The APRON Lab
About
The Automation Policy Research Organizing Network (APRON) aims to build a community of scholars, practitioners, and policymakers focused on the future of data-intensive, automated work. APRON's goal is to advance the communicative study of the future of work. We focus in particular on how technology, organizations, and work change together, and on the datafication and automation of work.
The APRON Lab:
Conducts research on the communication design and communication practices that underlie organizational, technological, and social change
Sees work as a valuable and meaningful human enterprise that can bring purpose to peoples’ lives
Aims to empower workers and organizations with actionable communication strategies that can be used to manage challenges that surface in analytics and automation
Commits to developing Lab members’ professional skills as they become agents of change through social science and health research
In 2018, Anastazja Harris, Jared Jensen, Courtney Powers, and Kendall Tich, and Shelbey Rolison founded the Lab with Joshua Barbour. Their early input helped guide the Lab's mission and goals.
Career Profiles
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. SES-1750731.
The Automation of Work and Work of Automation Learning Module
The future of work is uncertain. Students need knowledge and tools that help them navigate and influence their future. Most writing in the public sphere about automation focuses on fears of job loss, but previous research on automation suggests that the effects of automation are more complicated. Students should be less concerned about job loss and more concerned about how to navigate a changing future of work.
This learning module gives educators resources to help familiarize students with advances in technology and changes in organizing that may affect the future work. The goal of the module is to empower students to have more effective deliberations about the future of work and to think critically now about what the future of their work should be. As teachers, we hope this module will help students realize and use the agency they have in shaping the future of work. Dr. Tasha Davis—a collaborator on this project, co-creator of this module, and faculty member at Austin Community College—also created a slide deck that can be adapted for teaching about this topic (PPT PDF).
Our research team and students led by filmmaker Anya Swanson also created Career Profiles that can help introduce students to work in health automation and analytics. Watch the videos below to hear the wise words of Dr. Senem Guney, former Vice President of Language Analytics at Press Ganey and Founder of NarrativeDx; Lehua Gray, Senior UX Designer, and Anmol Abraham, Assistant Director of Health Information Systems at People's Community Clinic.
A key assignment in the module is the Career Profiles students create themselves. Take a look at the Profiles created by students enrolled in the Careers in Caregiving / Communicating with Patients courses developed as a part of this research.
Dr. Senem Guney
Dr. Guney, Vice President of Language Analytics at Press Ganey and Founder of NarrativeDx, shares her story.
Dr. Guney offers advice for folks new to working in healthcare--especially those thinking of starting a business.
Lehua Gray
Lehua Gray, Senior UX Designer, shares her story and insights about why automation will augment but not replace her work.
Watch advice from Lehua Gray about starting out.
Anmol Abraham
Anmol Abraham, Assistant Director of Health Information Systems at People's Community Clinic, talks through her work supporting the electronic health record that helps the Clinic see their patients.
Watch advice for preparing for careers as a student and the importance of failure and learning from it.
Career Profiles for Students by Students
Students in Communication for Careers in Caregiving (CMN 396 UIUC) and Communicating with Patients (CMS 330P UT Austin) created profiles of careers in health and healthcare and work that involves caregiving more broadly. These courses were developed based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. SES-1750731. Watch all the Career Profiles here.
Communication for Careers in Caregiving is course at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign that focuses on developing skills involved in caregiving in context as a part of students life-long career development. The course is predicated on the idea that communication heals and that caregiving is central to many domains of work as well as being valuable in work that is not about caregiving per se.
Communicating with Patients is a foundational class in the UT Austin Patients, Practitioners & Cultures of Care, Bridging Disciplines Program. The Patients, Practitioners, and Cultures of Care program was developed with funding from a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (AK-255269-17). The program and the class aim to help the diverse communities of future health professionals at the University of Texas at Austin with leadership from across campus including Anthropology, Architecture, Communication, Nursing, Medicine, English, and and Social Work.
In 2023, Zainab Haque, Yuliya IInitzkaya, Darius Kouevi-Gou, and Sammy Tumbali created this mock-up of a simulation game for Communication for Careers in Caregiving at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.