The DOI matches its Crossref record; 19 of the 19 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Making work visible
Open accessAbstract
How people work is one of the best kept secrets in America."This provocative statement by David Wellman, a sociologist of labor, can be read as a kind of challenge to work researchers.The sense in which it rings true is particularly remarkable given the large and growing body of literature dedicated to work-flow modeling, business process reengineering, and other methods aimed at representing work in the service of transforming it.At the same time that we take Wellman's statement as a call to action, however, we need to reflect carefully on the kinds of secrecy that surround specific knowledges and experiences of working practice and the implications of making them visible.The notion of secrecy implies things known differentially among different actors, usually because those who hold the secret deliberately withhold it from others.Without taking over the connotations of collusion in this sense of secrecy, we can ask why it might be not only inevitable but also valuable that members of an organization know their own work in ways that others positioned differently in the organization do not.The premise that we have special authority in relation to our own fields of knowledge and experience suggests we should have the ability to shape not only how we work but how our work appears to others.Self-representation on this view is a form of empowerment.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“Such representations are fundamental tools for knowledge work [14, 15, 37, 38, 57, 65, 68] used by employees to manage information and carry out tasks [27, 37, 68].”
From Accessibility-Driven Information Transformations in Mixed-Visual Ability Work Teams (2026) · cites this paper as [68]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“However, once they reach higher education, neurodivergent students are marginalised by the learning experiences themselves 2 , and are also expected to perform additional invisible 'meta'-work (or 'access labour' [15, 75, 78], see Footnote 1), beyond that expected of typical students.”
From Burnout by Design: How Digital Systems Overburden Neurodivergent Students in Higher Education (2025) · cites this paper as [78]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“As a result of the barriers present in these systems, many neurodivergent students create their own coping strategies, thus contributing yet more to their invisible work [15, 75, 78].”
From Burnout by Design: How Digital Systems Overburden Neurodivergent Students in Higher Education (2025) · cites this paper as [78]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“While higher education is often framed as a pathway to professional work, our findings demonstrate that the process of being a student itself constitutes a form of access work, requiring significant cognitive, emotional, and administrative effort [15, 53, 58, 75, 78].”
From Burnout by Design: How Digital Systems Overburden Neurodivergent Students in Higher Education (2025) · cites this paper as [78]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“When accommodations fail-whether due to bureaucratic inefficiencies, technological flaws or institutional oversight- students face a difficult choice: either take on the additional (invisible) labour [15, 75, 78] by advocating for their accommodations to be properly implemented or forgo the support they need and struggle with unfair academic disadvantage.”
From Burnout by Design: How Digital Systems Overburden Neurodivergent Students in Higher Education (2025) · cites this paper as [78]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
The cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“In our analysis, we considered a broader context for each case but we do not report such details because such factors are well-known in literature (e.g., [40, 62, 68, 73, 74]) or we judged them less relevant.”
From Accessibility-Driven Information Transformations in Mixed-Visual Ability Work Teams (2026) · cites this paper as [68]
The check wasn’t confident either way, so it gives no verdict — never disputed.
In the citing paper
“ey experience challenges with missing support, lack of flexibility, heavy and repeated bureaucratic tasks in the process of applying for accommodations, extensions and assistive tech [78].”
From Neurodiversity and the Accessible University: Exploring Organizational Barriers, Access Labor and Opportunities for Change (2024) · cites this paper as [78]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe check wasn’t confident either way, so it gives no verdict — never disputed.
In the citing paper
“These findings unfortunately confirm existing studies on the existence of barriers to equal access in Danish higher education [78], [81] and support previous research demonstrating that universities often act as neurodiversity”
From Neurodiversity and the Accessible University: Exploring Organizational Barriers, Access Labor and Opportunities for Change (2024) · cites this paper as [78]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography
Clifford, J., & Marcus, G. E. (1986) · Cited by 6,160
Interaction Analysis: Foundations and Practice
Jordan, B., & Henderson, A. (1995) · Journal of the Learning Sciences · doi:10.1207/s15327809jls0401_2 · Cited by 2,726
Muller, M. J., & Kuhn, S. (1993) · Communications of the ACM · doi:10.1145/153571.255960 · Cited by 909
Wood, D. (1992) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 775
Shapin, S. (1989) · Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) · Cited by 564
Working relations of technology production and use
Suchman, L. A. (1993) · Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) · doi:10.1007/bf00749282 · Cited by 547
Self-citationControl Through Communication: The Rise of System in American Management.
Martin, A., & Yates, J. (1991) · The American Historical Review · doi:10.2307/2164194 · Cited by 534
Lynch, M. (1988) · Human Studies · doi:10.1007/bf00177304 · Cited by 435
Surveillance and capture: Two models of privacy
Agre, P. E. (1994) · The Information Society · doi:10.1080/01972243.1994.9960162 · Cited by 402
Workflow From Within and Without: Technology and Cooperative Work on the Print Industry Shopfloor
Bowers, J., Button, G., & Sharrock, W. (1995) · Proceedings of the Fourth European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work ECSCW ’95 · doi:10.1007/978-94-011-0349-7_4 · Cited by 352
Do Categories Have Politics? The language/action perspective reconsidered
Suchman, L. A. (1993) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-94-011-2094-4_1 · Cited by 336
Self-citationUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
(2010) · The Australian Journal of Anthropology · doi:10.1111/j.1835-9310.1982.tb01239.x · Cited by 328
Representations and Requirements: The Value of Ethnography in System Design
Anderson, R. (1994) · Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1207/s15327051hci0902_1 · Cited by 314
Suchman, L. A. (1996) · Elsevier eBooks · doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-415040-9.50118-4 · Cited by 238
Self-citationFrom ethnographic record to system design
Hughes, J. A., Randall, D., & Shapiro, D. (1992) · Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) · doi:10.1007/bf00752435 · Cited by 159
Using video to re-present the user
Brun‐Cottan, F., & Wall, P. (1995) · Communications of the ACM · doi:10.1145/203356.203368 · Cited by 89
Looking for the designers: Transforming the ‘invisible’ infrastructure of computerised office work
Clement, A. (1993) · AI & Society · doi:10.1007/bf01891415 · Cited by 38
Speech acts and voices: Response to Winogradet al.
Suchman, L. A. (1994) · Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) · doi:10.1007/bf01305852 · Cited by 34
Self-citationRepresentations of Work: Bringing Designers and Users Together
Wall, P., & Mosher, A. (1994) · Participatory Design Conference · Cited by 24
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 10
- Blomberg J., PDC '94: Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference, (Palo Alto, Calif.) R. Trigg, S. I. Anderson, & E. Dykstra-Erickson, Eds. 1994 Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, 99-109
- Blomberg J., 1993, Participatory Design: Principles and Practices
- Bowers J., 1995, Proceedings of the European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work
- Hales M., 1993, Design lssues in CSCW
- Star S. L., 1991, Eds. North Holland, 81
- Suchman L., 1993, Ed. Routledge, 113
- Suchman L., Computerization and Controversy: Value Conflicts and Social Choices, 2d Ed.
- Wall P., 1994, PDC '94: Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference (Palo Alto, Calif), R. Trigg, S. I. Anderson, and E. Dykstra-Erickson, Eds., 87
- Watson-Verran H., 1993, Melbourne Conference on Sex/Gender in Technoscience Worlds
- Yates J., 1989, Baltimore and London
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Distributed leadership as a unit of analysis
Gronn, P. (2002) · The Leadership Quarterly · doi:10.1016/s1048-9843(02)00120-0 · Cited by 2,059
Towards a theory of leadership practice: a distributed perspective
Spillane, J. P., Halverson, R., & Diamond, J. B. (2004) · Journal of Curriculum Studies · doi:10.1080/0022027032000106726 · Cited by 2,037
Investigating School Leadership Practice: A Distributed Perspective
Spillane, J. P., Halverson, R., & Diamond, J. B. (2001) · Educational Researcher · doi:10.3102/0013189x030003023 · Cited by 1,690
Layers of Silence, Arenas of Voice: The Ecology of Visible and Invisible Work
Star, S. L., & Strauss, A. (1999) · Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) · doi:10.1023/a:1008651105359 · Cited by 1,500
McCarthy, J., & Wright, P. (2004) · The MIT Press eBooks · doi:10.7551/mitpress/6687.003.0011 · Cited by 1,371
Metadata
- Authors
- Suchman, L.
- Affiliations
- Palo Alto Research Center (US)
- Corresponding author
- Suchman, Lucy
- ORCID
- Suchman, Lucy
- Venue
- Communications of the ACM
- Published
- 1995-09
- Volume
- 38
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 56-64
- ISSN
- 0001-0782 (ISSN-L)
- 1557-7317
- OpenAlex
- W2095270559
- Cited by
- 991
- References
- 19
- Citations by year
- 2026: 54 · 2025: 31 · 2024: 30 · 2023: 34 · 2022: 51 · 2021: 46 · 2020: 30 · 2019: 30 · 2018: 44 · 2017: 42 · 2016: 37 · 2015: 42 · 2014: 35 · 2013: 25 · 2012: 30
- FWCI
- 71.79
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Communications of the ACM (publishedVersion)
- Lancaster EPrints (Lancaster University) (submittedVersion)
- Lancaster EPrints (Lancaster University) (submittedVersion, public-domain)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Management Information Systems › Information Systems Theories and Implementation
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Management and Organizational Studies
- Social Sciences › Education › Innovative Education and Learning Practices
- Keywords
- work practices, visibility of work, self-representation, empowerment, workflow modeling, business process reengineering, sociology of work, organizational knowledge
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
