Cobol - Results of a survey of knowledge-sharing in comp.lang.cobol

Author

Results of a survey of knowledge-sharing in comp.lang.cobol

Enrique Murillo-Othon

2005-09-05, 6:55 pm

Hi all,

Two years ago, as part of my doctoral project, I asked members of this
newsgroup to fill out a survey about learning and knowledge-sharing.
Many people freely gave their time and helpful comments. I promised to
send those who asked a copy of the research report.

I apologize for the two year wait without any news. For me, that
particular chapter of the dissertation was the most difficult, and I
only finished it recently.

I've prepared a heavily abridged summary of survey results, with an
introduction to my topic and an explanation of the survey. Even
abridged, it is still 20 pages long, so following a suggestion by one
participant, rather than including it as an attachment, I have posted
it to a friend's web-page so that you can download it if you're
interested. Of course, if you're really interested, drop me a line and
I'll be happy to send you the full dissertation when I finish it, in
about six months time.

Thanks again to all who participated!

Enrique Murillo-Othon
Mexico City

You can find the summary (218 KB) in Acrobat at:

http://www.bisabuelos.com/emo/summary.pdf

You can contact me at e.m.murillo-othon [at] bradford.ac.uk

Pete Dashwood

2005-09-05, 6:55 pm

Hi Enrique,

as one of the 'guinea pigs' I was very interested to see the results.

Your summary is exceptionally well written and I found it interesting.

A bit

that CLC (COBOL in your paper) falls in category C as a Community
of Practice (which makes it borderline according to the criteria), but
really no surprise...:-).

Both C++ programmers and Visual Basic programmers seem to exhibit less
antagonism with each other, and more on topic posting, so make it into Class
A.

Nevertheless, we come here for fun as well as edification and I guess at
that level at least, CLC succeeds.

Good Luck with the remainder of your Doctorate.

Pete.

"Enrique Murillo-Othon" <emurillo-othon@coyoacan911.org.mx> wrote in message
news:33dkh11adhnh9vo3tj7dirfvnen68sil5v@
4ax.com...
> Hi all,
>
> Two years ago, as part of my doctoral project, I asked members of this
> newsgroup to fill out a survey about learning and knowledge-sharing.
> Many people freely gave their time and helpful comments. I promised to
> send those who asked a copy of the research report.
>
> I apologize for the two year wait without any news. For me, that
> particular chapter of the dissertation was the most difficult, and I
> only finished it recently.
>
> I've prepared a heavily abridged summary of survey results, with an
> introduction to my topic and an explanation of the survey. Even
> abridged, it is still 20 pages long, so following a suggestion by one
> participant, rather than including it as an attachment, I have posted
> it to a friend's web-page so that you can download it if you're
> interested. Of course, if you're really interested, drop me a line and
> I'll be happy to send you the full dissertation when I finish it, in
> about six months time.
>
> Thanks again to all who participated!
>
>
> Enrique Murillo-Othon
> Mexico City
>
>
> You can find the summary (218 KB) in Acrobat at:
>
> http://www.bisabuelos.com/emo/summary.pdf
>
>
> You can contact me at e.m.murillo-othon [at] bradford.ac.uk
>
>

Michael Wojcik

2005-09-07, 6:55 pm

In article <3nutb2F3c54vU1@individual.net>, "Pete Dashwood" <dashwood@enternet.co.nz> writes:
>
> Your summary is exceptionally well written and I found it interesting.

Indeed it was. I'm sure my friends at the Center for Writing in
Digital Environments here at Michigan State will be interested to see
it too. (And I'm always happy to see any academic treatment of
Usenet; I wrote a short article about it for _Works & Days_ back in
1994, which is probably one of the first.)

> A bit

that CLC (COBOL in your paper) falls in category C as a Community
> of Practice (which makes it borderline according to the criteria), but
> really no surprise...:-).
>
> Both C++ programmers and Visual Basic programmers seem to exhibit less
> antagonism with each other, and more on topic posting, so make it into Class
> A.

Note that the C++ group in question is a moderated one, so a direct
comparison with comp.lang.cobol is unfair. It'd be interesting to
compare comp.lang.cobol with (the unmoderated) comp.lang.c++, or
comp.lang.c, which is unmoderated by famous (infamous in some quarters)
for the ... vigorous ... interest in maintaining topicality shown by
the regulars.

> Nevertheless, we come here for fun as well as edification and I guess at
> that level at least, CLC succeeds.

The Community of Practice models that Enrique is using are
interesting analytical tools, but of course they don't tell the whole
story. The social and psychological effects of off-topic discussion
could make a dissertation in themselves.

--
Michael Wojcik michael.wojcik@microfocus.com

Company Secretary Finance Manager
1) Half-grey haired executives.
2) Must be waist-deep in their field of activities.
3) Must be having the know-how and the do-how of the latest
developments in their respective fields.
-- from "Appointments Vacant" section of Business India

jimmieboy@gmail.com

2005-09-07, 9:55 pm

hi, could you send me the summary via email? I can not open the pdf
document from the link you provided.
My email address is jimmieboy [at] gmail.com
Thanks a lot

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