[GSDI Legal Econ] Name of our working group

[Roger Longhorn]

While I agree that there are issues to be covered by the current "Legal 
and Economic" working group that do not seem to fall within either the 
'legal' or 'economic' definition, such as the work that I do in 
GI/GIS?SDI Ethics, the name "Socio-Technical" does not grab me. Just 
looking at the title without any prior knowledge of what this work group 
has done in the past, I find the 'technical' bit confusing, especially 
as there is already a Technical Working Group.

I would perhaps prefer the label "Socioeconomic Working Group" (or 
"Socio-economic" - both spellings are used widely and interchangeably in 
the field) as this is a term that encompasses bopth the original legal 
and economic themes, as well as other more socially oriented themes, 
such as ethics, governance (especially the role of GI/SDI in 
e-governance), etc.

I'n not sure how the 'technical' bit fits in, here, as I would have 
thought that anything that is truly 'technical' should be handled by 
that W.G. Technology certainly plays a role in most aspects of society, 
including economics and governance (which includes and involved legal 
issues from policy formulation through to enforcement), but I don't see 
that this is the main thrust of this W.G.

More comments, please, from other members of the group before any name 
change decision is reached.

Thanks in advance.

Kind regards

Roger Longhorn
co-Chair

Francis Harvey wrote:

> I would like to add my support of this proposal for a working group 
> name change. Once the focus on "Legal and Economic" issue made sense, 
> but the broadening of research activities suggests that  these terms 
> are out of sync with many activities that do not, and possibly could 
> not, find a rubric elsewhere in GSDI. 
>
> "Socio-Technical Working Group" seems quite encompassing. It remains 
> to be seen if the loss of the terms "legal and economic" is acceptable 
> to other working group members and the proposed terms are significant 
> enough. In contrast to the other working groups, the hyphenated name 
> makes sense to point to the dual nature of this work. Having 
> "Technical" and "Social" working groups would prolong a division that 
> many researchers studying SDI work hard to bridge or even transcend. 
>
> Francis
>
>
> On 4 Jan 2007, at 18:42, Nama Raj Budhathoki wrote:
>
>> What about changing the name of our working group? 
>>
>> Legal and economic issues are certainly important, but naming the 
>> group as "Legal and Economic Working Group" seems to be bit 
>> restrictive. It seems to exclude other equally important issues: 
>> organizational, institutional, policy etc. I would propose to name it 
>> as "Socio-Technical Group" to include all these issues, including 
>> legal and economic ones. 
>>
>> Since the other working group is "Technical Working Group", naming it 
>> as "Socio-Technical Group" would also complement with this. 
>>
>> When we have two groups: one technical and another 
>> non-technical(legal and economic), I feel that we are missing 
>> something there. Even seemingly pure non-technical issues are 
>> connected with technology. The technical and non-technical aspects 
>> are so interwoven that naming the working group as legal and economic 
>> (which sounds purely non-technical to me) does not fully capture the 
>> essence of this group. I suggest that "socio-technical working group" 
>> gives more sense! 
>>
>>
>> Nama 
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Nama Raj Budhathoki, 
>> PhD Student and Graduate Research Assistant, 
>> University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
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