Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
participation in the design, introduction and use of data systems in the enterprise. Less
than a year later The Norwegian Federation of Trade Unions (LO) and the Norwegian
Employers' Federation (NAF) agreed on a “General Agreement on Technological
Development and Computer Based Systems”. A similar agreement was also estab-
lished between the Government as well as municipalities and trade unions in the
public sector.
In 1977 a new Working Environment Act was adopted in Norway. In §12 on The
Organization of Work a new provision was introduced in the section Concerning
Systems for Control and Planning: “
Workers and their elected representatives shall
be kept continuously informed of systems used in planning and that are necessary to
accomplish work, including planned changes to such systems. They shall be given the
training necessary to familiarize themselves with the systems, and they shall take part
in designing them.
”
It is worth noting that for the most part, the introduction and use of data systems
and technology in Norway went without conflicts and problems between employers
and employees. This was largely a result of the early involvement in data policy by
the trade unions, supported by Nygaard, and the ensuing introduction of §12 in the
Working Environment Act.
6 Career as University Professor
After the Iron and Metal project Nygaard wanted to make what had been understood
about the system development process and the societal implications of information
technology, a part of academic teaching and research in information systems. For a
year in 1974 he was guest professor at the University of Aarhus in Denmark and later
on he was part time professor at the University of Oslo. There he worked in teams
with students trying to build up an alternative curriculum in system development. This
work is often referred to as the “Scandinavian School of System Development” and is
closely linked to the field of Participatory Design.
Research in system development became also a major part of his work in the sev-
enties. At NCC he played an important part in defining the DELTA system descrip-
tion language [8]. DELTA was a description tool, not a programming language. It
became a useful platform for description of many aspects of the interactions between
human actors and computing equipment. It was never widely used, but the ideas were
carried on into new language activities.
Nygaard wanted to stay active both in traditional informatics and in system devel-
opment [19]. By engaging in basic research he wanted to “
prove
” that he still was
active in the scientific research community. While at Aarhus he therefore started a
new basic research project in object-oriented language design. The language was
called BETA [12]. BETA is built upon a few general, but very powerful concepts. By
the mid eighties BETA was implemented on a series of computers.
He emphasised that object-orientation should be available in a system description
and programming language because of its capability for system modelling and linking
with the systems' environment, and also for its relevance to knowledge representation.
In 1984 Nygaard became a full time professor at the University of Oslo and
in 1987 he was visiting professor at Stanford University, Palo Alto, USA, visiting
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