Complex adaptive systems theory applied to virtual scientific collaborations: The case of DataONE

This study is the exploration of the emergence of DataONE, a multidisciplinary, multinational, and multi-institutional virtual scientific collaboration to develop a cyberinfrastructure for earth sciences data, from the complex adaptive systems perspective. Data is generated through conducting 15 semi-structured interviews, observing three 3-day meetings, and 51 online surveys. The main contribution of this study is the development of a complexity framework and its application to a project such as DataONE. The findings reveal that DataONE behaves like a complex adaptive system: various individuals and institutions interacting, adapting, and coevolving to achieve their own and common goals; during the process new structures, relationships, and products emerge that harmonize with DataONE’s goals. DataONE is quite resilient to threats and adaptive to its environment, which are important strengths. The strength comes from its diversified structure and balanced management style that allows for frequent interaction among members. The study also offers insights to PI(s), managers, and funding institutions on how to treat complex systems. Additional results regarding multidisiplinarity, library and information sciences, and communication studies are presented as well

Developing a Framework for Stigmergic Human Collaboration with Technology Tools: Cases in Emergency Response

Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs), particularly social media and geographic information systems (GIS), have become a transformational force in emergency response. Social media enables ad hoc collaboration, providing timely, useful information dissemination and sharing, and helping to overcome limitations of time and place. Geographic information systems increase the level of situation awareness, serving geospatial data using interactive maps, animations, and computer generated imagery derived from sophisticated global remote sensing systems. Digital workspaces bring these technologies together and contribute to meeting ad hoc and formal emergency response challenges through their affordances of situation awareness and mass collaboration. Distributed ICTs that enable ad hoc emergency response via digital workspaces have arguably made traditional top-down system deployments less relevant in certain situations, including emergency response (Merrill, 2009; Heylighen, 2007a, b). Heylighen (2014, 2007a, b) theorizes that human cognitive stigmergy explains some self-organizing characteristics of ad hoc systems. Elliott (2007) identifies cognitive stigmergy as a factor in mass collaborations supported by digital workspaces. Stigmergy, a term from biology, refers to the phenomenon of self-organizing systems with agents that coordinate via perceived changes in the environment rather than direct communication. In the present research, ad hoc emergency response is examined through the lens of human cognitive stigmergy. The basic assertion is that ICTs and stigmergy together make possible highly effective ad hoc collaborations in circumstances where more typical collaborative methods break down. The research is organized into three essays: an in-depth analysis of the development and deployment of the Ushahidi emergency response software platform, a comparison of the emergency response ICTs used for emergency response during Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, and a process model developed from the case studies and relevant academic literature is described

Representing complexity: the material construction of world politics

This thesis weaves together the themes of complexity, technology, and power. It does so by examining how actors in world politics gain leverage over complex systems through the use of specialised ‘representational technologies’ that make these systems intelligible and amenable to manipulation. In response to the increasing complexity of regional and global systems, political actors are expanding their use of these representational technologies in order to augment limited individual and institutional means for cognition. A first conclusion from this research is that through these technologies, power is being expanded in novel and unique ways. Building upon an insight from actor-network theory (ANT), power is examined here as something that must be constructed via material technologies. Yet unlike previous research which has focused primarily on infrastructural technology, this thesis examines the unique role of representational technologies in constructing power. Following constructivism, this thesis accords a significant role to knowledge, discourse, and representations in how world politics are presented and acted upon. However, a second conclusion of this thesis is that the standard idealist accounts in constructivism must be expanded by examining the increasingly material means through which such ideational representations are constructed. Thirdly, this thesis aims to illuminate a neglected type of technology within International Relations (IR) scholarship - by moving away from the standard analyses of military and communication technology, and instead showing how representational technology contributes to the practices of world politics. Lastly, in emphasising the materiality of power and knowledge, this thesis also aims to revive a moderate version of technological determinism by arguing that technology is a platform which shapes both possible political behaviours and pathways for technological development

The Role of ICTs in Social Movements: The Case of the Honduran National Front Against the 2009 Coup

There is an important academic conversation happening about how social movements adopt, use, and configure Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for political participation. This dissertation contributes to that conversation by taking a holistic look at ICTs, throughout a social movement\u27s emergence and development, while considering its context, its organizational structures and sense-making processes. I explore the case of the Honduran National Front Against the Coup (NFAC), a relevant case due to its similarities with other movements, like the use of social media, the support from the international community and its geographically dispersed networks; but also, particular in its political and ICT context. Guided by the Contentious Politics Model (CPM) asked an overarching research question: What is the role of Information and Communication Technologies in the emergence and development of the National Front Against the Coup? I also asked three second-level questions: (1) How does the Honduran Resistance Movement relate ICTs to political Opportunity Structures? (2) What role do ICTs play in creating and supporting the movement\u27s organizational structures, and in preparing and carrying out visible movement episodes? (3) How does the NFAC use ICTs to shape its attitudes, identities and competences? I conducted a single embedded exploratory case study guided by the extended case method where I studied the NFAC in a sequence of interconnected time periods called Collective Action Framing Episodes (CAFEs). Data were reconstructive narratives from primary and secondary sources. The movement\u27s use of ICTs for mobilizing social support for their cause can be considered an improvised subversive response to the institutionalized political environment. The movement\u27s regional affiliates formed a loosely coupled extended organization, which allowed the affiliates a degree of autonomy to do their oppositional work while remaining fully aligned with the movement\u27s priorities. ICTs allowed the movement to broadcast its messages across the network to socialize the affiliates and ensure they were all on the same page. This lose confederation, coordinated through ICTs allowed the NFAC to dynamically reconfigure and rearrange its regional affiliates as needed. I found instances of resourcefulness and improvisation, both in the way individual media platforms were used, and in the way these platforms were combined and recombined to move ahead. Thus, the intellectual contribution of this study is twofold: The first one is an expansion of the CPM (Contentious Politics Model). I propose that ICTs don\u27t drive revolutions, but neither are they simply tools. There is a dynamic relation as environmental conditions (OS) like policies, institutions, ICT ownership, media centralization, shape the way social movements configure ICTs, and ICTs configurations by social movements can influence environmental conditions. The same way ICT configurations can be determined by he availability, collaboration and connectedness of civil society organizations within the movement (MS), and their relations can be influenced by ICT configurations. Therefore, by playing a reflexive role in the process of frame creation, ICTs are embedded in every level of the social movement emergence and development. The second contribution is an operative framework and analytical tool to study the interactions between social movements, institutions, and ICTs. The model uses CAFEs (Collective Action Framing Episodes), a composed construct that allows integrating several levels of analysis into one unit of analysis