Using Computing Technology for Professional Cooperation:

An APA Report

Lawrence M. Hinman

University of San Diego

hinman@sandiego.edu

 

In the summer of 1996, the APA Committee on Philosophy and Computing undertook a survey of APA members and their involvement with various facets of computing. This article offers a report and analysis of the responses to the third issue considered by the Committee: the use of computer technology for professional cooperation. I will begin by reproducing the survey which was sent to APA members, and then provide a tabulation of the results. After that, I will turn to an analysis of the significance of these results.

The Survey Form

Instructions: Please answer the follow questions. Your time is greatly appreciated.

University or College:

Name:

Title:

E-mail:

Telephone:

1. How many Philosophy faculty members are in your department?

2. How many of your faculty members use "routine" computing, such as e-mail, LIST servers, and philosophical bulletin boards to gather information or carry on philosophical conversations with other philosophers?

3. In addition to these "routine" uses of computing, some philosophers have begun to use computing for other kinds of professional activities. Please check any of the following uses that apply to at least one person teaching Philosophy in your department.

Using computer networks to register for philosophical conferences.

Using computer networks to plan philosophical conferences.

Using computer networks to participate "virtually" in philosophical conferences.

Using computer networks to work as a member of a professional committee (for example: the APA Committee on the Status and Future of the Profession).

Using computer networks to submit papers for publication.

Using computer networks to submit works for publication in electronic journals.

Other. Please explain briefly.

4. What is the total number of faculty members in your department using computing resources beyond the routine activities described in question 2?

5. If any members of your department have plans to use computing technology for other professional cooperation in the near future, please briefly describe those plans here, or provide an electronic address where we can acquire relevant information:

6. Please list any electronic addresses where we can acquire information about any of the above activities in your Department:

 

The Results

The response to this questionnaire was very good: we received 307 responses, 202 of which were submitted on paper by traditional mail and 105 of which were submitted electronically through the APA web site. In tabulating these results, I have initially separated the paper replies from the electronic replies. They have then been combined in a weighted total, since there are almost twice as many paper replies as electronic ones.

The differences between the paper and electronic responses are interesting in themselves. First, we are obviously still a paper-oriented group, if the 2:1 ratio of paper to electronic responses is any indication. Second, and not surprisingly, departments that responded electronically overall show a higher level of computer involvement in almost all categories covered in this survey. Intuitively, one suspects that there is a higher level of involvement in departments that file electronically, but there are undoubtedly other variables at work here. Departments that filed electronically, for example, were larger on average than those that did not.

There is a discrepancy in these results when we compute the average percentage of a department that uses routine computing, which can be done in three possible ways. First, one can divide the average number of individuals by the average number of department members. (In the paper responses, this is 5.9/7.0=84.4%.) Second, one can add up the total number of department members given, then add up the total number of those who use routine computing, and divide the latter by the former. Each individual is, as it were, given one vote (In the paper responses, this would be 1034/1406.25=73.5%.) Finally, one can compute the percentage of those who use routine computing within each department, and then average those percentages. Each department, as it were, gets one vote. The most reliable number here is the average of raw numbers, which suggests that just under three fourths of the surveyed members in use "routine computing," which in this questionnaire is defined as "as e-mail, LIST servers, and philosophical bulletin boards to gather information or carry on philosophical conversations with other philosophers."

Note: I am indebted to Leeanna Cummings, the Philosophy Department secretary at the University of San Diego, for data entry of the paper responses to this survey.

Analysis

The overall picture presented by this survey is one in which approximately 75% the surveyed members of the profession use computers in routine ways, such as e-mail and list-servers.

Percentages drop off considerably when we look at participation in other network-based computer technologies that involve professional cooperation. In Response 3-A: Using Networks to Register for Philosophical Conferences, we see that only 38% of those surveyed use networks to register for philosophical conferences. This is hardly surprising. Some conferences, such as Carnegie Mellon’s Computing and Philosophy (CAP) Conference offer on-line registration, but the APA still does not. On-line registration is somewhat more difficult to set up than paper-based registration since it usually involves knowing something about CGI scripts, and security (for on-line payment of conference registration fees) is still an issue.

Response 3-B: Using Networks to Plan Philosophical Conferences, which deals with the use of networks to plan philosophical conferences, reveals an overall average participation rate of 36%. This number may, however, be misleading, since there is no base number specifying how many respondents are currently involved in planning philosophical conferences. It simply specifies the percentage of departments that have at least one person who uses networks to plan philosophical conferences. My hunch is that a high percentage of people who are currently planning philosophical conferences use the Internet as part of that process. Certainly this is regularly true of APA program committees and many conference notices contain e-mail address and web site addresses for additional material.

Response 3-C: Participation in On-Line Conferences. A relatively small percentage of members participate in on-line conferences. Of the departments responding on paper, only 12.4% had at least one member who had participated in an on-line conference; of the departments responding electronically, almost 30% had at least one department member who participated virtually in a conference. These results are not surprising, in part because such conferences are still comparatively rare.

Response 3-D: Using Networks to Participate in Professional Committees. A somewhat higher percentage of members use networks to participate in professional committees. Again, it is important to note here exactly what the figures mean. Of the departments responding on paper, 29% had at least one member who used networks to participate in professional committees; the figure for those departments that responded electronically was 38%, nine points higher. Once again, this is not calculated against a base of the total number of individuals participating in professional committees. I would suspect that, of those participating in professional committees, a high percentage use e-mail to coordinate with committee members on other campuses.

Response 3-E: Submitting Papers Electronically for Publication. The responses to this question, which deals with submitting papers electronically for publication, were approximately the same at responses to the previous question: 27% and 39%, respectively, for paper and electronic departmental responses. This number actually seems high to me, but that may be due to an ambiguity in our wording of the question. Many journals require a paper submission, as does the APA, and I would be surprised if there are many non-electronic journals that accept submissions that are only electronic without any paper copy. However, many journals welcome—and some strongly desire—that accepted pieces be accompanied by a disk copy of the article. This facilitates the printing process. Also, there is another barrier to electronic submissions. Transmitting complex word processing files electronically is often frustrating for both the sender and the recipient. Many computer users still find it difficult to attach a file to an e-mail message, and even experienced users may find it difficult to decode the attachment and load it in the proper program. Of course, one can use snail mail to send an electronic file without a paper copy, but there is something incongruous about this. Furthermore, many editors and reviewers are used to marking up paper manuscripts, and the transition to electronic submissions—which requires that reading be done at the computer screen—can be a considerable inconvenience. There are, of course, advantages as well, and these will increase as more sophisticated software is developed for document sharing. Reviewers will then be able to mark up electronic copies of manuscripts and editors can see all the comments together in a single file. Yet right now this is cutting edge technology that depends on everyone having the same software and easy access to a good Internet connection. Eventually all this will come to pass, and electronic submissions will eventually become the standard. At present, however, we are far from this state.

Response 3-F: Submitting Works to Electronic Journals. Electronic journals are still in their infancy. The first, The On-Line Journal of Analytical Philosophy, was first published in 1993; The Journal of Buddhist Ethics began publication in 1994. The responses indicate that 16% of the surveyed departments have at least one person who has submitted work to an electronic journal; the number for those responding electronically was 23%. This number will undoubtedly increase as the number of electronic journals increases, but it is not clear how quickly that number will increase. Electronic journals are much cheaper than their paper counterparts, but currently they bring in no revenues. Moreover, although they are high quality publications, they presently have less established status than older, traditional print-based journals and face an up-hill road for recognition.

Response 3-G: Other. The response rate here was fairly low, since the previous questions had covered many of the standard ways in which computing is used to enhance professional cooperation: 11% and 19%, respectively, for paper and electronic responses.

The interesting material here, of course, lies not in the numbers but in the comments. In addition to one general comment about "no computer and proud of it!", the paper respondents mentioned the following activities: co-editing electronic journals, corresponding with department members, discussing editorial board policy of an on-line journal, web pages for course materials, international communication, co-authoring papers, co-authoring grant proposals, distributing drafts of papers for comments, web pages for professional organizations, refereeing for journals, publicizing conferences, planning conferences, book publication, participating in electronic discussions of humanities sponsored by NEH, submitting and accepting referees’ reports, managing a listserver on C. S. Pierce, participating in an electronic chat room, participating in on-line meetings, contributing to on-line encyclopedias and databases, communicating with publishers about manuscripts, desktop publishing, distance education, grading tests, multimedia preparation of K-12 teachers’ guide. (Some redundancies have been eliminated.)

The electronic respondents added the following comments: For statewide and national collaboration, several listservers have been established to facilitate fast, timely communication between colleagues who share interests, but not physical proximity; Using the WWW to make pre-prints available to others; Using computers & networks to edit and compile publications such as encyclopedias with multiple authors; We use a distribution list with high school philosophy teachers, and I can use the list to pass messages to them, arrange conferences, etc; Call for papers for our publication: Horizons philosophiques; as editor of journal; Use of the WWW and e-mail for discussion and collaboration among philosophers and classes for dialogue and critical exchanges; Exchanges of research and teaching information, announcements of conferences, and helpful resources are continually being exchanged---in fact, our department has established such electronic collaboration as a key feature of its departmental mission for faculty and students; Using computer networks to survey courses, faculty, and departments on the web; Colleagues now routinely share drafts by email (e.g. conference commentators); Use email to advise and stay in touch with students who have transferred to colleges and universities where they are currently majoring in Philosophy; our "Academic Dialogue on Applied Ethics" which seeks to use the Web as a conversation medium in a way that improves upon f2f conference panels; Using computer networks to do surveys as part of research, to engage in discussions and get information on issues in applied ethics; advertising vacant position; help produce a WWW page for a professional society; Download papers from web page constructed for conference. Again, some redundancies were eliminated.

Conclusion

The overall picture that we see from this survey is of a group that makes extensive use of computers for such routine tasks as e-mail and one which, as opportunities for more extensive use of computers increase, is gradually becoming involved in more ambitious forms of network-based collaboration. Obviously, had this survey been taken ten years ago, the response would have been almost non-existent. The intriguing thought is to imagine what the results will be ten years from now.