"Faeg.ee .g C. Dianne Martin, Chuck Huff, Ibm Jewett IT Workplace 2000: a SIGCAS collaborative student research project on working conditions in the computing workplace http://www, engr.csulb,edu/~sigcas/itwp2k/ he ACM Special Interest Group on Computers and Society is pleased to launch an international collaborative student research project on computers and society for the year 2000. This project will be designed to enable students from all over the world to gather data to contribute to a Web-based research test-bed of data that can be accessed and analyzed by all individuals and groups involved in the project. The purpose of the international collaborative student research projects will be to enable undergraduate and graduate students from around the world to gain experience in gathering and analyzing empirical data related to the social and ethical implications of computers. SIGCAS will establish a central database for project data. The data will be available to be downloaded by anyone interested in conducting research or performing analysis on the data. Any groups or individuals who provide new data or desire to use the data for research will have the opportunity to post their findings to the Web site. If this project is successful, SIGCAS intends to launch a new research topic every two years. The first project, called IT Workplace 2000, will examine worldwide working conditions in the computing industry. Much has been written about the rigors of working in the computing industry, so the purpose of this project will be to ascertain the attitudes and perceptions of the people actually working in the industry to see if the myths are true or not. A common set of questions will be provided for students to use in their local area to gather the data for the database. The local data will be added to the international database enabling students to look at the overall relationships as well as the commonalties and differences between their local computing employees, the national composite, and the international composite. Students will be encouraged to search the Web as well as traditional source material for references to articles about computing workplace conditions so that they can compare their findings with other researchers. Data analyses by project participants will obviously be considered for publication in Computers and Society, but we also encourage submissions to other publications and conferences. The sequence of project activities will include: T ¢ Faculty members register to participate through the Web site, and receive an identification code for access to project materials. ¢ Faculty members then register their students, who will administer the survey instrument. Each student researcher will receive a personal data entry code and a block of identification numbers for both work groups and individual survey respondents. The survey instruments (individual and workgroup) will be available for download and local printing. ¢ Student researchers conduct the survey, to include both the actual questionnaire administration and a researcher assessment of the workplace. The student researcher will enter both individual and workgroup data directly through the Web. ¢ All project participants access the common database on the Web, for analyses that support their own academic goals. Of all organizations, SIGCAS should be the most careful with privacy of researchers and respondents. There will be an individual consent form (for inclusion of the respondent's information in the database)--this will be kept by the local faculty member, and will not in any way identify the respondent to any other survey participant. Likewise, the identity of participating workgroups and organizations will be known only at the local leveb--demographics, but no specific identifying information, will be kept in the project database. By the time you read this, the first elements of the project Web site should be operational--see the URL above. Current plans are for the site to include an expanded project description, a set of suggested guidelines and tips for fiaculty (by Chuck Huff), an explanation of how the project fits into the Project Impact CS learning objectives (by Dianne Martin), the survey forms, registration and data entry facilities (as described above), and a dedicated mail/news/discussion area for sharing information about the project. Webmaster Darnell Gadberry brings extensive professional experience as well as his current academic interests to the project. In developing the site, he will emphasize confidentiality, data security and user authentication--using client-side certificates for user authentication, RC5 encryption to protect the database, and a firewall to prevent unauthorized access to secure areas. Look for updates on the system architecture in future issues of C&S. We invite you to visit the project site--give us your feedback and suggestions for improvements--and join the IT Workplace 2000 team. t Computers and Society, December 1998

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