This document summarizes a study on academic viewpoints regarding computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) education and training in Latin America. The study found that current CSCW courses focus primarily on research conducted in North America and Western Europe and do not adequately consider the Latin American context. Participants proposed adapting existing course material to the local context and developing curriculum around awareness, participation, collaborative modeling, and contemporary topics like social networks and ethics. Challenges to implementing a Latin American-centric CSCW curriculum include dispersed universities and dependence on collaborations between institutions.

1. Academic Viewpoints and
Concerns on CSCW Education
and Training in Latin America
Francisco J. Gutierrez, University of Chile | frgutier@dcc.uchile.cl
Yazmín Magallanes, Universidad de Las Américas | yazmin.magallanesvz@udlap.mx
Laura S. Gaytán-Lugo, Universidad de Colima | laura@ucol.mx
Claudia López, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María | claudia@inf.utfsm.cl
Cleidson R. B. de Souza, Universidade Federal do Pará | cleidson.desouza@acm.org

2. CHI 2019 submissions (papers & notes)
https://chi2019.acm.org/2018/09/26/chi-2019-please-review/
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3. Mainstream CSCW research
• Most of the research tradition, methods, and theories in the field
follow a strong trend grounded in social and cultural aspects from
North America and Western Europe
• ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social
Computing (CSCW)
• European Confrence on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (ECSCW)
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4. And what about Latin America?
https://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/september-october-2019/cscw-research-latin-america
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5. And what about Latin America?
• Lack of a robust socio-technical research infrastructure
• Trade-off between locally impactful and globally relevant
• Potential language barriers
• Critical analysis on and beyond socio-cultural differences
• Designing against the system, promoting alternative configurations
for current work and data practices
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6. Study Methodology: Participants
Country Area(s) of Research
Mexico CSCW
Mexico UbiComp
Mexico HCI
Mexico HCI – Engineering
Costa Rica UbiComp – CSCW
Colombia HCI – CSCW
Brazil Software Engineering – CSCW
Chile Software Engineering – CSCW
Chile Information Retrieval – CSCW
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7. Study Methodology: Data Collection
• Individual semi-structured interviews
• Collaboratively created the script in English, then translated it into
Spanish and Portuguese
• Interview script validated through a pilot study, aiming to resolve
wording problems and ambiguous statements
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8. Study Methodology: Data Collection
1. How does CSCW research conducted in Latin America compare to
the American and European scenarios?
2. How do you envision a Latin American–centric CSCW
undergraduate/graduate course?
3. What challenges and barriers might emerge for putting into
practice a Latin American–centric CSCW course curriculum?
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9. Study Methodology: Data Analysis
• Audio transcription and coding
• Open coding
• Axial coding
• Selective coding
• Qualitative analysis, following the thematic analysis framework
• Ethical considerations: participants were offered the right to
withdraw from the study at any time (3, due to scheduling conflicts)
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10. Findings: Current Status of CSCW E&T
• Currently, CSCW courses focus on students learning to conduct
research in the area, mostly as an elective course in the last quarter
or semester of their program
• Courses are usually delivered in traditional Computer Science or
Engineering departments (and not in social or cognitive sciences)
• Learning, organizational collaboration, social computing, Web and
mobile platforms, sentiment analysis, indigenous communities,
crowdsourcing, decision-support systems, etc…
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11. Findings: Current Status of CSCW E&T
• Most of the existing material in the field has been published with an
underlying focus on Anglo-American and Western European culture,
most Latin American instructors need to adapt such a material to fit
in our regional context
“I use references from the US or Europe. Typically, I base my course on
notions from seminal papers in the field, but I also have to translate
(and adapt) the stated examples (…) I can’t ask students to review a
paper or application in Europe and try to assimilate it, because it
wouldn’t work in our country!”
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12. Findings: Challenges and Barriers
• Departments are usually geographically dispersed, which discourages
interaction and collaboration
• It is unlikely that Latin American universities will collaborate with
other universities, even in the case of departments within a same
university
• Some participants declare to have gotten around these limitations
through hackathons or summer schools
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13. Findings: Possible Lines of Development
• General topics:
• Awareness
• Participation
• Collaborative modelling
• Foundations of social and cognitive sciences
• Contemporary topics:
• Networks and group formation strategies
• Gamification
• Design fictions
• Ethnography
• Ethics
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14. Study Limitations
• Sampling schema might not be complete at this point
• Small and somewhat selective sample
• Enlarge geographical coverage
• Informants only came from Academia
• Potentially limits the variability of expressed viewpoints and concerns
• Gather the views from industry and NGOs
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15. Take Aways
• Current foundations in Latin American CSCW courses are grounded in
US– and European– centric approaches
• The overall idea of deploying a Latin American–centric CSCW
curriculum has been well-received by our informants
• We need to self-reflect and articulate a meaningful sense of
community around what we intend to achieve as CSCW Latin
American researchers
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16. Academic Viewpoints and
Concerns on CSCW Education
and Training in Latin America
Francisco J. Gutierrez, University of Chile | frgutier@dcc.uchile.cl
Yazmín Magallanes, Universidad de Las Américas | yazmin.magallanesvz@udlap.mx
Laura S. Gaytán-Lugo, Universidad de Colima | laura@ucol.mx
Claudia López, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María | claudia@inf.utfsm.cl
Cleidson R. B. de Souza, Universidade Federal do Pará | cleidson.desouza@acm.org