The Myth of the Paperless Office

2000

Hewlett Packard Laboratories Report HPL-94-20, 1994

paper, paperless office, artifact Developments in information technology are lowering the barriers to the input of paper-based information into computers.

2004

Despite the wide-ranging recognition that paper remains a pervasive resource for human conduct and collaboration, there has been uncertain progress in developing technologies to bridge the paper-digital divide. In this essay we discuss the design of a technology that interweaves developments in new materials, electronics and software, and seeks to provide a cheap and accessible solution to creating new affinities between digital content, in whatever form, and ordinary paper. The technology and its design draws from a broad range of field studies, including research in classrooms and museums. These delineate the requirements and considerations that inform solutions to enhancing paper whilst preserving its integrity. The paper also discusses a naturalistic experiment, an evaluation in a museum, where we assessed the technology and the solution. We also chart the progressive development of this solution and the ways in which seemingly simple actions and issues became reconstituted as highly complex technical and analytic problems.

With continual advances in technology, the discussion on what teaching methods are most effective for enhancing student learning and improving student achievement is an ongoing one. This was highlighted in a recent report to the European Commission where Androulla Vassiliou European Commissioner for Education stressed ‘the importance of technological innovation in higher education’. The textbook has been largely replaced by digital technology but the pros and cons of both are in constant discussion which evolves as technology develops and empirical research uncovers more findings. Educational psychologists and the technology industry closely monitor developments, with billions worth of state funding at stake in an industry which generates large scale revenues and employment and is booming across the world. The aim of this dissertation to further develop this ongoing discussion about which medium is most beneficial to learning and the argument about whether good design of the material used to teach with is more relevant. The objective is to ascertain whether any one method or medium is superior over the rest or indeed whether this is a worthwhile argument. Using recent research and findings from the past 60 years up to the present, evaluations are made of the relative merits of the various media employed in teaching. The media examined in this dissertation begins with printed matter such as the traditional textbook and the pros and cons of printed matter versus digital text on-screen are discussed. Following this, the attributes of a combination approach, where a variety of media is used at once in the imparting of knowledge, is explored. How the human brain processes new information and published theories that support this, provides the background to the benefits of muti-media learning. As the dissertation deals with teaching and learning in higher or third level education, in this case these theories refer to how adult students acquire knowledge. Finally the merits of digital video as an instructional tool is assessed and its benefits and drawbacks in both educational and cultural contexts. The significance of video as a precursor to what is now known as educational technology is highlighted and the dissertation concludes that we are indeed headed towards a ‘paperless world’. Speculations are made about developments in digital technology and how it will be used to designed and deliver instruction in the near future . This includes predictions for continued expansion in the field of e-learning in particular for professional and employee training.

Cromohs - Cyber Review of Modern Historiography, 2021

Invented in China and brought to Europe by Muslim merchants across the Silk Road, the use of paper in the West took off in the Mediterranean towards the end of the Middle Ages. Overshadowed in cultural and media history by the invention of print, paper has played a fundamental role as the media infrastructure for innumerable processes involving the registration and communication of knowledge and value in communities and institutions, from religious orders, mercantile societies, to global empires. This thematic section of Cromohs features four essays. Three essays examine particular cases of paper as a medium for the codification and exchange of knowledge, information and value, whereas the fourth outlines the state of the art on the history of the so-called paper revolution and methodological issues illustrated with relevant case studies. These essays exemplify the research conducted by the Paper in Motion workgroup within the People in Motion COST action.

The information we encounter in modern life, in developed countries, is a hybrid of the physical and the digital. Personal archiving tools allow users to capture and retrieve aspects of their everyday lives in digital form. In this paper we use a diary study of students' interactions with paper-based information to inform the design of such archiving tools.

2013

Although digital devices have their own unique features that differentiate them from other tangible types of resources for reading, writing and sketching, a majority of people still prefer traditional paper media as it provides better user experiences in many aspects: readability, portability, ease of making annotations, shared reading, tactile sensory experiences, etc. This paper identifies barriers and opportunities for paper-related features based on human-centric design research directed towards the overarching goal of providing insights for finding disruptive opportunity spaces. In framing our design research, we define journeys that tangible and digital media followfrom original form, transitions and final form. Our target populations are college students and professionals in diverse majors and work environments. Based on insights from our design research, we present personas and case studies.

1999

Since its invention millenia ago, paper has served as one of our primary communications media. Its inherent physical properties make it easy to use, transport, and store, and cheap to manufacture. Despite these advantages, paper remains a second class citizen in the electronic world In this paper, we present a new technology for bridging the paper and the electronic worlds. In the new technology, the user interface moves beyond the workstation and onto paper itself. We describe paper user interface technology and its, implementation in a particular system called XAX. INTRODUCTION Since its invention millenia ago, paper has served as one of our primary communications media. Its inherent physical properties make it easy to use, transport, and store, and cheap to manufacture. But paper also has its shortcomings. It is a passive medium, whose contents are not easily mauipulated by hand nor processed by machine. It cannot easily take advantage of new methods for manipulating, communicati...

2014

The pleas 'think before you print'; 'please consider the environment before printing this email'; 'go paperless or feel like a guilty hypocrite who kills trees'; 'save paper save trees'; 'go green go paperless', and the like, are the buzzing and oriented facets of environmental sustainability of the contemporary times in the arena of paper consumption. The papers are indispensable media of communication of information, but an assortment of constructs which are associated with it, are posing certain concerns to citizens in general and the environmentalists in particular. There is a large volume of deforestation caused by the usage and printing of documents. By tracking in a different line, we have a downpour of information screened by the digital world and the online portfolios of the vast arrays of linked and hyperlinked environment. From such state of affairs, it becomes viable to use less (almost meagre) quantity of papers and budge using di...

… of Environmental Quality: An International Journal, 2005

Purpose -To show how the Mona School of Business, University of the West Indies, Jamaica can move towards a less paper environment. Design/methodology/approach -A lterature review as well as questionnaire was used, with the questionnaire being the primary research tool. The articles for the Literature Review ranged from 1999-2003 and were looked at to give a general idea of what is currently being published on the subject. The questionnaire was administered among all levels of staff and structured so as to get feedback as to how best the less paper environment could be incorporated into the organization. Findings -Most members of staff were familiar with the concept of the less paper environment and were convinced that this could be a positive move for the organization. Originality/value -The paper provided ground work for the Mona School of Business to transform the organization into a less paper environment.