A Preface to ‘Infrastructuring and Collaborative Design’

Data Handling in Knowledge Infrastructures

“…Whereas articulation work has previously been conceptualized as hidden and only visible when there are breakdowns, we find that knowledge infrastructures are incomplete in ways that necessitate a focus on repairing these small and continuous fractures. This is shown in our analysis that focuses on the data handling work in knowledge infrastructures and further adds to studies that consider the design of infrastructures [13], [25] and of data sharing in knowledge infrastructures [12], [13], [16], [40]. Here, repair work is not concerned with data in isolation, but rather, it includes the databases and various technologies.…”

“…These endeavors entail a necessary redistribution of labor between humans and technology [29], and studies have shown how the social interactions needed to sustain scientific work decrease as the work and agency are delegated to technology [30]. Recent work on "infrastructuring" has engaged with this type of relational and in-the-making perspective of how infrastructures emerge [25]. Karasti et al [13], for example, show how information managers who are tasked with managing technology over the long term focus on providing ongoing, reliable, and sustainable information environments as opposed to the short-term and project specific goals of project workers.…”

An Afterword to ‘Infrastructuring and Collaborative Design’

“…In putting together this special issue we aimed to assess the current state of CSCW's contribution to the understanding of infrastructuring and collaborative design (Pipek et al 2017). In the call for papers we highlighted new, original challenges to contemporary CSCW and design in general, that infrastructuring proposes, such as: Bextending the temporal, organizational, societal scopes and diversifying collaboration arenas from the common use, design and development to tailoring, appropriation, repair, maintenance and standardization, to including professionals from industry, formal organizational structures like standardization bodies and authorities as well as community members and citizens in informal, community-based initiatives^(ibid., p. 1-2).…”

Bringing Data Science to Qualitative Analysis

“…Our qualitative research focuses on the study of scientific researchers' work processes. The work is motivated by related threads of work in Computer Supported Cooperative Work, eScience, and Human-Computer Interaction that have investigated the use of workflow and provenance tools to address the needs of scientific data exploration processes [4], [5], [6], [7]. Developing comprehensive understanding and insights into actual scientific work practices is vital for building nextgeneration eScience tools.…”