Document Practice as Insight to Digital Infrastructures of Distributed, Collaborative Social Scientists
Author(s)
Sharma, Sarika
Snyder, Jaime
Østerlund, Carsten
Willis, Matt
Sawyer, Steven
Brown, Michelle
Szkolar, Dorotea
Issue Date
2014-03-01
Keyword(s)
virtual organizing
social science
cyberinfrastructure
Abstract
The objective of this study is to understand scholarly research practice in virtual, distributed collaborations by focusing on the flow of documents among the participants and to advance design guidance for supporting improved document practice across distributed collaborative platforms. To do so, we develop a theoretical framework on document practice highlighting the sociotechnical role of documents in digital infrastructure. This mixed-methods study will first conduct semi-structured interviews to understand document practices. The second phase of the study will collect trace data of documents as a way to understand how they change over time. In this poster, we report on the analysis of twelve interviews from social scientists working in virtual collaborations. Initial findings show that social scientists organize their documents and scholarly work on emergent digital infrastructures. Although not ideal, emergent digital infrastructures provide stability for collaboration across time and space.
Publisher
iSchools
Series/Report Name or Number
iConference 2014 Proceedings
Type of Resource
text
Language
english
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/47348
DOI
https://doi.org/10.9776/14355
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2014 is held by the authors of individual items in the proceedings. Copyright permissions, when appropriate, must be obtained directly from the authors.
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