I here outline, among other independent initiatives associated with the attempt to keep the Operations Research Society of Ireland going, some of the work done with the software-house IMS in the context of the EU-supported 'Information Technology Uptake Support Environment' or IT-USE project. The key concept here was the development of a user-friendly problem-orientated knowledge-base as a learning resource.

The concept pre-dated the opening up of the Internet, and as a result it never was a commercial success. It did however enable experience to be gained in hypertext navigation which subsequently proved useful in many Internet-based applications.

It is also appropriate to reference the Biotechnology and Sustainability paper published in Farm and Food in 2001.

Operations Researchers, Engineers, Management

I attempted during my Presidency to make bridges into the Regional Studies domain, the common ground being the use of the computer in spatial planning, and into the Engineering domain, where the IEI at the time was toying with the idea of a Management Division. In the end the consensus was to try to keep the ORMSI going with John Cantwell in the chair (see below).

The Society retains a tenuous existence, on the fringe of Cathal Brugha's work in the UCD Business School in Carysfort. International contacts are being kept up and people attend conferences. On the whole the OR paradigm seems to have run its course, and most of the innovative analytical approaches pioneered by OR in the 1960s have become routine. The sensitive management of innovation, taking into account both the human and the technological dimensions, remains a problem area, where activists tend to trade under the name of 'the socio-technical approach'.

Industrial Policy and the Culliton Report

6/8/91 / Submission

A Chara / This submission contains the following sections:

(A) Background, in which I attempt to summarise my own experience as a basis for recognising and commenting on the problem;

(B) Statement of the problem, in terms of the obstacles to the development of innovative added-value employment-generating enterprise in the Irish environment;

(C) Outline theoretical approach to the development of a framework supportive of new employment-generating added-value enterprise;

(D) Suggestion of some immediate next steps which might be implemented without delay.

The full submission is accessible in the hypertext, under the above headings.

Operations Research and Management Science

John Cantwell / 3 Bulloch Harbour / Dalkey

14/9/91 / re: ORMSSI

Dear John / Further to our meeting on Thursday: I have looked up the constitutional records, and the way we wanted it at the meeting on the Constitution which we had in DCU was that the outgoing President should be the vice-President for a year, and the incoming President should be the vice-President for the following year, in the 2-year term. It is of course my fault for not getting round to producing an integrated version, with the original, the Craig Gardner overlay and the DCU overlay all in one document. I will try to get around to this in time to ratify it at the next general meeting.

So I think my assumption that I was 'on the committee' was and remains correct, until such time as a new vice-President is designated, who will be your successor. Indeed, in the present state of the Society I don't think we can afford to be legalistic about 'elections' etc; we should accept the support on the Council of anyone who is prepared to do a bit of work to help with the recovery process, whether they were actually nominated at the last AGM or not.

We have missed the boat for 1992, in that no proper meeting took place before the summer vacation, so as to allow planning for the new season. The following is a collation of ideas already submitted in letters, and an updated summary of the contributions I had in mind to make, had there been one:

1. Given as starting-point the cross-linking opportunities which I set up in the previous period, let me summarise these:

(a) the IEI have a nominal 'computer' division which is blended off among the Electricals and electronics people. There was briefly a 'computer engineering' division some years ago, and it flourished for a time but lapsed, leaving behind a frustrated constituency of computer-using engineers, interested in innovative applications. Some of these could be picked up for the OR network, if a marketing job were to be done. The key contact on the Division Committee is Ian Cowan in Eolas, who has done some systems modelling in the wind-energy area, and is also a luminary of the Solar Energy Society. I have made them aware of the ORMSI as a possible collaborator in an appropriate joint venture, and they have expressed interest, with the probability of responding positively. I have also taken steps to identify the members of the Computer Society of Ireland who are engineers.

(b) the Regional Studies Association (of which one of the leading members is Joe Davis, an ORMSI member of many years standing) is in fact a totally Dublin-based body, and is aware of the need in its own interest to cultivate the Regional Colleges. I have proposed to them that they should consider associating themselves with the ORMSI in the running of a conference at which RTC staff would submit case-study papers dealing with innovative problem-solving encounters which they have had with regional industry. (I should say I did this long ago, during my term of office; it has taken time to mature and is now coming home to roost.) They have set up a committee to look into it, with Hank van der Kemp (who is in Bord Pleanala), Gerry Sweeney (ex IIRS, Cranley's No 2, now a regional development consultant at European level) and myself. This committee is supposed to meet and report back to the next meeting of the RSA Council on Oct 22.

2. Given the above opportunities created with the momentum of my period, I think we would be foolish not to take them up. What I had in mind to suggest was to take them both up together, and bring out a call for papers for a conference next Spring to take place in Athlone, under the general title 'Information Technology, Innovation and Enterprise: the Role of the Regional Colleges'.

This would be jointly sponsored by the ORMSI, the RSA and the IEI, and would be promoted on all 3 networks, as well as via the RTCs themselves, where the key person is Bob Kavanagh, our member (who I understand has agreed to serve on Council) in Athlone RTC.

The enclosed copy of a Technology Ireland article indicates how timely this initiative is, and names Bob. He is a key person in the development of consultancy contacts for College staff, and has indicated support for the concept.

I would be prepared to run with this, but primarily as the link-person between the 3 bodies; the front runner should be the man on the spot, Bob Kavanagh. A small steering committee consisting of one from each body other than myself might be feasible and useful.

3. We should use the opportunity to identify the 'national contribution' IFORS paper, and publicise the 'prize' procedure at the time of the call for papers. We should make entry conditional on joining the ORMSI prior to the conference. We must avoid a repeat of the 1989/90 procedure whereby the IFORS support was awarded without a sufficient quantity of entries.

4. We should run the next AGM of the Society in the interstices of the conference, possibly on the Sunday morning if it is a weekend affair, thus pulling in some 'new blood' in the form of those new members who had registered in order to qualify for access with financial support to the IFORS conference, and enabling the incoming Council to be enhanced.

5. Given that it proves possible to get an incoming Council for 1992 with an adequate representative spread, we need to look into ways of ensuring that the members of the Council communicate with a secretariat, and a secretariat communicates with the members, in some sort of regular routine manner, such as to provide members with value for their subscription and a sense of belonging to a network which is useful to them. This is the reason for the existence of the Society, and it has on the whole in recent years failed miserably in that respect.

Our member David Tocher in Limerick has come up with an idea for electronic networking which is worth exploring. In essence, it involves making use of existing facilities available to computerate academics (and which can be made use of by non-academics like myself via Eurokom and other applied-research conferencing networks), and setting up a conference, accessible to ORMSI Council members, to which they would upload from time to time advance notice of relevant future seminar and conference programmes. Such programmes are usually produced by every active OR-relevant academic department at the beginning of each term.

It would be the task of the ORMSI secretariat to do an editing job on this electronic conference about 3 times a year, and produce a paper-based newsletter for members, folding in additionally any relevant IFORS information about conferences on the international network.

The paper-based newsletter could also have assessments of past events by someone who had participated, reviews of published books etc.

The timing of the issues of the newsletters would dictate the timing of the meetings of Council. It would be politic to combine a meeting of Council with one of the seminars as advertised in the Newsletter. Thus for example if there is a seminar in TCD at 4.00 pm the Council meeting could be at 5.30 and some Council members might take time off work to attend the seminar (this situation has occurred in the past, but by chance).

6. The functioning of such a secretariat is more than an administrative chore; it is a knowledge-based activity, and includes an editorial filtration and distillation function. The present writer would be prepared to take it on for a trial period, provided some contribution were made towards the time, effort and expenses involved from the funds of the Society. Indeed, it might be appropriate to define the job as 'part-time executive secretary', with appropriate terms of reference, and seek applications. In quantitative terms, it might amount to one day per month, for someone who already had a PC and was into electronic networking.

7. We have had several enquiries about corporate affiliation, and there are at least 3 warm contacts which could be cultivated (Coillte, Bord na Mona and Aer Lingus). The cultivation of these contacts, and their provision with an appropriate level of service of which they were conscious, involving their staff in a meaningful manner, would be a task for an Executive Secretary, and would increase the part-time load significantly. The corporate affiliation fee would need to be negotiated so as to permit at least another day or two per month of dedicated time.

8. The foregoing is, in my opinion, a minimum programme for viability, but is feasible. If however the Society lacks the political will to proceed with it, there are several optional paths for the Society to take:

(a) To use the accumulated funds to buy a full year's service from the IEI in the context of the development of a new Information Technology and Management Science Division, and by doing so to help to conjure this so far hypothetical body into existence. At then end of the period, members would have the option to renew as IEI members, at an upgraded level of service, and at a realistic subscription. A few might, and would carry into the Division the historical continuity with the ORMSI, and the IFORS affiliation as an Irish national entity. There would be some political support from the IEI for this, from the people concerned with the need to upgrade the IEI profile in the field of innovative computer applications.

(b) To adopt the same procedure to buy a full years membership of the ORS and to re-constitute ourselves as the Irish Region of the ORS. In this case we would lose our IFORS affiliation. There are some members of ORS in Limerick and in Northern Ireland, I understand, and these could be pulled in to the Irish Branch, helping to render it viable. The ORS would provide the secretariat, and members would receive the Journal, which is a useful and significant publication.

(c) To wind the Society up and sink into oblivion, donating the funds to an appropriate charity.

The foregoing is a statement of the opportunities facing the Society as a result of my term as President. I have already conveyed them, piecemeal, on various occasions and in various letters, but have not had the opportunity to put a comprehensive statement before a properly-convened meeting of Council. I welcome this possibility, and will attend it in order to support and expand on the points raised, provided it does not take place on October 3 or 4 when I will be in Brussels on business.

Yours sincerely / Roy H W Johnston

I had left the Society with a credible agenda at the end of my term of office, and some forward momentum for implementing it. Unfortunately none of these opportunities was taken up; there appeared to be a leadership vacuum. Subsequently Cathal Brugha took over the Presidency and ran the Society as a sort of adjunct to his work in the Smurfit Business School, UCD, keeping alive the international contacts.

Engineers' Knowledge-base

On the Possibility of Accessing Knowledge Relating to the IEI Membership

Roy H W Johnston 14/10/91

This outline concept has arisen from the experience of the work of the Electrical, Electronic and Computer Division, particularly in respect of the Computers in Engineering Seminar, for which the marketing left much to be desired.

In the latter context the problem arose of identifying who among the IEI membership had an innovative interest in computer applications. It turned out that there is no means of producing a sub-set of IEI members by attribute, although the software exists for doing so; what is lacking is up-to-date attribute data of adequate sophistication.

The problem is that this data is at present owned by the members, who prefer on the whole not to divulge it. If it were divulged, it would not be clear who would then own it, and what it would be used for.

There is no doubt that a well-structured knowledge-base, containing information on engineers in Ireland who are working in the leading firms, should be of value to someone. Let us consider how one might be constructed, and who might be persuaded to take an interest in it.

Relational Knowledge-base

A firm might have products or services, processes, technologies, markets.

An engineer, as well as a name and an address, would work for a firm, and would know a technology, one or more processes and/or products and/or markets; he or she would have a role, in management, R&D, sales, purchasing, maintenance or whatever.

An economic sector might have a volume, a spectrum of firm sizes, a growth-rate, possession of certain key technologies, an export ratio etc.

A technology might be characterised by a spectrum of knowhow (specialist disciplines etc), one or more centres of relevant expertise (in Ireland and abroad) etc.

Apply the relational principle to this, and you get a situation where you can pull information from all databases in support of any single record or set of records belonging to one.

For example, all engineers possessing knowledge of technology X in all sectors of which the growth exceed y%.

Likewise, all engineers concerned with maintenance in process Z. Etc etc.

Such a knowledge-base would of course be of immense utility to the IEI from the point of view of planning and targeting their education programme. For example, the key technologies in the growth sectors would be where the education effort should be targeted.

It would also be of use to individual engineers, in purchasing, marketing, maintenance or whatever, as a source of contacts.

It would perhaps be of use to firms in support of their innovation process, as well as purchasing and marketing.

Note that we are one step away from the Kompass type of operation which relates to specific products, and which is already the workhorse of the trade. We are talking of a knowledge-base of skilled people who are knowledgeable in various areas relevant to the innovation process.

This has been attempted before, but mostly in the context of university-based R&D, and there is a credibility problem. Also, the people concerned tend not to have a dynamic interest in the updating process.

How to Sell the Idea

The approach might include the provision of a procedure for engineers to approach their employers, so as to get them to take an interest from their own angle.

A lead-group might be persuaded to pilot it as a free service, and when it was shown to work, everyone else would want to join, for a fee.

The centres of expertise might be identified via Eolas, which might be persuaded to take an interest in keeping that aspect updated (cf Tom Sheedy).

The CSO is already producing sectoral data on diskette as a routine, and looking for people to use it (cf Adrian Redmond).

Possible Hosts

A system along these lines supplying time-sensitive business information has been successfully marketed by Cognotec. We are not time-sensitive to the same extent, but the type of knowledge-base involved is subject to time-erosion and to accessibility problems (eg via printed directories etc).

Initial Step

The initial working group might also consider taking on the task of identifying a pilot user-group, representative of those who would have an interest in updating each aspect of the knowledge-base.

Thus one member might have a direct interest in the 'firms' angle, another in the 'technologies' angle, a third in the 'sectoral performance' angle, and so on. It is important that the person responsible for updating each of the databases in the linked system should have a direct interest in doing so, and that it should be an activity which is currently being engaged in anyway, though possibly not with the aid of IT support. The opportunity to participate in the development of a cross-linked system as outlined above, and to take responsibility for updating an aspect of it, should be perceived as a positive opportunity and not as another routine chore.

So far we are talking of the pilot-group. Once the system is up and running, it should perhaps be regarded as a 'club' of which one becomes a member, in one's own interest, on payment of a registration fee. Members of the IEI would automatically be members of the club, in that they could if they so wished access the IEI membership database and update their own record from their own PC. If they were not computerate, they would receive a form from the IEI at annual registration time and the data would be entered as a routine. If such people wanted a search done in the IEI office on their behalf, they would need to pay a search fee. This might be a revenue-generator. If they had their own PC and modem they could search themselves; it would be a free service available to computerate members; the fact that they contribute their data to the database entitles them to search it without charge, provided they put the effort in themselves.

The 'firms' aspect would differ from existing 'firms' databases in that the emphasis would be on engineering skills, technologies, innovation potential. Possibly Eolas and/or the CII might like to take up the possibility of their existing technologies and/or firms databases being upgraded to cover these aspects, allowing their existing databases to be used as the cores of the new ones. This aspect would need to be negotiated.

Role of the Proposer

The foregoing was a development of the concept earlier partially implemented with Mentec in 1988. I was trying to take up the socio-technical aspect and to identify the end-users, and to motivate them. I did not succeed. The reason for my lack of success is perhaps explicable in terms of the IT-USE knowledge-base, which is outlined below. One needs top management support, and an active project-team involving motivated end-users. None such was in sight.

The Minitel as a false start

John Finnegan / Minitel / IPC House Shelbourne Rd D4

6/9/92

Dear John Finnegan

It is some months since we installed Minitel, and on the whole we have not had much use of it yet, as we ran into some initial barriers in the areas we were interested in, and this was inhibiting. Then your market research people rang us, and we found we were not able to reply sensibly, so I devoted some time today to doing an initial survey. This letter is the result.

I should say that I am what I think is known as a knowledge engineer, in my current contract with a software house, and therefore have a nose for bad knowledge-base design features.

[A] General Criticisms

2. Information in the directory should be in 2 broad classes:

(a) where you need one piece of information quickly (eg time of a train)
(b) where you are doing a systematic search and might need to log it.

You could certainly sub-class within these broad classes, possibly in 2 broad classes 'business' and 'citizen'.

3. There should be a procedure for logging a session interfacing with your PC, in such a way as you can edit it afterwards in your own time. The idea of having a minitel software emulator in your PC is not good, as this militates against the quickie. Long live the special-purpose terminal for the latter purpose. But for a session which you would like to log, you need the PC interface. You do NOT need a printer attached directly. Do you have a PC interface in this mode?

4. You should not allow services to waste your paid time with fancy displays and pretty pictures. KTL and MVR are bad examples of this. If I want the Arranmore ferry times I do NOT want a picture of a ferry.

5. Why aren't the codes more mnemonic? They are slightly but inconsistently so. Could you not impose some rules on your contributors? KTL, MVR and CSTAR are quite meaningless; the key to the development of Minitel is good and consistent regionalisation, in well-defined regions, which should end up having a political dimension, and be valid for all services.

[B] Specifics

1. AIB gives a complete banking service, while B of I is quite useless. This is up to them, but I must say that if the B of I was up to AIB standard, I would be a regular user of this service. Can you not put on the pressure with them?

2. Techtel I have tried to use, but it seems to come up quite often with a blank screen; perhaps it is because I have not yet tuned in to their keyword philosophy. I must talk to them; they give an e-mail address. I wonder is it much in use. It is an excellent concept, with high value-added potential for the users, if it is done right. I will look into this further.

3. EDS: this would be of much more use to me if it included Northern Ireland. I use it for the non-Dublin numbers, as an alternative to having all those big books lying around; this was my original reason for getting Minitel into the house.

4. ENTS seems to be dead, though its a good concept; some of the info seems to have surfaced on BIT; there is need for a consistent regional policy (see above); a good service for the greater Dublin region should include places like Wicklow as a district. Indeed, defining the districts within the Dublin region has quasi-political implications in local government reconstruction.

5. GULLIVER would be very useful to the public, but it looks like it is confined to the travel agents. Why is this?

6. Why is RAIL not working? This is an obvious one, which I need often; the phone enquiry system they have is abysmal, and I am never sure if the timetable I have is up to date. It should of course include NI Rail. There should also be an air transport one, with arrivals and departures at ALL airports in the country, including Northern Ireland. You can get this for Paris!

(I see you now have ALLTRAVEL, giving 400 airlines; this came as a separate piece of paper, and not as a directory update; perhaps you should consider having a looseleaf directory system?)

7. CSTAR looks like a good regional yellow pages and small ads service; this is a 'one-off quickie' service.

But why allow it to be blended with the Cork RTC system, which is clearly one you would want to consult only occasionally and then to log? The Cork RTC service should be related to a total all-Ireland (ie including NI) 3rd-level system service, as it conveys specialist information of all-Ireland relevance (eg curricula of nautical courses, if someone wants to go for seamanship).

This feedback is far from complete, but I really feel you need to impose some discipline on the structuring of the knowledge, and not to accept contributors unless they abide by it. For example, in KTL if you go for transport it gives you the various private bus-lines as well as Bus Eireann; this is fine, but what you want is a destination. If you then type Glencolumcille in as a keyword, it gives you sites of interest, instead of how to get there!! Travellers to not care about the bus company; they want a destination.

In conclusion: may I ask specifically if there is on the market software which will interface an existing special Minitel console to an existing PC, enabling a logging procedure to be toggled? And if so, at what price? I have heard of a complete emulator system, replacing the special console, but at a price which seemed to me to be too high, and with the apparent implication that the special console would be replaced by the emulator, which would militate against minitel use for the quickie one-off.

Because, if not, I would be pleased to produce one, or get one produced, if you would agree to promote it, at an appropriate price, to your users.

Yours sincerely / Roy H W Johnston

In the end the Bank of Ireland produced a service, to which we subscribed, and it was useful. Then they 'upgraded' it to being PC-based, using software which required 90MB of space. The Minitel programme, which came up quickly in raw DOS, occupied about 60kB, and worked well, enabling a quick enquiry to be made into the status of an account. Its proposed all-singing all-dancing replacement would have taken ages to come up, being dependent on Windows. So we got out of electronic banking, and went back to bits of paper.

An Information Technology Uptake Support Environment

This paper was published in the March 1993 issue of the Engineers' Journal (Volume 46, pp16-19, Institution of Engineers of Ireland); it had been read, along with a demonstration of the system, at a meeting of the Electrical, Electronic and Computing Division of the IEI on Jan 21 1993.

Introduction

To understand the need for this new concept of 'IT uptake'(1), it is necessary to state the problem for which it is the solution. Information Technology (IT) projects:

• often run over budget; it is estimated(2) that some 75% of all IT projects are never completed, or if completed are not used;
• are perceived by management as being poor value for money;
• produce systems which people do not use: how often have we seen the VDU on the desk which is primarily a status symbol?
• ignore the human and organisational (H&O) factors: by this we mean perceptions, politics, training, reporting procedures, hierarchies, the human-computer interface etc..

Failure Classification

The four areas are:

(a) technical problems within the system itself;
(b) availability of data;
(c) the skill, motivation and competence of the user;
(d) the nature of the organisation.

The relative importance of these areas of failure is not implied by their order. Successful uptake must however build on knowledge and skills relating to all these four areas, and the uptake process needs to be scheduled so that all possible failure foci are pre-empted at each stage of the implementation.

The structure of the IT-USE supportive knowledge-base owes much to this and related work, which is duly credited.

What is Uptake?

• integrated into the organisation: can you conceive of the organisation without the IT system? Is the IT system simply an overlay on an already-established organisation?
• is actually used with enthusiasm by dedicated and knowledgeable people, for the purpose for which the system was designed, taking up all the potential of the system?
• when used is effective; you can have a very efficient system, which people like to use, doing a task which is different from the task which really needs to be done, based possibly on a obsolete business concept. Such a system would not be 'effective'.
  

Domains of Expertise

(a) Strategic issues, as studied by economists and management scientists, where the issues develop slowly over a long period.

(b) How organisations work; what are the issues within organisations?

(c) Problems arising in the hardware and software design, and the human-computer interface.

(d) Planning the IT uptake, so as to take the Human and Organisational factors into account.

(e) Re-designing the work, the actual tasks people do, in the post-uptake IT-enhanced situation.

(f) Organisational training in awareness, participation and management, as well as operational training for the new system.

Let us consider IT as an Organisational Change Agent, in the context of these domains of expertise. IT affects:

• the nature of peoples' work: there is a fundamental difference between work done in traditional clerical or manual mode, and work done through IT. This difference can involve either impoverishment or enrichment of the human role, and significantly affect the job satisfaction of the user.
• the relative powers of people, departments, units: those units or departments which have previous IT experience, where this experience is positive, will be more likely to know what is feasible, as regards new ways of processing data into information, and upgrading information to knowledge. This effect can be cumulative.
• IT can support new structures or reinforce existing ones.
  

This should not be the case; such changes should be planned actions, thought out and implemented by management, in the course of planning the system and its uptake.

If an existing organisational structure is wrong, and IT is overlaid on it as it is, then in its new IT-enhanced form it is likely to be even more wrong.

If the organisational structure, while being good initially, is 'set in electronic concrete' it becomes a candidate for subsequent disaster. Organisational flexibility should if possible be embodied in the IT design and uptake process.

The Structure of IT-USE

Then there is the understanding level, which aims to present the elements of the solution in an easily assimilable form, and finally there is the management of the solution, making use of the elements which have been understood.

The 'awareness' level in IT-USE is serviced primarily by interactive motion video and audio; this is the user's first introduction to the IT-USE system, and the impact is important. This is achieved by using a two-sided laser disk, each side with an interactive video (IV) case-study, in the form of a multi-ending mini-drama.

This is supported by additional IV material, making use of video, animation and audio, which introduces the domains of the knowledge-base. This is referred to as the 'courseware'.

The arguments used in the 'courseware' are supported and documented in the knowledge-base itself (the 'supportware').

Below the 'awareness' (audio-visual) level there are some 6000 screen-equivalents of 'supportware', organised in over 70 'modules'. Each module addresses one or more issues identified as being important in the context of IT uptake.

The management of the issues arising in the uptake process is facilitated by the use of 'tools', in a 'toolbox'.

These are accessed from within the supportware, both at the points where they are referenced in each module, and also directly from the 'top' (ie from the main overview map of the domains).

Courseware

The 'side 1' case-study looks at the process of IT uptake in strategic terms, from the boardroom perspective.

The 'side 2' case-study highlights the views of the personnel who use the system, and manage the day-to-day business operations.

Each case-study pauses at several decision-points, at which the user is invited to assess the situation and make a decision, which affects the progress of the mini-drama.

As an aid to these decisions, the user is invited to browse the knowledge-base; this introduces the user to the existence of the supportware, which is of course of general relevance, not being specifically related to the case-study situation.

Supportware

The 'navigation rules' are introduced in the first screen; within a module you can go on to the next screen, or down for more detail, or back, retracing your steps. This navigation screen is on call at any time.

There is also a 'fish-eye map' of your current location within the module, which is on call at any time; this shows a detailed map within-module, and the location of the current module in relation to its neighbours in the domain.

At the top level is an overview map of the six main domains, each object on the map leading to a lower-level mapping of the modules within the domain. You can access any module from these domain-maps.

At the next level is the screen within a module; a module might contain 20 or 30 screens, in a branched structure. Concepts within a screen are further developed by pop-up panels, activated by 'clicking' on the concept name, or on a concept icon, with the mouse. While there are paths through the system suggested, any module is directly accessible.

A typical module is in the form of a hypertext-like review of a specified problem area associated with the uptake process; it draws together the concepts needed for addressing the problem, and suggests action guidelines towards the solution.

Each screen has many linkages to detail at lower level.

Tools

Supportware Content

* environment: dynamic, complex, diverse;
* organisation: decentralise, business units, functional areas;
* IT systems: flexible, decentralised, market-orientated, restructuring
* Business Re-engineering case-studies

Organisational issues:

* context: structure (typology, decentralisation, co-ordination);
* people, tasks, goals, technology;
* management: power (sources, relations), conflict, industrial relations;
* uptake outcomes.

IT Problems:

* human-computer interface: user, tool, task, environment;
* health/safety: stress (work, computer-originating, individual, preventive management), radiation, visual, posture.

Uptake Planning:

* analysis: unplanned effects, avoidable problems, benefits;
* organisation: priority areas, project teams, steering committee;
* implementation: re-engineering, requirements, prototyping, work design, training.

Work Design:

* understanding the concepts;
* planning: approach, participation, start-up;
* analysis: gather information, future, objectives, re-design the work;
* implementation: plan, change work, office layout, operational training, user support;
* evaluation: planning, gather data, assessment.

Training:

* strategic planning, four types, the process;
* needs analysis: sequential training;
* programme design: principles, methods, implementation;
* training programme evaluation.

The Uptake Plan & the Systems Plan

Analogously, the resources available for the Uptake Plan are basically the domains of the IT Uptake Support Environment.

We have sources of knowledge about:

* organisational understanding and re-structuring (business process re-engineering)
* problems at the human-computer interface
* re-designing the work
* training

These resources are used to guide the development of in-house procedures, involving:

* analysing the 'politics' of the problem,
* identifying the real needs as perceived by the end-users,
* identifying the 'stress points',
* setting up project teams and a co-ordinating steering committee,
* re-designing and where possible enriching the tasks,
* scheduling a targeted training programme...

Who would Use the System?

IT System implementers usually find the approach suggested in the Uptake Plan modules useful, as a guide to the formulation of an in-house Uptake Plan.

Other material is referenced where it is seen to be relevant to the specific problems encountered in the uptake process.

IT professionals usually benefit from some exposure to the human behavioural aspects, which they may previously have encountered in a negative context, and interpreted as mere ignorance or bloody-mindedness.

End-users are likely to develop a sense of empowerment, in a context where their experience is being actively drawn upon in the design of the new system, and the screens with which they are going to have to interface.

Training specialists, who may have a general training background, will benefit from picking up the IT-specific aspects.

In particular the targeting and scheduling aspects needed for dealing with an innovative situation are likely to prove important.

The 'training for participation' aspect, is also important, where the development of the innovative system is dependent on the active participation of end-users.

IT consultants, like in-house IT professionals, are likely to find exposure to the human and organisational factors involved in IT uptake beneficial, especially as most of the disasters on record may be attributed to their ignoring them.

Benefits

There are many ways in which cost-reduction may take place, including avoidance of costly failures, due to investment in an ill-designed and inflexible system which people find unusable; also reduction in the unit-costs of the unit-operations of the process, due to their information-intensive component being well adapted both to the process and to the skills of the workforce.

By ensuring that the system is designed with the needs of the marketplace in mind, using the insights of those experienced members of the workforce who have been dealing with it, IT-USE contributes to the revenue-generation process. This is enhanced in proportion as the reorganised workforce works co-operatively in creative market-oriented units.

Conclusion

IT-USE can provoke and support: because many of the ideas presented may be open-ended, they will engender discussion as to whether to accept them or not. The system can perhaps be regarded as a 'gadfly' stimulating thought.

IT-USE takes up aspects hitherto neglected: like, for example, the idea that people can be creative, have ideas, and that it is important that they should feel empowered rather than threatened by new technology; or, perhaps, that ease of maintenance and upgrading of a system is an important factor in making it usable; or that the user should have a say in the design of the screen.

IT-USE can change attitudes: if the IT people can be got to see that opposition to change is not necessarily just ignorance, then perhaps users might get to interact meaningfully with them.

A good system can only be developed with creative interaction between IT-people and end-users.

Notes:

2. K Lyytinen and R Hirschheim (1987): Information Systems Failures - A Survey and Classification of the Empirical Literature; in Zorkoczy P I (ed) Oxford Surveys in Information Technology, Volume 4, Oxford University Press, pp. 257-309. This book presents a comprehensive review of failures, including a 'stakeholder' model.

3. John Seely Brown: 'Research that Re-invents the Corporation'; Harvard Business Review, Jan-Feb 1991. This review of the work of the Palo Alto Research Centre (PARC) of the Xerox Corporation covers the human sciences teamwork aspect of the post-1980 turnaround in Xerox design philosophy. It spans the transition from the purely technical view of the 1970s to the human-centred 'co-production' process of the 90s.

4. Michael Hammer; 'Re-engineering the Work: Don't Automate, Obliterate'; Harvard Business Review, July-August 1990. Michael Hammer is President of his own IT consulting firm in Cambridge, Mass. This article gives case study information from re-engineering work in Ford and Mutual Benefit Life. Old partitioned job definitions are swept away, and all work (in the insurance example) is done by 'Case managers'. A checklist of re-engineering precepts is given.

5. Business Re-engineering and IT; Business Intelligence ltd, London, July 1992.

An Outline 'Uptake Plan' to illustrate the IT-USE application

Introduction

Background

Phase 1: Awareness Creation

Create awareness at top management level that the failure of an IT system can be related to human and organisational factors, and that these factors can be understood and managed so as to generate an environment in which the IT system is taken up willingly by its prospective users.

We call this 'understanding IT-uptake'; IT-USE is an aid to this process. We suggest that the first phase should be for the interactive video books and case-studies to be viewed collectively by a top-management group, with intervals for brain-storming.

The output of the brainstorming session should be:

* the selection of one or more people from the group, whose task would be:

* to enter Phase 2 of the process, and initiate the development of an Uptake Plan specific to the organisation, using the resources provided in IT-USE in conjunction with their own experience.

Note that during this initial introductory phase it is possible to access the underlying knowledge-base from the pause-points in the Interactive Video (IV) 'books'. The purpose of accessing the knowledge-base in the introductory phase is to illustrate the fact that it is there, and that the assertions contained in the introductory IV books are backed by research and documentation. It is not necessary at this stage to study the underlying 'supportware' knowledge-base in detail.

This 'jump into supportware' is made using the 'down arrow', which becomes live during the IV book pauses; watch for the cursor changing shape when it is on the 'down arrow'. It is projected in future releases to make the 'down arrow' in the IV books change colour when it is live, in the same way as it does in the supportware itself.

Phase 2: Supportware Overview

The selected explorer(s) should take a route through the supportware at overview level, all domains, starting with the strategic, then moving on to the organisational, the IT Problems, the Uptake Plan, Work Design and Training.

At present this pass has to be done referring back to the main overview map after each domain overview module. It is possible, in a future release, that this path may be pre-programmed, as an identified 'total overview path', if this is what people want.

Our current feeling, however, is that people will prefer after each module to return to the overview map, in order to orient themselves in relation to the knowledge-base as a whole, to learn how to related the screens of the main overview map to each other, and to get a feel for what else is in the domains, by simply viewing the titles in passing, and perhaps sometimes clicking on the 'upper hot-spot question-mark' to get an expansion of the title.

To be specific, we recommend the following overview-level selection:

* 'Strategic' domain: the general overview, and the general environment, organisation and IT overviews (ie the 'top 4' modules).

* 'Understanding your Organisation' domain: the general overview only.

* 'IT-Originating Problems' domain: the general overview only.

In the latter 2 cases the bibliographic suggestions may optionally be taken up, if it is felt that the arguments need further support.

* 'IT-Uptake Plan' domain: overview, drop down into the 'analyse' and 'organise' overviews optionally; explore bibliographic notes given on 'down-screens'; key papers are given in electronic reprint form.

* 'Work Design' domain: overview and the associated background module 'Understanding Work Design'.

* Training domain: overview, also the associated modules 'strategic training' and 'four types of training'.

From this the explorers should get a general feel for what lies below the overviews, digging down if necessary. It should not be necessary to look at every screen and every panel in order to get a feel for where things are.

The explorer(s) should bear in mind the overall structure: analyse, organise, implement, evaluate; they should be thinking of:

* who would be the best person to deal with these aspects, in the specific context of your organisation.

(For example, analysing what the problem is, and how an uptake plan would help to resolve it, may be one person, but organising for implementation in the light of this analysis may be another person or several people, and the implementation itself will almost certainly be an extended team activity.)

The output of Phase 2 will therefore be a 'project team', at a 'meta-project' level; we have not yet defined the actual IT project; the 'meta-project' is the development of an Uptake Plan and a Systems Plan interactively in collaboration, with the Systems Plan not yet having yet been defined, or being only in the early stages of definition.

Phase 3: The Uptake Plan Project Team

I have edited this down; in the original we named certain modules of supportive material, but I feel it is sufficient here to give the headers only.

This will therefore involve the Uptake Plan Project Team (as defined in Phase 2; this should include the original 'explorers', their roles now having been further refined) in interacting with specified modules of the knowledge-base, relating to their areas of specialisation; for example:

* analysis of past failures for creative insights, gaining insights from in-house experience interacting with research experience relating to elsewhere;

* Identification of the priority areas for IT-based enhancement;

* identification of the key people in these priority areas, and the definition of their 'political' objectives;

* organisation of several Project Teams, and a Steering Committee, involving the key people from the user groups as well as IT people, around the priority development areas;

We are now at the stage where the System Plan can begin to be specified, in a context in which uptake of the developed system is assured.

Phase 4: Project Teams for New System Implementation

This will therefore involve an extended training programme, in which selected members of the projected extended project team structure will be exposed, on a pilot basis, under the guidance of the Phase 3 people, to the IT-USE knowledge-base, using specified guided tour procedures, relating to their needs as identified in Phase 3.

It is not feasible in the abstract to be specific about the selection of team members; this must be a task for the 'Phase 3 people' themselves, who should be able to advise on the selection from their own experience.

Note that if the team is to be selected on the basis of the advice given in the system, there should be strong representation from the angle of the ultimate end-user of the service supply system (ie the 'customer'), as well as from the direct end-user at the screen, who often has to deal with the customer.

Relevant Domains:

All should go through the Uptake Plan domain as a whole, taking the jumps into other domains as they are offered; these jumps include one into the 'stress at work' module.

There should be some division of labour among the team members in the extent to which they devote attention to the Work Design and Training areas. All should get an overview feel for what is involved in both domains; they should then home in on their specialist interests.

Tools:

It is difficult at this point to be prescriptive; most modules have summary checklist material associated, and these should be downloaded by users (using the SAVE AS option when in the DOS environment) as a routine, for use as a basis for the development of personalised mini-reports and notes, adapting the generalised module material to the specifics of the target situation.

The Individual Stress questionnaire tool will be found useful for 'before and after' studies of acute problem situations.

The Job Diagnostic Survey questionnaire should also be used for 'before and after' studies, and for inter-departmental comparisons, enabling 'good' areas to be identified, and acute problem areas pre-empted.

Whether to administer these questionnaires on paper or interactively at the screen is a tactical decisions, which will depend on the situation.

Procedures for storing and comparing the results of administering these questionnaires with specified groups exist for the Job Diagnostic Survey, and are projected for a future release in the case of the Individual Stress questionnaire.

Phase 5: Customised Course Design for Team Members

There should by now be some pilot in-house experience, resulting from the participation of the pilot-group in the IT-USE process. There will have emerged some specific sets of modules which the first-round users have found useful in the achievement of their objectives. There will be several sets, corresponding broadly to managers, problem-analysers, solution-organisers and implementers.

The IT-USE suppliers (IMS) will take this information on board, and produce a set of customised screens, to occupy to location of the current pilot 'customisation screen', and enable subsequent groups to be piloted through the system in a manner related to their specific needs.

Each customised screen will select a 'course' from the supportware which is relevant to a user-group of a particular type.

This of course will not preclude any user from accessing any module via the general mapping and navigation system; they will serve as introductory oriented guided tours.

Procedures will be developed for bringing this customisation of guided tour paths under the total in-house control of the user.

Irish Times Science & Technology Revisited

As part of the response to the Aug 19 Nature article ('Irish Government Turns its Back on Science') it is appropriate to look back over the past 2 decades to the period when I was shadowing the then new National Science Council as Science and Technology Correspondent of this paper.

I ran the weekly column from 1970 to 1976, and covered quite a lot of ground, in some 0.25 megawords. Subsequently, at the suggestion of some colleagues who regretted the column's demise, I distilled some of this into a draft of a book, about 120 kilo-words, for which I had a publisher, who specialised in third-world developmental material, and had UN links. This was a relevant market, as the problem of turning round science and technology to support the independent democratic development of a post-colonial country, instead of exploiting it in the imperial interest, is central to our times. The episodes in Ireland which I had described during the life of the column were mostly case-studies relevant to this problem.

Unfortunately the publisher went into liquidation, and I was left stranded, with an 'unpublished masterpiece' on my hands; I turned to other things and left it in the drawer. It is still there, on paper and on disk, waiting for its time to come.

It is appropriate perhaps now to touch on some of the issues I was looking at towards the end of the period. I am culling this from the book, which I structured in the form of time-sequences of snapshots of situations within themes. The themes were human systems, interfaces, productive systems, devices and people.

Human systems is the largest section, taking up a third of the book: the State, the Royal Irish Academy, the Institute of Industrial Research and Standards (IIRS), the Agricultural Institute (AFT), the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies (DIAS), the universities and colleges, and the second-level system, primarily via the Aer Lingus Young Scientists.

As the Government response to the 1964 OECD Report 'Science in Irish Economic Development' the National Science Council (NSC) had been set up in 1969, under the chairmanship of Colm O h-Eocha. In 1974 the then Minister, Justin Keating, announced its replacement by the National Board for Science and Technology (NBST). The NBST did not get set up until 1978. The lag-times in this process are noteworthy; they suggest chronic Civil Service lethargy and lack of interest.

In 1976 (Sept 14) I remarked on the delay since the Keating announcement, and I ventured to suggest how the new Board might be structured in such a way as to give meaning to the Science Budget concept, which was embedded in the Bill. I gave some examples which indicated the need for a political feedback loop, and urged that the loop should not have a long lag-time, as it would if it had to wait for an annual Dail debate. I was critical of the procedure whereby the Minister simply nominated individuals to the Board, and suggested a procedure whereby the Board might be constituted with an appropriate mix of suppliers, consumers and workers, including working scientists and technologists with industrial experience.

On Nov 14 1973 I had ventured to suggest how the Academy might be constituted into a representative Senate-like system to look after the interests of the research community; this could be done by decoupling the membership function from the honorific function; this latter could easily be re-labelled 'Fellow', leaving the title 'Member' for the run-of-the-mill researcher. I mentioned in passing the Japanese 'Parliament of Science' structure as perhaps worth investigating. This would have provided an electoral college for the scientific research community to be represented directly on the NBST, instead of depending on a Ministerial nominee.

On June 29 and again on Aug 3 1976 I devoted space to the Allen (MIT) report on the IIRS, which I supported as substantive; I pointed out the anomaly of the one body being expected to act for consumers and for industry, and urged autonomous sectoral divisions, with the Standards hived off.

The AFT (Agricultural Institute) people at Glenamoy had developed a prototype auto-analysis system for soil samples; this was an on-line computer application using one of the then new 'minicomputers', it would do 7000 analyses per week.

I had not devoted much time to the DIAS, but on May 2 1973 I reported on an event which took place under DIAS auspices, involving Prof Casimir, who was then head of the Philips Research Laboratory at Eindhoven, which should have been seminal, but wasn't, as it was poorly attended. The NSC apparently were not aware of the DIAS; it did not occur to them that a DIAS seminar might have national policy significance; or perhaps just the DIAS did not feel it necessary to tell them. Some quotes:

'Industry does not know enough to guide basic science; the boilermakers should not be expected to finance the Curies...' (the implied reference here is to nuclear power generation)

'In all cases it is necessary to put the final phase of development close to production..' '..going from research to development you have to transfer people..' '..the essence of civilisation is when man embellishes his tools..'

On April 13 1976 I came back to the question of the role of the NUI in the allocation of NIHE Limerick degrees, having been on about it previously on Feb 17. I questioned the relevance of the role of UCC in this process; science people do not necessarily understand the technology which spins off from their science. I was supportive of the co-operative scheme whereby people spend time in industry during their degree; I have encountered this system since from the industry angle, and have nothing but praise for it. I promoted the concept of a university of technology with prestigious status. I think we are moving in that direction, and Limerick, along with its analogue in Dublin, the City University (DCU), can be counted on the positive side of the balance-sheet.

(Incidentally, when DCU was looking for a name, I understand that 'Hamilton University' was proposed, from the science side; there is a local link, in that the Dunsink observatory, where Hamilton did his monumental work in the 1830s and 40s, in in walking distance of the campus. The response of the assembled academics, who were making the decision, was, I understand, at the level 'who was Hamilton?'. So it is evident that the culture-gap is still with us, even among the elect. I wonder if a proposal to name the University of Zurich after Einstein would have had the same reaction? This has not to my knowledge been proposed, but perhaps it will be, and we shall see.)

With the Aer Lingus Young Scientists I had succeeded in getting the group projects accepted, despite initial opposition from the judging fraternity (Jan 20 1975; Jan 24 1976). The first attempt at this procedure however had made it look like a B-stream, instead of the norm in scientific work. I was critical of the constraints, which subsequently were removed, and group projects went on to win the highest awards in later years.

(By the way, I wonder what will happen to the Young Scientists consequent on the Aer Lingus debacle? If it is let go, we will really be a laughing stock in Europe; it is a success-story of considerable cultural significance.)

This completes the 'Human Systems' section retrospective.

I have only space to touch briefly on the other main sections: Interfaces I assessed as disappointing, identifying the concept as being the weak point in the overall system. Under Productive Systems I touched on the emergence of a Materials Science group, corn syrup via an enzyme process, pig slurry as an energy source and source of concentrated dried fertiliser for the urban gardener market, the neglect of the agricultural engineering potential etc. Devices were also thin on the ground; I was keen on the opportunities presented by the dedicated microcomputer.

Under People, apart from obituaries (Bernal, Farrington, McLaughlin) and the FRS count (this was interesting, and I hope to say more about it, in another context), there was a report of an encounter with Tom Jones of the US National Science Foundation (April 27 1976). Echoing Casimir, as above, though independently, he urged moving the person rather than the hardware or the idea from the basic discovery to the application and the development.

Our career structures do not facilitate this process. I who have tried to pioneer it have lost pension rights on 3 occasions. The problem is still with us.

I subsequently reconstructed the draft book 'In Search of Techne' into an alternative grouping, which can be seen in its own sub-directory in the 1970s module.

Discovery, Invention and Innovation: a European Development Model

Background

The structure of this knowledge-base is in the form of an inter-related set of review-articles, covering research results relevant to certain identified problems. Each review-article is itself a hypertext-like structure, and the assembly of related review articles is a hypertext-like structure at a higher level. The writer, and the firm he is contracted with, are currently engaged in developing procedures for enabling this to be used in industrial training departments, in the context of the development of an IT Uptake Plan; the system has been purchased and is in experimental use on several sites in Ireland and in Britain..

The initial sales effort went in the direction of large organisations which had had IT disasters, and some were bought, but utilisation experience is difficult to obtain, largely I think because it did not fit easily into the routine of large-organisation training departments. Later some utilisation experience was gained with the Leeds University Business School, in the context of short courses oriented towards innovation management. We should of course have targeted this market earlier, and used the experience to adapt the design in the direction of user requirements in this mode.

To form an impression of scale: IT-USE system consists of some 70 of these hypertext review-articles, each with some 15-30 screens, each screen having 2-10 panels supporting it, most of these panels being relating to referenced or abstracted material, and in some key cases to original papers in full. Each module addresses a defined problem-area, and comes up with steps towards the solution.

Much of the work in the earlier part of the project was in the development of an authoring template, and procedures for its use, which enabled the basic review-article hypertext structure to be drafted by a domain-expert author. Once this had been done, the actual construction of the system was done by about 6 people in 6 months. This was not 'ab initio'; the people concerned knew what they wanted to present, and had some experience in the techniques of presentation, having been involved in the development of the authoring template.

The system is demonstrable, and illustrates the feasibility of the approach outlined below for another and more ambitious system, conceived with a wider scope, along the generalised hypertext lines originally suggested and conceptualised by Vannevar Bush in 1946, and pioneered in practical terms (somewhat prematurely I think) in the Domesday project in the mid-80s.

EST-USE Objectives

The primary immediate objective of EST-USE may be defined as being to enable people to learn about the role of discovery, invention, innovation and innovative enterprise in the general context of European history, and to apply the knowledge politically towards the development of a friendly environment for the encouragement of innovative enterprise, primarily in those regions of the EC which are 'fringe' rather than 'core', otherwise known as the 'less-favoured regions' (LFRs). For projects related to such regions, in some cases 75% support is available under the Structural Fund.

The method for attaining the objective would be to analyse the importance of the social and organisational factors, in the specific differing environments of the various European States, in enabling innovative enterprise to develop, and to indicate how these 'classical case-studies' can be adapted to the needs of the 'problem environments' presented by the 'less favoured regions'. These positive aspects of European experience need to be generalised not only in the less-favoured regions of the EC, but also in Eastern Europe and throughout the developing world.

Case-Based Reasoning Potential

The system will in effect consist of an assembly of related 'cases',and will provide the basis for a subsequent 'advisory system' using models (where appropriate), case-based reasoning, and (where possible) rules.

This development of an advisory system, of use to governments, development agencies, and firms interested in investing in 'less-favoured regions' , will be elaborated at a later stage of the project, once the basic structure of the knowledge-base has begun to emerge.

Scope of Development Consortium

The domains of expertise involved would be

(a) the history of the various branches of science within their disciplines, organised around the key discoveries;

(b) the history of the key technologies, and their diffusion and uptake, organised around innovations of key significance;

(c) aspects of the political and institutional history of the European States, viewed from the angle of their roles as environments within which the discovery, invention, innovation and enterprise development process took place.

From having read some of the current literature, it is possible to identify several groups who might be good collaborators abroad; this can be elaborated with an initial local support group in Ireland. The role of the collaborators would be to produce the modules of the hypertext system (the 'review articles'), to common standards, with a common technology, so as to enable them to be edited and linked into an integrated system in one location. The hypertext authoring procedures for enabling this to be done by non-IT specialists have been developed in the context of the earlier IT-USE project.

Scope and Focus of the Hypertext Modules

(a) focused on a specific discovery or invention, or
(b) biographical treatments of key scientists, technologists or inventors,
(c) historical reviews of specific national environments in specific periods.

The basic structure of the unit of the system, the hypertext review, would be some 1000-2000 words at overview ('executive summary') level, say 3 to 5 screens, each with 2 or 3 supportive panels developing a concept. In the sequence would be centrally a 'key concepts' screen, diagrammatic, leading to branched supportive development, 'below' (ie at greater level of detail). The whole might add up to 10,000 words. Sources would be referenced, with an abstract of say 100 words. Key sources where possible would be given in full, in the form of ASCII files (the electronic reprint library).

While the science aspects would be reviewed at the level of key discoveries within discipline (think of perhaps 10 reviews per discipline, grouped around the key discoveries), there would be provision for cross-linking between disciplines at key points. (Thus for example there would be cross-linking between physics and chemistry in the context of the electrolytic process).

Similarly the technology aspects would be reviewed, at the level of the key inventions, or groups of related inventions, within technology, allowing for cross-linking between the technologies, and linking with the key relevant points in the science mesh.

It is necessary to introduce at this point the concept of an 'up-down' linkage, as well as cross-linking. Think of 'up' as being towards abstraction and away from the nuts and bolts of the productive process. In this sense, 'science' is 'above' technology, and the 'political environment' comes somewhere between. In other words, for available science to transform itself, in a specific place at a specific time, into a useful technology relevant to a required productive process, the political environment has to be facilitating rather than obstructive. A 'Nation' or 'State' is at a level of abstraction which is clearly above technology, but below science.

In the cases of both the science and the technology mashes you would link into biographical reviews of specific people, whose location on the up-down scale (the z-axis) would measure their international significance within their discipline.

Some would be treated at full biographical review level (eg 'heavies' like Brunel, Faraday, Einstein, Pasteur or Hamilton), with key source papers and abstracts available as backup.

If they were not 'heavies' meriting a hypertext review-module, the references in the science or technology review would in some cases go straight into the source-paper, or in most cases to an abstract of the source-paper. Papers and abstracts would be held in an electronic filing system. This principle has been demonstrated to be practicable in the IT-USE context.

The socio-cultural and economic environments for each State would be reviewed, bearing in mind aspects, for example, of the Crawford / Ben-David (core-fringe) models for science development, and aspects of (for example) the Inkster diffusion model for the technology.

The dimensions of the socio-cultural and economic environments would include institutional, educational and linguistic aspects, as well as individual aspects like mobility. The linkages from the national reviews to the technologies and sciences would be in the contexts of specific people, innovations, inventions or discoveries.

There would be cross-links to other States where appropriate, and linkages up or down to reviews of the roles of key people. Links to people would be 'up' if the people were of international significance, 'down' if their significance was (say) in the introduction of a key technological innovation in the national context.

Thus you could get to the key people either via their roles as contributors to knowledge, or via their national roles, in each case being made aware of both roles. For example, people of key significance for the development of the technology in the national context (eg McLaughlin and the electrification of Ireland with the Shannon Scheme) would get biographical treatment, and be accessible via either Ireland or Germany, where he would count as a significant contact in post-war technology export. People of the status of Lord Kelvin would be accessible from physics and from electrical technology and from communications technology, as well as from the national contexts of Scotland and Ireland.

A potential difficulty comes from the historical development of political boundaries (think of Ireland vs the UK); it would be necessary in the modularisation the treatments to pay attention to the break-points and to key events (eg the various wars which have been such a feature of European history, the achievement of political independence etc). Thus there would need to be (for example) pre- and post-independence modules for Ireland, Norway, Finland etc.

The modules within discipline, while being primarily centred round the background and significance of key discoveries and inventions, would need to link into the national environment modules where this was a key influential factor.

There is therefore in this approach the potential for the development of a dynamic model for identifying and generalising the social, economic, cultural and technical factors underlying the national development process. This would be of use in third-world development, both for the education of expatriate development project people and for educating local people on the ground. It would also be of considerable use in contemporary eastern Europe, where the institutional structures supportive of the scientific and technological community are in a state of total collapse, and government is only dimly, if at all, aware of the extent of the economic and cultural disaster which will take place if the reconstruction problem is not addressed rapidly.

This project may look ambitious, but it seems to the present writer to be within intellectual reach and technically possible. Even with initial scope restricted, as suggested below, the interest and the complexity would be in the cross-linking.

The key papers reviewed in each topic would need to be available in the form of an electronic reprint library, for immediate access in printed form, should a user want specified ones. This principle we have also piloted in the current information technology project. Other papers would be available at abstract level, with pointers to their library locations.

Scope of Pilot-Project

To pilot this would require a one-year project in 10 locations, mostly at the level of a good research student under the supervision of someone with a valid track-record in the field. I am therefore initially suggesting 9 locations: one each for the 6 national environments (2 core, 4 fringe), one location for the history of physics, and two for the histories of 2 pilot-areas of physics-based technology, electrical power technology and communications. The 10th location is the present writer and his associated firm, which would supply the project management, the authoring technology and the project integration.

We are talking here perhaps of at least a (?) 500 kECU project, hopefully at a 75% funding rate, given the need for the less-developed regions of the EC to adapt their cultures to the understanding of the employment-generating potential of the innovation process, in the context of their regional development programmes.

On completion of the pilot project, and on demonstration of a working prototype system after one year, it would be appropriate to extend the principle to cover other scientific disciplines, other technologies, and other States, until the system was globally complete. The output of the complete global system would be a set of CD-ROMs which would make the knowledge available at low cost to the universities of the world. this might be a 5 to 10 year project, and it would of course have to involve the US and Japan.

In conclusion, it is necessary to state that there would need to be a strong policy at editorial level not to allow the knowledge to be elitist or hegemonist, but instead to be aimed at empowering the peoples of the world in the mastery of technology in human-centred mode, and at encouraging the critical assessment of the warlike and imperial aspects of scientific technology, insofar as this has tended to dominate the European background.

At the time I attempted to get this concept supported via various institutional channels; it seems to me that the Academy should have been a suitable location, and I had some talk with the then President Aidan Clarke (historian, son of Austin Clarke) who was encouraging, with Denis Weaire the TCD Physics Professor, now (2002) the only Irish FRS, and with Dervilla Donnelly in the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies. I failed to break through; such a project to succeed would need to be initially promoted by a suitably strong academic centre, rather than by someone associated with a firm which was a purveyor of internet knowledge-base technology. The Academy however has since gone on to produce, as a 'coffee-table book', a compendium of outlines of key scientists, inventors and innovators having Irish connections. A web-site version of this book could begin to function as the core of the type of hypertext knowledge-base projected, and we are currently working on getting this concept accepted.

On the Water Question in South Africa

These preliminary notes are a small first step towards setting up a technological support network for Kader Asmal which might be of use to him in the context of the problem.

We consider first the existing sources of supply, and then the requirements. We then go on to outline a typology of the technologies which are available for bringing the supply to the point of use. Finally we consider the socio-political aspects of the problem.

Sources of supply

The only source of biologically clean water (ie potable without boiling) is ground-water, raised under clean conditions from a protected well, or pumped up. Other water sources can be used for domestic, industrial or agricultural purposes, and for cooking, but should not be drunk unless boiled.

Open wells or springs, if maintained under clean conditions, can be acceptable, but if overused without management can easily become polluted.

Rainwater can be an important source, if adequate storage is available, along with a clean collection system from all available roofing.

River water, if there is a fall of even a 1 in 100 or so, can be an important source, in that the fall can be used to power a simple pumping device known as a hydraulic ram. Even if the stream dries up totally in the dry season, it is possible to use the flow in the wet season to pump water into storage, supplementing the rainwater storage system.

Requirements

The amount of biologically pure water needed for direct drinking purposes is quite a small proportion of the total, and in most rural situations it can be delivered by means of a hand pump from a protected well.

The remaining needs, for domestic, small-industrial (eg local abattoirs, potteries, laundries, whatever) and agricultural (animals, irrigation etc) can be supplied from collected rainwater and from pumped river water. To expand the use of ground water for these purposes gives rise to a risk that the water would be 'mined' and the water-table lowered.

In summary: use surface and rain water, with storage to take care of seasonality of supply, rather than ground water, reserving the latter for quality needs.

Note that it is possible to re-use domestic and industrial water for agricultural purposes, provided it is treated appropriately. For example, domestic effluent treated in a septic tank can go on to irrigate the garden.

Technologies

In most village situations there will be no electricity, or if there is some as a result of a small local scheme (diesel generator, mini-hydro, solar panels or whatever), it is likely to be of use for priority applications like lighting, refrigeration, radio and TV; use for cooking or power should be actively discouraged.

The key technologies are the hand pump, the wind pump, the hydraulic ram, and, in some situations, where power is available, the electric pump, including micro-pumps powered by solar panels (this is a new technology worth looking into).

Storage technologies which avoid heavy imported investment (like large metal or concrete tanks etc) need to be explored: for example, can acceptable stable covered storage systems be produced by local labour using plastic lining material?

Where a wind pump is used with ground water as the source (this was the means whereby the American mid-west was opened up in the 19th century), it is necessary to match it with adequate storage facilities, and to monitor for 'mining' effects. Such a system could provide an isolated house or village with a complete piped water system to the highest standards.

Socio-economic, political and cultural aspects

This can be done in the context of setting up appropriate local government organisations. The organising of a water supply is in fact one of the most basic means of stimulating a demand for an effective local government structure. Once this is in existence, it can take on other tasks, like technical education, and local energy system management.

All local resources can be taken up creatively, once there is available an appropriate level of technical education at village level. The local school should be seen not as a mere generator of literacy, feeding the demand for jobs in the Civil Service (this is one of the Irish mistakes to be avoided), but as a source of local resource development knowhow, and technical skills.

If there is a technically competent local workforce, it becomes possible to develop and manage local resources, ranging from coppice fuelwood suitable for cooking stoves, through village biogas supply systems based on organic waste, up to local grid-standard electricity supply schemes, for eventual connection to the grid when the latter becomes national. Once the basic energy infrastructure is available, it becomes possible to build up local added-value small-scale industries, generating local employment.

Once the extent of the demand for well-drilling equipment, hand-pumps, wind-pumps, electric pumps, solar panels, piping, hydraulic rams etc is known, it is possible for existing industry to supply the needs, making use where necessary of licenced technology where this is available from abroad. There needs to be set up a procedure for putting specifications out to tender, and ensuring that the system is not abused by corrupt processes. The main danger is that existing suppliers of equipment would cash in on the demand and supply inappropriate equipment at prices rigged in the suppliers favour.

The overall development of local water and other resources needs to be closely monitored by technically competent support teams, at regional level, in support of the development of local initiatives. Such teams would need to be made up of engineers, hydrologists, development economists, agriculturalists, in close touch with the development field-workers and educationalists.

Particular attention needs to be paid to the existing experience and practice of the women in the villages, who are usually the primary managers and implementers of the domestic productive system.

Green Party Science and Technology Policy

The 'Cohesion Meetings' were an ad-hoc device to overcome the structural deficiencies of the then Green Party constitutions. They were an attempt to make a bridge between the public representatives and the activist groups.

1. There is a serious cultural deficiency regarding appreciation of the importance of science, and the nature of its relationship to everyday technology, in Ireland, both among the public and politicians in general, and among Greens with regard to its essential role in the support of a sustainable ecologically benign economy.

2. I have on 2 occasions in the past year or so written papers for Caorthann and for the Newsletter attempting to lay the basis for a policy group. There was response only from one or two people, and no group has in fact yet been set up. A copy of a 14-page position paper is available on demand to anyone who is prepared to serve in a Policy Development Group.

3. I shall continue to develop policies via the democratic organisations in Ireland of which I am a member, taking the green angle where possible. These are: the Irish Research Scientist Association (IRSA, I am a member of their Council), the Royal Dublin Society (RDS, I am a member of the Science Committee) and the MSF Trade Union (I am a long-standing member of the Scientific Staffs Branch).

4. Key problems include:

• over-dependence of university-based scientific research on funding from abroad;
• weakness of linkages between basic science, applied science and industry;
• lack of understanding by Government of the key role of science, technology and the innovation process in economic development;
• over-dependence on imported technologies under control of multinational corporations;
• non-recognition (in terms of financial support) within the State of centres of scientific excellence which are internationally recognised.
  

6. Immediately realisable steps towards these objectives are actively on the agenda of the IRSA, in the form of lobbying of, and meetings with, the Minister Pat Rabbitte which would appear to have added £4M to the science budget, primarily in support of postgraduate students.

7. I am also a member of the International Network of Scientists and Engineers for Global Social Responsibility (INES). This has a mostly virtual existence on the Internet, but it is organising a conference in Amsterdam next August, on 'Sustainable Development' (see below), and I have circulated notice of this via the IRSA newsletter (this also is Internet). It is projected to get a significant level of Irish participation, and to attempt to get some degree of prior co-ordination, both for maximum impact on the conference, and for maximum extraction from the conference of useful experience from abroad. Copies of the Call for Papers are available on demand.

8. There is a further international conference on the same theme, in Brussels in October, which is targeted primarily at State agency people, on the 'science policy assessment' network. It is projected to attempt to ensure that there is participation in this by people in Forbairt and the OST (Office of Science and Technology), and that they are appropriately briefed.

9. Current activity involves keeping up pressure on the Travers Committee, which reports to the Minister, and is attempting to implement the recommendations of the STIAC Report. It can be reported that S&T Policy was on the agenda of the pre-Budget Cabinet Meeting this year, and was actually discussed, for the first time in history, when Pat Rabbitte got his £4M.

10. There is a campaign of letter-writing being organised by the Organic Growers to prevent the run-down of the organic research unit at Johnstown Castle, in Wexford, the Teagasc research centre. There is scope for interfacing Green S&T policy with groups such as this.

I circulated the following call, and there was some response, 3 or 4 people were in correspondence for a while, and some papers were produced, including one by Ray Ryan on generic engineering and biotechnology which was widely circulated.

S&T Policy: Dr Roy Johnston is a physicist by training, and has worked for many years in applied-scientific consultancy, in association with university-based research groups, as well as in basic research and industrial research in his own right. He is currently working in knowledge engineering with a software house. Some may remember his trail-blazing Science and Technology column in the Irish Times which ran for some years in the 70s.

He has undertaken to try to develop an S&T policy for the Green party, and would like people in this area to contact him, with a view to the production of a policy document.

He is anxious to enhance the scope of Green concerns beyond the traditional environmental scientific issues (global warming, pollution etc,important though these are) and develop a broad-based programme aimed at the best use of available scientific and engineering knowhow in Ireland for the generation of an environmentally benign socio-economic system enabling everyone to work in fulfilling roles.

Possible headers are: university research funding, industrial innovation (with particular reference to job-enrichment vs de-skilling), agricultural innovation (with particular reference to the need to develop organic farming), medical R&D (emphasis on social and preventive medicine rather than high-tech cures for avoidable conditions); the institutional structure of R&D in Ireland; etc.

Anyone with ideas please write them down and send them to RJ at 22 Belgrave Road, Rathmines, Dublin 6; we will call a meeting as soon as there seems to be the makings of a group.

Anyone on internet should contact him via rjtechne@iol.ie

INES Amsterdam Sustainable Development Conference 1996

See also a short paper 'Biotechnology and Sustainability' which I contributed to the Teagasc publication 'Farm and Food' in the Spring 2001 issue, in which I suggested a relevant research agenda, and the need for a bottom-up approach via co-operative organisation. See also the technological papers in the current Techne web-site.

Some navigational notes:

Copyright Dr Roy Johnston 1999