Sociotechnical systems research: Defining, converging, and researching as a community

Abstract

The Consortium for the Science of Sociotechnical Systems (CSST) serves as a trans-discipline community, connecting like-minded scholars from many different intellectual communities. CSST brings together researchers from a wide range of disciplines to develop a common language and scholarly repertoire as we work to understand diverse sociotechnical issues. Researchers focus on improving human lives through understanding sociotechnical systems, conducting research on human activity such as collaboration, creativity, learning and economic production in domains like healthcare, education, science, leisure, and computing. This requires researchers to understand both social and technical aspects of human organization. This workshop supports continued advancement of definitions and boundaries in this area. We will engage in activities with established leaders as well as newcomers in this trans-discipline, to build understanding of factors that support the community’s cohesion, and, aim to leverage the diversity of the work being conducted by its members, to engender learning and research innovation.