ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF SHIFT TO ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION DISSEMINATION BY A PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATION - AN ANALYSIS OF THEINSTITUTE-OF-ELECTRICAL-AND-ELECTRONICS-ENGINEERS (IEEE)

Large, decentralized scientific and engineering organizations based in North America and Europe have identified electronic media as a strate gic technology for communication and information dissemination to thei r members and other stakeholders. The Institute of Electrical and Elec tronics Engineers (IEEE), the largest technical society in the world, recognized its increasing dependence on electronic media and commissio ned a study to assess the social, organizational, and economic impacts of this shift on its members and other stakeholders. Results of the s tudy are reported herein. The Delphi research method was chosen to gat her expert opinion from 30 IEEE members and other stakeholders regardi ng their predictions of the range and depth of impacts, types of benef its, and undesirable effects. The purpose of this research is to provi de a series of recommendations as to how scientific and technical orga nizations may take full advantage of electronic media technology, whil e taking actions to avoid the negative consequences of this technologi cal change. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc.