ABSTRACT
Standards and protocols play important but under-theorized roles in HCI research and design efforts, including those dedicated to the development of new collaborative infrastructures in the sciences. Building on several years of ethnographic fieldwork, this paper examines standardization efforts attached to new forms of design and computational development in American ecology. We explore the role that standards play in large-scale research networks; how standards are enacted and enforced in complex interactive systems like science; how standards struggle and fail (and what happens when they do); and how actors work across the gaps that standards leave to produce more effective forms of practice and design. We also argue for the potentially creative role of standards, including contexts in which they function as fulcrums for change and innovation. We conclude with reflections on how HCI researchers might rethink the nature and possibilities of standards and standardization in their own work.
Supplemental Material
- Berliner, P. Thinking in jazz: the infinite art of improvisation. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1994.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Borges, J.L. A universal history of iniquity. Penguin, London, 2001.Google Scholar
- Bowker, G.C. Science on the run: information management and industrial geophysics at Schlumberger, 1920--1940. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1994.Google Scholar
- Bowker, G.C. and Star, S.L. Sorting things out: classification and its consequences. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1999. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Burton, M. and Jackson, S.J. Constancy and Change in Scientific Collaboration: Coherence and Integrity in LongTerm Ecological Data Production. HICSS 2012, (2012), 353--362. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Cargill, C.F. Eating Our Seed Corn: A Standards Parable for our Time. 2005. http://blogs.adobe.com/standards/files/2012/04/Eating-OurSeed-Corn-revised-April-2012.pdf.Google Scholar
- Cataldo, M. and Herbsleb, J.D. Coordination Breakdowns and Their Impact on Development Productivity and Software Failures. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 39, 3 (2013), 343--360. Google ScholarDigital Library
- DiSalvo, C., Sengers, P., and Brynjarsdóttir, H. Mapping the Landscape of Sustainable HCI. Proc. CHI 2010, ACM Press (2010), 1975--1984. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Dourish, P. HCI and environmental sustainability. Proc. DIS 2010, ACM Press (2010), 1--10. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Edwards, P.N., Jackson, S.J., Bowker, G.C., and Knobel, C.P. Understanding Infrastructure: Dynamics, Tensions, and Design. Ann Arbor, MI, 2007.Google Scholar
- Edwards, P.N., Jackson, S.J., Chalmers, M.K., et al. Knowledge Infrastructures: Intellectual Frameworks and Research Challenges. Ann Arbor, MI, 2013.Google Scholar
- Edwards, W.K. and Grinter, R.E. At Home with Ubiquitous Computing: Seven Challenges. Ubicomp 2001, Springer Berlin Heidelberg (2001), 256--272. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Edwards, W.K., Newman, M.W., and Poole, E.S. The infrastructure problem in HCI. Proc. CHI 2010, ACM Press (2010), 423--432. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Grinter, R.E. Doing Software Development: Occasions for Automation and Formalisation. Proc. Euro CSCW 1997, Springer Netherlands (1997), 173--188. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Howison, J. and Herbsleb, J.D. Scientific software production: incentives and collaboration. Proc. CSCW 2011, ACM Press (2011), 513--522. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Jackson, S.J. and Barbrow, S.K. Infrastructure and vocation: field, calling and computation in ecology. Proc. CHI 2013, ACM Press (2013), 2873--2882. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Jackson, S.J., Edwards, P.N., Bowker, G.C., and Knobel, C.P. Understanding infrastructure: History, heuristics and cyberinfrastructure policy. First Monday 12, 6 (2007).Google ScholarCross Ref
- Jackson, S.J., Steinhardt, S.B., and Buyuktur, A. Why CSCW needs science policy (and vice versa). Proc. CSCW 2013, ACM (2013), 1113--1124. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Klemp, N., McDermott, R., Raley, J., Thibeault, M., Powell, K., and Levitin, D.J. Plans, Takes, and Mistakes. Critical Social Studies 1, (2008), 4--21.Google Scholar
- Lampland, M. and Star, S.L. Standards and their stories: how quantifying, classifying, and formalizing practices shape everyday life. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 2009.Google Scholar
- Lee, C.P., Dourish, P., and Mark, G. The human infrastructure of cyberinfrastructure. Proc. CSCW 2006, ACM Press (2006), 483--492. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Monteiro, E., Pollock, N., Hanseth, O., and Williams, R. From Artefacts to Infrastructures. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) 22, 4-6 (2013), 575--607. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Newman, M.W., Elliott, A., and Smith, T.F. Providing an Integrated User Experience of Networked Media, Devices, and Services through End-User Composition. In J. Indulska, D.J. Patterson, T. Rodden and M. Ott, eds., Pervasive Computing. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2008, 213--227. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Olson, G.M., Zimmerman, A., and Bos, N. Scientific collaboration on the Internet. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2008. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Oudshoorn, N. and Pinch, T.J., eds. How users matter: the co-construction of users and technologies. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2003. Google ScholarCross Ref
- Palen, L., Vieweg, S., and Anderson, K.M. Supporting "Everyday Analysts" in Safety- and Time-Critical Situations. The Information Society Journal 27, 1 (2010), 52--62. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Pierce, J., Fan, C., Lomas, D., Marcu, G., and Paulos, E. Some consideration on the (in)effectiveness of residential energy feedback systems. Proc. DIS 2010, ACM Press (2010), 244--247. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Ribes, D. Ethnography of Scaling, or, How to a Fit a National Research Infrastructure in the Room. Proc. CSCW 2014, ACM Press (2014), 158--170. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Ribes, D. and Lee, C.P. Sociotechnical Studies of Cyberinfrastructure and e-Research: Current Themes and Future Trajectories. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) 19, 3-4 (2010), 231--244. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Schmidt, K. and Bannon, L. Taking CSCW seriously. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) 1, 1-2 (1992), 7--40.Google Scholar
- Starbird, K. and Palen, L. Working and sustaining the virtual "Disaster Desk." Proc. CSCW 2013, ACM Press (2013), 491--502. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Star, S.L. Orphans of Infrastructure: A New Point of Departure. Presentation given at Newnham College, Cambridge UK. 2007. http://events.stanford.edu/events/97/9744/.Google Scholar
- Star, S.L. and Griesemer, J.R. Institutional Ecology, 'Translations' and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907--39. Social Studies of Science 19, 3 (1989), 387--420.Google Scholar
- Star, S.L. and Ruhleder, K. Steps Toward an Ecology of Infrastructure: Design and Access for Large Information Spaces. Information Systems Research 7, 1 (1996), 111--134. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Star, S.L. and Strauss, A. Layers of Silence, Arenas of Voice: The Ecology of Visible and Invisible Work. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) 8, 1-2 (1999), 9--30. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Updegrove, A. ICT Standard setting today: A system under stress. First Monday 12, 6 (2007).Google ScholarCross Ref
- Wilson, W. Request for Declaration of War. 1917Google Scholar
Index Terms
- Standards and/as Innovation: Protocols, Creativity, and Interactive Systems Development in Ecology
Recommendations
Infrastructure and vocation: field, calling and computation in ecology
CHI '13: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsHCI studies of computational change in the sciences have made important design and analytic contributions, to other fields of science and to HCI itself. But some of the longer-term effects and complexities of infrastructural change in the sciences aren'...
Understanding the Role of Objects in Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration
In this paper we make a case for the use of multiple theoretical perspectives—theory on boundary objects, epistemic objects, cultural historical activity theory, and objects as infrastructure—to understand the role of objects in cross-disciplinary ...
Artful infrastructuring in two cases of community PD
PDC 04: Proceedings of the eighth conference on Participatory design: Artful integration: interweaving media, materials and practices - Volume 1In this paper, we use the notions of artful integrations and infrastructure to analyze two cases of community Participatory Design 'in the wild'. Though the communities are quite different on the outside, they bear surprising similarities when it comes ...
Comments