. The COVID-19 pandemic showed from its beginning in 2020 how useful and sometimes harmful information and communication technologies can be in the mastering of such a worldwide challenge. This relates to most aspects: health care systems, government, education, public services, economics and the private life and physical and socio-psychological well-being of people. SI can be broadly defined as a research field that focuses on the research of sociotechnical interactions at different levels in connection with the development of the information society, including the social aspects of computerization and informatization, which can be structured into three main areas: interactions between ICT and humans, ICT applications in the social sciences, and ICT applications as a social sciences research tool. (Smutny and Vehovar, 2020, p. 537)

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