In the first part of this present report series (Coppock 1996) I
presented in the form of an ethnographic narrative an exploratory
investigation and discussion of how various aspects of interpersonal
and institutional norm systems for communication and interaction in
university-based teaching and research change when new communication
technology is introduced in order to implement co-operative forms of
work, talk and interaction at a distance between Italy and Norway in
a humanities undergraduate course setting. This was based on some
recent experiences of transferring and translating a number of of
common practices from a traditional face-to-face university seminar
room into a DMC environment located at Diversity University.
In this second section of this three-part report I shall continue this discussion of changing interpersonal and institutional norm systems for scientific communication through various kinds of writing practices in teaching and research in some more depth, while at the same time introducing some reflections on, and discussions of, more recent experiences related to the third perspective mentioned above, namely that of changing norms for international communication in science through writing practices in teaching and research.
I shall do this by amongst other things making an ethnographic narrative reconstruction and discussion of some of my own experiences of socialization into the role of "scientific-worker-at-a-distance", i.e. largely living and working in Bologna in Italy, while at the same time attempting to maintain a number of personal and professional, relationships with students and colleagues at the institute of Applied Linguistics at the now Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway.
In the course of this discussion I shall also to some extent draw on experiences with the development and maintainence over time of similar kinds of relationships-at-a-distance with students and colleagues at institutions in other parts of Norway, Scandinavia, and the rest of the world.[3]
