Showing papers by "Susan Leigh Star published in 1996"

Steps Toward an Ecology of Infrastructure: Design and Access for Large Information Spaces

Abstract: We analyze a large-scale custom software effort, the Worm Community System (WCS), a collaborative system designed for a geographically dispersed community of geneticists. There were complex challenges in creating this infrastructural tool, ranging from simple lack of resources to complex organizational and intellectual communication failures and tradeoffs. Despite high user satisfaction with the system and interface, and extensive user needs assessment, feedback, and analysis, many users experienced difficulties in signing on and use. The study was conducted during a time of unprecedented growth in the Internet and its utilities (1991–1994), and many respondents turned to the World Wide Web for their information exchange. Using Bateson's model of levels of learning, we analyze the levels of infrastructural complexity involved in system access and designer-user communication. We analyze the connection between systems development aimed at supporting specific forms of collaborative knowledge work, local orga...

Working together: Symbolic interactionism, activity theory, and information systems

Abstract: Introduction There can be no doubt that in 1896 John Dewey was anticipating important aspects of what we now know as activity theory. (Tolman & Pikkola, 1989, p. 46) I find myself these days as a point in a dialogue between three voices: activity theory, American symbolic interactionism (pragmatism), and the development of large-scale information systems. I write this chapter in order to enliven that dialogue. It might simply be a Whiggish exercise or a history of ideas-in-common, such are the density of the threads that unite their founders and practitioners. But my concern here is not whether both Mead and Vygotsky both read Pavlov (of course they did), or whether their students read and taught each other (some did and do), nor simply about drawing structural analogies between lines of inquiry (although they are striking). I'm more concerned here to make a tool that will extend the usefulness of symbolic interactionism to the communities of practice (Wenger, 1990; Lave & Wenger, 1992) of activity theory and information-systems research. The three approaches afford each other–a word used mostly in this context by activity theorists, drawn from Gibson's ecological psychology (Gibson, 1979). Symbolic interactionism affords information-systems research a body of empirical studies of work and interaction, in the context of an elaborated philosophical framework that emphasizes collectivities and consequences. For activity theory, it is rich in understanding the subtle differences between types of work and practice, and how those are realized within and between communities.

Infrastructure and Organizational Transformation: Classifying Nurses’ Work

Abstract: This paper describes an evolving classification system for understanding the nature of nursing work, the Nursing Interventions Classification (NIC) developed at the University of Iowa. We describe the balancing act inherent in maximizing three dimensions of the system: comparability, control and visibility. As part of a series of studies on the relationship between classification, infrastructure, work and knowledge, we link NIC with other classification systems such as the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) and its role in organizational coordination. We analyze some of the features of evolving infrastructure, and its potential impact on organizations and practice.

Social informatics of digital library use and infrastructure

Abstract: Cet article traite de l'utilisation des bibliotheques numeriques et de leurs infrastructures. Il propose tout d'abord une description des divers conceptions courantes des bibliotheques numeriques et presente des concepts en relation avec l'informatique sociale et plus specifiquement avec les bibliotheques numeriques specialisees en informatique sociale. Puis l'emergence de la communaute de chercheurs qui explore ces bibliotheques sous l'angle de la conception, de l'implementation et de l'utilisation est examinee. Ensuite une etude des aspects sociaux des infrastructures des bibliotheques numeriques et les aspects sociaux de leur utilisation est proposee. Et enfin, la nature des recherches appliquees aux travaux concernant l'informatique sociale des bibliotheques numeriques est evaluee

Making Infrastructure: The Dream of a Common Language

Abstract: Can the principles of participatory design be applied in large infrastructure projects? We address our experience as social scientists co-developing a larger digital library project funded by the US government. We focus on how to understand the ways in which potential use, new and old infrastructure, and large project organization interact. We use three concepts: commitments, object worlds, and trajectories, and their associated processes (crystallization, maintainm g ambiguity, finding users, and building on the inertia of the installed base). We discuss the importance of linked visions and dreams, drawing on Watson- Verran's notion of "imaginary."