Groupware and Not-for-Profit Institutions: Cooperative Harmony or Culture Shock? Jo Ann Oravec and Larry E. Travis Computer Sciences Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison Computer supported cooperative work systems (systems also identified with the label œgroupware ) are designed to support groups in their pursuit of common goals and objectives. Groupware research and application development often involve efforts to make human interaction more efficient and productive, and to modify the quality and structure of group activities in a variety of ways. These efforts have inspired a good deal of controversy and concern, a sure sign that sensitive ethical and value issues are involved. For instance, some groupware researchers and promoters have characterized their systems as œcoaches  and œeducators , while critics, in turn, have called the systems œoppressors  and œmasters with a digitized whip . This paper will explore the problems and potential benefits of utilizing groupware to enable group activities in educational, research, volunteer, and other not-for-profit institutions. A review of the ethical and social concerns raised about groupware in recent literature will be provided. This wil1 be followed by an outline of our perspective on groupware impact, a perspective rooted in social psychology and ethics. Some of the areas of ethical and sociaI concern that our perspective addresses include privacy and confidentiality of communications; dysfunctional dependence relationships; individual autonomy and individual power relative Among other things, they are responsible for a careful analysis of the marketing claims made for these products, and for the selection of products that enable ethically responsible installation within their organizations. Since many commercially available groupware products have been designed with the business environment in mind, the problems and dangers of transplanting these designs (designs that often incorporate dubious assumptions about employers ™ rights regarding the control of employees) into not-for-profit environments should be given careful consideration. The discussion of the following questions might provide a good start toward the analysis and selection of groupware: 1) What social and ethical considerations apply to the choice of commercial CSCW products? (One example of such a consideration is whether or not there is a good fit between the values implicit in a product design and the values of the organization); 2) How can these products be evaluated, ranked, and selected on the basis of such considerations? (How, for instance, can forms of bias -or lack of accommodation for individual privacy -be detected in groupware products?); to group power; and support for shifting, evolving individual roles and subgroup coalitions. These issues have particular importance for not-for-profit institutions (many of which have organizational cultures that place high value on the rights and the freedom of expression of the individual). Few not-for-profit institutions have the hrxury of employing a development team to tailor a groupware system to their own special requirements and concerns. In general, administrators and project leaders considering the adoption of groupware in their organizations buy commercially available software packages rather than developing in-house systems. There is a rapidly expanding variety of products from which to choose. Purchasers and installers of such systems have a related but different set of responsibilities than do implementers of in-house systems, responsibilities that will be given special attention in this paper. 3) What steps can be taken by users to mitigate the undesired social and ethical impacts of the CSCW products chosen? - 126 -

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