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Computing and the social organization of academic work

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Abstract

This article discusses the academic computing movement during the 1980s. We focus on the Faculty Workstations Project at Brown University, where major computing initiatives were undertaken during the 1980s. Six departments are compared: chemistry, cognitive and linguistic sciences, geology, music, neural science, and sociology. We discuss the theoretical implications of our study for conceptualizing the relationship of computing to academic work.

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An early version of this article was originally published as: Technological Innovation in Higher Education: A Case Study in Academic Computing. In Morell, J. and Fleischer, M. (Eds.), (1991),Advances in the Implementation and Impact of Computer Systems, Vol. 1, JAI Press, Greenwich, Connecticut, pp. 183–209.

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Shields, M.A., Graves, W. & Nyce, J.M. Computing and the social organization of academic work. J Sci Educ Technol 1, 243–258 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00694406

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