This course is based on the development of a research program on socially-embedded digital technologies that entails a theoretical-empirical and a technological dimension simultaneously. The objective of this program is both to contribute to the understanding of the phenomena that underpin cooperation and collaboration in this domestic context, and to contribute to the sustainable development of society by designing digital technologies that fulfill societal needs (here related to an ageing society).
The first objective of this course is for the students to be able to apply a methodology to design, develop and deploy socially-embedded technologies, both by being aware of its underlying research paradigms, understanding the different steps of the methodology through illustrations, and trying it out on some cases. Another objective is to contribute to the development of the critical mind of the students regarding the development of technologies.

1- Context: ageing society, staying at home, social isolation, ...
2- Description of the research approach and its theoretical and methodological foundations (practice-based research, design case studies (Wulf et al. 2011), ...)
a. Positioning
b. The need to empirically inform the design of social-oriented services
c. Foundations of the approach
d. Steps of the approach (Pre-study, Design, Appropriation)
e. Modes of documentation that can be used in the different steps
3- Illustrations
a. 2 cases related to the goal of fostering the social engagement of elderly people at home, related to 2 European projects in the Ambiant Assisted Living framework, which build on the concept of social support.
b. 1 case related to the issue of coordination among home care actors. This case comes from a large research/industry project supported by an inter-ministerial fund in France, and builds on the knotworking concept.
While describing these projects, the steps of the design case studies will be presented, illustrated with real data and cases, and discussed: 1- recruitment of participants, 2- collection of data with a set of techniques inspired by ethnography, 3- analysis of the data collected, 4- translation of the findings into insights for the design of online systems, 5- development, test and roll out into the real households, 6- field evaluation.
A special emphasis will be put on how to better integrate elderly people in ICT-based research projects that can benefit them, including trust and ethical issues.
4- To go further: The domestication concept
a. Description of the Theory (coming from Media Studies) and how it can be used for digital technologies.
b. Illustration: Understanding the “failure” of the deployment of a telemedicine toolkit.
5- Work on readings and assignments.
6- Assessment.

This is a visiting professor course of the Vienna PhD School of Informatics.

It will be held by Myriam Lewkowicz / Troyes University of Technology
(France).

Organization of the course:

The course will be organized around two sessions of face to face lectures:

Session 1: 24th and 25th of October
Session 2: 5th and 6th of December

Additionally, some work will be given to the students that they will have to handle during the two sessions. The evaluation will consist in a written document and an oral presentation.

Please register in TISS.

The references below are the main ones on which the course will be based. Other references corresponding to related work will be given during the course.

Approach
Alaoui, M., Lan Hing Ting K., Lewkowicz, M. (2013). The Urge for Empirically-Informed Design of Social-Oriented AAL applications – The Example of 2 AAL Projects, Procedia Computer Science, Volume 27, 2013, Pages 379-388.
Wulf, V., Rohde, M., Pipek, V., & Stevens, G. (2011). Engaging with practices: design case studies as a research framework in CSCW. In Proceedings of the ACM 2011 conference on Computer supported cooperative work (pp. 505-512). ACM.
Lewkowicz, M., and Salembier, P. "Analysing and Supporting Cooperative Practices: An Interdisciplinary Approach." Designing Socially Embedded Technologies in the Real-World. Springer London, 2015. 171-190.

Fostering Social Engagement of Elderly People
Müller, C., Schnittert, J., Walczuch, M., Alaoui, M., Lewkowicz, M., Wan, L., Wulf, V. (2015). Impact Factors on Social TV Research in Real Elderly Persons’ Households, in : S. Diefenbach ; N.Henze & M. Pielot (eds.) : Mensch und Computer 2015 Tagungsband, Stuttgart : Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2015, pp. 213-222.
Alaoui, M., & Lewkowicz, M. (2013, July). A livinglab approach to involve elderly in the design of smart TV applications offering communication services. In International Conference on Online Communities and Social Computing (pp. 325-334). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Tixier, M., & Lewkowicz, M. (2016, May). Counting on the Group: Reconciling Online and Offline Social Support among Older Informal Caregivers. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 3545-3558). ACM.

Coordination among care actors
Amsha, K. A., & Lewkowicz, M. (2016). Shifting patterns in home care work: supporting collaboration among self-employed care actors. In COOP 2016: Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on the Design of Cooperative Systems, 23-27 May 2016, Trento, Italy (pp. 139-154). Springer International Publishing.
Amsha, K. A., & Lewkowicz, M. (2014). Observing the Work Practices of an Inter-professional Home Care Team: Supporting a Dynamic Approach for Quality Home Care Delivery. In COOP 2014-Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on the Design of Cooperative Systems, 27-30 May 2014, Nice (France) (pp. 243-258). Springer, Cham.

Domestication
Silverstone, R., & Haddon, L. (1996). Design and the domestication of information and communication technologies: Technical change and everyday life.
Gaglio, G., Lewkowicz, M., & Tixier, M. (2016, November). It is Not Because You Have Tools that You Must use Them: The Difficult Domestication of a Telemedicine Toolkit to Manage Emergencies in Nursing Homes. In Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Supporting Group Work (pp. 223-233). ACM.