Abstract
This semester my capstone project involved building a class scheduler application for UVA students and my STS topic was the design analysis of cloud storage solutions for teams. The two projects are unrelated because the former was established after my STS topic, but both involved analyzing current solutions; recognizing what their problem areas were; and positing a new solution. The capstone project was motivated primarily by the conglomerated confusion transfer students initially had after matriculating to UVA where their lack of knowledge of resources and the de-centralized information of classes proved overwhelming (theCourseForum, Hoos’ List a.k.a Lou’s List, department websites, UVA SIS). My STS topic was inspired by an anecdotal story from my mother who spoke of the difficulties of managing a shared cloud storage with other people. This especially intrigued me because despite the technological innovations and advancements, collaborative cloud storage seemed to lack the leaps in improvement seen in other cloud tools.
The technical portion of my thesis produced a web application that combined the separate knowledge of departments, degrees, and courses into one centralized platform while being built on modern web architecture. In addition, we added an AI chatbot that students could speak to learn more about and easily search for classes which typically required already knowing the department and catalogue number. This reduces friction for students who want to explore classes that might be more obscure or niche or students who have no knowledge of UVA classes and do not know where to start. Furthermore, the modern web architecture provides a dynamic and responsive UI and allows students to return to their ongoing session and edit their schedule freely, which can be lost due to inactivity on SIS.
In my STS research, I investigated the dangers of a disorganized shared digital storage; why it occurs; what the current solutions are; and why engineers may be developing solutions but for the wrong problem. Currently, collaborative cloud storage provides one interface for all collaborators despite it being well established that the main source of friction regarding collaborative file management and maintenance is the conflicting classification habits of individuals. To address this, engineers have continuously added more tools or novel features to improve digital storage navigation and retrieval. However, one of the most effective solutions across numerous collaborative cloud storage providers according to research is still developing a set of rules for storing files agreeable with all collaborators. It is important to note that if teams were working with physical files, creating a system to organize them uses the same solution. Therefore, the transition to digital did not improve collaborative file management greatly. Through the Technological Fix framework, my paper posits that current file management groupware is fundamentally built without considering the social contexts of conflicting mental models and, consequently, bloating the software with ineffective features. In response, my paper proposes an extension on current architecture by including a system that saves individual file classification habits. This resolves the problem of conflicting mental models while also recognizing that the main purpose of cloud storage is to share files with others. How files are stored are irrelevant so long as the collaborators who need to access them can; yet most shared cloud storages impose the need to organize files on a conflicting web of mental models.
In engineering and science, two important procedures are verification and validation. These two procedures respectively ask if the product matches specifications and does the product meet user needs. In the context of cloud storage groupware, these two procedures are technically satisfied. The rising popularity of working digitally demanded the need for sharing content with other team members, and many companies responded with shared cloud storages solutions. However, this is not sufficient in creating a satisfying product grounded in social contexts. It is easy to only consider meeting customer needs and building quality products, but it is equally important to also consider the contexts in which these products will exist. Otherwise, engineers are doomed to solve problems superficially; bloat the problem; or answer the wrong problems.
