Kevin Crowston

Professor of Information Studies, Syracuse University School of Information Studies Office: Hinds Hall 348, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-4100 USA Phone: +1 (315) 443-1676 Office FAX: +1 (315) 443-5806 e-FAX: +1 (866) 265-7407 E-Mail: crowston@syr.edu (PGP key available)

Kevin Crowston is a Professor of Information Studies at the Syracuse University School of Information Studies (aka the iSchool). Prior to moving to Syracuse, he taught for five years at the University of Michigan Business School.

He received his A.B. (1984) in Applied Mathematics (Computer Science) from Harvard University and a Ph.D. (1991) in Information Technologies from the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

His current research interests focus on new ways of organizing made possible by the use of information technology. This work approaches the issue in several ways: empirical studies of coordination-intensive processes in human organizations (especially virtual organization); theoretical characterizations of coordination problems and alternative methods for managing them; and design and empirical evaluation of systems to support people working together. For more information, please consult his vitae and now out-of-date Fall 2005 research statement (both in PDF).

Crowston has published articles and book chapters in the area of information technology and new organizational forms. His Ph.D. dissertation, Towards a Coordination Cookbook: Recipes for Multi-agent Action (10 MB, PDF), won the International Centre for Information Technology (ICIT) Thesis Prize for best dissertation in Information Systems in 1991 and was a runner-up for the International Conference on Information Systems thesis prize in 1992.

He is currently a PI on two NSF sponsored program. The first is HSD 05-27457, "DHB: Investigating the Dynamics of Free/Libre Open Source Software Development Teams" (with Robert Heckman and Elizabeth Liddy). The second is NSF CNS Grant 07-08437 "Collaborative Research: CRI: CRD: Data and analysis archive for research on Free and Open Source Software and its development" (with Megan Conklin, Elon University). You can find the project home page for these two projects here. A third recently completed grant is NSF IIS Grant 04-14482, "How can document-genre metadata improve information-access for large digital collections?" (with Barbara Kwasnik). You can see this project's home page here. Prior to these grants, he was a co-principal investigator on an NSF grant for "Tools for Inventing Organizations: Toward a Handbook of Organizational Processes" and for "A Multi-Method Study of the Use of Information Technology in the Real-Estate Industry" (see this project's home page here).

Kevin Crowston was a founding member of the MIT Center for Coordination Science and the University of Michigan Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work. He has been a visiting lecturer at the University of Auckland, Department of Management Science and Information Systems, a researcher at the Centre for Technology and Innovation Management at the Universität der Bundeswehr München, a Shidler Visiting Fellow at the University of Hawai'i Shidler College of Business and a visiting scholar at the Centre for Work, Technology and Organizations, Stanford University.

Professor Crowston is the Webmaster for IFIP Working Group 8.2 and Working Group 2.13.

Monday, June 16, 2008

13 April 2008

1 February 2008

21 December 2007

20 August 2007

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