Digital Data Practices and the Long Term Ecological Research Program Growing Global

This paper explores data practices in a Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) setting. It describes a number of salient data characteristics that are specific to the LTER program and outlines some central features of the curation approach cultivated within the US LTER network. It goes on to identify recent developments within the international LTER program relating to data issues: increasing heterogeneities due to networking, integration of data from additional disciplines, and new technologies in a changing digital landscape. Information management experience within LTER provides one example of the recurrent balancing inherent to the work of data curation. It highlights (1) taking into account the extended temporal horizon of data care, (2) aligning support for data, science and information infrastructure, and (3) integrating site and network-level responsibilities. LTER contributes to the inquiry into how to manage the continuity of digital data and to our understanding of how to design a sustainable information infrastructure

Configuring Devices for Phenomena in-the-Making

STS scholars are engaging in collaborative research in order to study extended socio-technical phenomena. This article participates in discussions on methodography and inventive methods by reflecting on visualizations used both internally by a team of researchers and together with study participants. We describe how these devices for generating and transforming data were brought to our ethnographic inquiry into the formation of research infrastructures which we found to involve unwieldy and evolving phenomena. The visualizations are partial renderings of the object of inquiry, crafted and informed by 'configuration' as a method of assemblage that supports ethnographic study of contemporary socio-technical phenomena. We scrutinize our interdisciplinary bringing together of visualizing devices - timelines, collages, and sketches - and position them in the STS methods toolbox for inquiry and invention. These devices are key to investigating and engaging with the dynamics of configuring infrastructures intended to support scientific knowledge production. We conclude by observing how our three kinds of visualizing devices provide flexibility, comprehension and in(ter)ventive opportunities for study of and engagement with complex phenomena in-the-making.Peer reviewe

Unfolding participation over time: temporal lenses in participatory design

Participatory design (PD) research has historically strongly focused on the reporting of design events (e.g. workshops and prototyping activities with participants), where issues such as ‘involving users’, including the users’ point of view, and participation as a matter of mutual learning have been in the foreground. The need to further problematise and critically examine participation is nonetheless apparent. This special issue aims to shed light on participation as it unfolds over time during, between and beyond participatory events such as these. Here, we build an overview of existing directions taken by researchers to address the unfolding of participation in IT design over time. We do this by examining existing PD literature and the four contributions to this special issue. We identify two common temporalities in PD, the future-oriented and the project-based, and propose five lenses that may aid researchers in exploring and understanding the temporal dimensions of participation in their projects: the phasic, emergent, retrospective, prospective and longterm lenses. We end with propositions and opportunities for future research directions in PD, highlighting the multi-faceted nature of the temporality of participation

Tieteen infrastruktuurit – näkymättömiä tukirakenteita, kansallisia kilpailuvaltteja vai uuden tutkimusvision mahdollistajia?

E-tiedekaudessa on kyse digitaalisille aineistoille, jaetuille teknisille resursseille sekä hajautetuille vuorovaikutusmuodoille rakentuvasta tutkimuksen informaatio- ja yhteistoimintainfrastruktuurista. Ilmiöstä puhutaan monilla nimillä: e-tiede, e-tutkimus, e-infrastruktuuri, kyberinfrastruktuuri, tiede 2.0 ja tutkimusinfrastruktuuri. Siihen liitetään usein visio tieteentekemisen paradigmamuutoksesta (Atkins ym. 2003), jossa luodaan sekä uusia tieteentekemisen tapoja, kuten tutkimusaineistojen jakaminen ja virtuaalinen tutkimusyhteistyö, että aivan uudenlaisia tutkimusaloja, kuten laskennalliset ja/tai data-intensiiviset alat. Ajankohtaiset laajat ja monimutkaiset yhteiskunnalliset ongelmaalueet, mukaan lukien ilmastonmuutos ja globaalitalous, ovat nostaneet esille e-tieteen merkityksen tutkimuksen tekemisen ja tieteellisen yhteistyön mahdollistajina. E-tiedekauden infrastruktuurien tutkimukseen ja kehitykseen on panostettu useissa maissa laajojen suurirahoitteisten e-tiedeohjelmien kautta, mm. Cyberinfrastructure Yhdysvalloissa, e-Science ja e-Social Science Isossa-Britanniassa sekä e-Research Australiassa