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- Journal ArticleCaseworkers’ participation in procurement: Infrastructuring Child Welfare Services in Norway(Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 32, No. 4, 2023) Dahl-Jørgensen, Tangni C.; Parmiggiani, ElenaProcurement is a widely adopted collaborative approach for acquiring new systems in the public sector. It exemplifies a situation in which the early stages of digital system design define the boundaries and constraints of a new system that must be specified in the tender document (i.e., a binding offer). Researchers and government officials have long recognized the benefit of end-user participation in system design. Given the central role of the pre-tender phases in procurement processes, however, there is a need to better understand what affects user participation in such early stages. In this paper, we research a procurement process in municipal Child Welfare Services in Norway. We focus on caseworkers' participation in procuring a future case management system. We build on the concept of participatory infrastructuring to characterize how the meaning of participation was shaped through three overarching participatory infrastructuring practices of decision-making within a rigid procurement process: (i) scaling up the project, (ii) negotiating participation in meetings with potential suppliers and in tender documents, and (iii) positioning caseworkers as subject experts. The analysis of these practices reveals that the definition of user needs in the tender documentation and the creation of knotworks define both the boundary conditions and the modalities of participation. We contribute to the conversation on participatory infrastructuring in Computer-Supported Cooperative Work by discussing how participatory infrastructuring provides a conceptual understanding of participation in the context of municipal systems procurement.
- Journal ArticleThe Human Infrastructure of Civic Data: A Taxonomy for Participatory Infrastructuring of Civic Data(Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 32, No. 4, 2023) Peer, FirazAs data becomes available online, it often remains inaccessible to marginalized communities where the resources, skills, and knowledge required to access and use such data are unevenly distributed. To make data more accessible to one such marginalized community in Atlanta’s Westside neighborhood, I participated in infrastructuring their civic data using city commons framework developed by Balestrini et al. This process involved three steps: taking a design based ethnographic approach to investigate a data dashboard, organizing data literacy workshops, and reimagining what a community-owned and operated form of data infrastructure would look like. My three-step process led me to identify the human infrastructure, which includes the individuals, organizations, values, needs, resources, and capital needed to do the work of infrastructuring civic data. I organize these elements of the human infrastructure into a taxonomy I call the Human Infrastructure of Civic Data (HICD). The HICD builds on the city commons framework and offers the CSCW community a taxonomy that can be used to identify the human infrastructure within communities and engage them in infrastructuring their civic data.
- Journal ArticleWho Cares About Data? Ambivalence, Translation, and Attentiveness in Asylum Casework(Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 32, No. 4, 2023) Nielsen, Trine Rask; Menendez-Blanco, Maria; Møller, Naja HoltenScholars across Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) increasingly focus on the topic of care when investigating data-driven technologies in contexts of re-humanizing technology design and usage. Previous studies have shown how care work eludes complex bureaucratic systems shaped by data, digitalization, and a restrictive political agenda. This research aims to understand how asylum stakeholders enact care as an aspect of asylum casework, while navigating what is largely acknowledged by NGOs, nation states, and the EU to be a broken asylum system (von der Leyen). We investigate care as a relational aspect of casework in which knowledge and technology of the implicated caseworker and asylum seeker are attuned to one another in a way that takes the unaccountable into account ( following Mol 2010). We add to studies of care in CSCW by empirically expanding the research sites of care and data work. In this multi-sited ethnographically informed study, we conducted interviews ( n = 19) and 160 h of observational studies amongst: 1) Danish Red Cross care workers; 2) Danish Refugee Council legal counsellors; and 3) Danish Immigration Service case officers. We contribute empirically grounded insights into the meanings of care in a datafied asylum context. We find that care is enacted by caseworkers in moments of ambivalence , translation , and attentiveness to “new substantial information” relevant for asylum decision-making. We find that these relational aspects of care in asylum casework impact the production of data about the asylum seeker. We end with a discussion of how a care perspective increases our sensitivity as CSCW researchers towards understanding the conditions for producing quality data and documentation in casework.
- Journal ArticleEducational Participatory Design in the Crossroads of Histories and Practices – Aiming for Digital Transformation in Language Pedagogy(Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 32, No. 4, 2023) Kinnula, Marianne; Iivari, Netta; Kuure, Leena; Molin-Juustila, TonjaSome level of digital technology design skills and competencies is important in any profession but in their education and work life this is often ignored. We explore the potential of Educational Participatory Design (EPD) in transforming work practices within diverse disciplines. This is done through a transdisciplinary case where EPD was used as an approach for transforming language teacher education seen to respond too slowly to technological advancements in society and work life. Based on our findings, we propose EPD as a useful approach for building the design agency of future professionals with various disciplinary and professional backgrounds. In the context of real-life work practice with students as future workers, EPD invites them to act as ‘designers’ envisioning novel practices and technologies for their own work, engaging their ‘users’ in the PD processes. EPD as a novel methodological approach integrates design with work practice learning and education and therefore, we suggest, belongs to the core expertise of CSCW research and design interested in the digital transformation of work practices.
- Journal ArticleFostering Research Data Management in Collaborative Research Contexts: Lessons learnt from an ‘Embedded’ Evaluation of ‘Data Story’(Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 32, No. 4, 2023) Mosconi, Gaia; Carvalho, Aparecido Fabiano Pinatti; Syed, Hussain Abid; Randall, Dave; Karasti, Helena; Pipek, VolkmarRecent studies suggest that RDM practices are not yet properly integrated into daily research workflows, nor supported by any tools researchers typically use. To help close this gap, we have elaborated a design concept called ‘Data Story’ drawing on ideas from (digital) data storytelling and aiming at facilitating the appropriation of RDM practices, in particular data curation, sharing and reuse. Our focus was on researchers working mainly with qualitative data in their daily workflows. Data Story integrates traditional data curation approaches with a more narrative, contextual, and collaborative organizational layer that can be thought of as a ‘story’. Our findings come from a long-term ‘embedded’ evaluation of the concept and show that: (1) engaging with Data Story has many potential benefits, as for example peer learning opportunities, better data overview, and organization of analytical insights; (2) Data Story can effectively address data curation issues such as standardization and unconformity; and (3) it addresses a broader set of issues and concerns that are less dealt with in the current state of play such as lack of motivation and stylistic choices. Our contribution, based on lessons learnt, is to provide a new design approach for RDM and for new collaborative research data practices, one grounded in narrative structures, capable of negotiating between top-down policies and bottom-up practices, and which supports ‘reflective’ learning opportunities – with and about data – of many kinds.
- Journal ArticleLearning from Other Communities: Organising Collective Action in a Grassroots Food-sharing Initiative(Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 32, No. 4, 2023) Berns, Katie; Rossitto, Chiara; Tholander, JakobThis paper illustrates the work of creating, infrastructuring, and organising a food-sharing community from the ground up. Drawing on Participatory Action Research (PAR) and a three-year engagement with FoodSharing Stockholm, the paper shows how the processes of starting up a grassroots initiative are shaped by participants’ direct experience and knowledge of similar initiatives. The analysis draws attention to: (1) how central activities such as recruiting volunteers, choosing digital tools, and establishing partnerships with food donors are conceived and organised, (2) the concrete challenges of sharing surplus food, such as adopting a distribution model, and negotiating fairness, and (3) how governance and decision-making models are adopted and (re)negotiated over time. The paper introduces the term Collective histories of organising to capture the impact that learning from previous experiences can have on communities’ efforts to set up and run; and re-orient design visions towards the consideration and adoption of existing sociotechnical practices, rather than always aiming at novel digital explorations. We outline three emerging dimensions that can characterise “Collective histories of organising” as a concept, (1) configuring capacities, (2) configuring sociotechnical practices, and (3) configuring participation. The paper contributes practical sensitivities to build, sustain, and infrastructure surplus food-sharing initiatives, where these three dimensions are discussed as central concerns designers and other food-sharing communities could learn from.
- Journal ArticleSuspicious Minds: the Problem of Trust and Conversational Agents(Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 32, No. 3, 2023) Ivarsson, Jonas; Lindwall, OskarIn recent years, the field of natural language processing has seen substantial developments, resulting in powerful voice-based interactive services. The quality of the voice and interactivity are sometimes so good that the artificial can no longer be differentiated from real persons. Thus, discerning whether an interactional partner is a human or an artificial agent is no longer merely a theoretical question but a practical problem society faces. Consequently, the ‘Turing test’ has moved from the laboratory into the wild. The passage from the theoretical to the practical domain also accentuates understanding as a topic of continued inquiry. When interactions are successful but the artificial agent has not been identified as such, can it also be said that the interlocutors have understood each other? In what ways does understanding figure in real-world human–computer interactions? Based on empirical observations, this study shows how we need two parallel conceptions of understanding to address these questions. By departing from ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, we illustrate how parties in a conversation regularly deploy two forms of analysis (categorial and sequential) to understand their interactional partners. The interplay between these forms of analysis shapes the developing sense of interactional exchanges and is crucial for established relations. Furthermore, outside of experimental settings, any problems in identifying and categorizing an interactional partner raise concerns regarding trust and suspicion. When suspicion is roused, shared understanding is disrupted. Therefore, this study concludes that the proliferation of conversational systems, fueled by artificial intelligence, may have unintended consequences, including impacts on human–human interactions.
- Journal ArticleGreen IT Meaning in Energy Monitoring Practices: The Case of Danish Households(Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 32, No. 3, 2023) Tchatchoua, Nadine Sandjo; Boulus-Rødje, Nina; Mitchell, ValEco-conferences like COP26 in Glasgow (UK) in 2021 have brought the debate on energy consumption and climate change to the fore. Given that a third of the energy produced worldwide is consumed in the home, it is pertinent to investigate how households use emerging technologies that allow households to monitor their energy consumption. This paper investigates how Danish households use green IT to monitor and manage their energy use and studies the related meaning householders attach to the green IT. We present qualitative data collected through interviews with 14 households, electric car owners mostly, who have adopted an application to monitor green energy availability – and its derived consumption. The paper highlights these householders’ green energy monitoring practices with an emphasis on the meaning they make of the green IT application they used. Our study found that households can use more green energy without interacting continuously with the green IT application. This contrasts with a common assumption in the field of green IT design that consumers must continuously engage with the green IT to consume more green energy. We also posit that including householders in future green IT design is paramount for designing successful green IT applications. Finally, this paper calls for household energy consumption studies to view energy consumption as a service where specific practices are matched to energy sources – rather than viewing energy availability as a solitary incident.
- Journal ArticleRevisiting the Digital Plumber: Modifying the Installation Process of an Established Commercial IoT Alarm System(Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 32, No. 3, 2023) Castle-Green, Teresa; Reeves, Stuart; Fischer, Joel E.; Koleva, BorianaThe ‘digital plumber’ is a conceptualisation in ubicomp research that describes the work of installing and maintaining IoT devices. But an important and often understated element of commercial IoT solutions is their long-term socio-technical infrastructural nature, and therefore long-term installation and maintenance needs. This adds complexity to both the practice of digital plumbing and to the work of design that supports it. In this paper we study a commercial company producing and installing IoT alarm systems. We examine video recordings that capture how a digital plumbing representative and software development team members make changes to both the installation process and supporting technology. Our data enables us to critically reflect on concepts of infrastructuring, and uncover the ways in which the team methodically foreground hidden elements of the infrastructure to address a point of failure experienced during field trials of a new version of their product. The contributions from this paper are twofold. Firstly, our findings build on previous examples of infrastructuring in practice by demonstrating the use of notions of elemental states to support design reasoning through the continual foregrounding and assessment of tensions identified as key factors at the point of failure. Secondly, we build on current notions of digital plumbing work. We argue that additional responsibilities of ‘reporting failure’ and ‘facilitation of change’ are part of the professional digital plumbing role and that commercial teams should support these additional responsibilities through collaborative troubleshooting and design sessions alongside solid communication channels with related stakeholders within the product team.
- Journal ArticleRepresentative Participation in a Large-Scale Health IT Project(Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): Vol. 32, No. 3, 2023) Zahlsen, Øivind Klungseth; Svanæs, Dag; Dahl, YngveUser involvement is widely recognized as best practice in the development of information technology (IT) systems. In large-scale IT projects, the involvement of users and other stakeholder groups is typically in the form of representatives, as opposed to the direct (in-person) participation characteristic for smaller projects. The potential new sharing of power that representative participation entails vis-à-vis direct stakeholder involvement, and the implications of such a shift, are an important discussion in the context of participatory design. This paper extends and adds to previous work on this subject. Drawing on stakeholder interviews conducted as part of a case study of an electronic health record implementation project in Norway, this paper seeks to describe and analyze problems that can arise with representative participation in a large-scale project. Our focus is on an observed decline of interaction between health professionals participating actively in the project and their advisory units consisting of colleagues without a formal project role. The paper describes how the project’s structural arrangements might explain this decline. The paper also describes how the participating health professionals’ involvement of the advisory units at regular intervals early in the project (broad involvement) was replaced by more ad hoc and competence-oriented approaches (narrow involvement). We further use the organizational structure of democracies as the basis for two analogies, (I) participants-as-political-representatives and (II) participants-as-technocrats. The observed decline in interaction between the participating health professionals and their advisory units can be seen as a transition in role from user representative to technocrat. Generalizing from the case, we suggest that (1) a project’s structure strongly affects the possibilities of participating users to consult other users (e.g., non-participating colleagues) about issues concerning the design solution, (2) a project’s structure conditions the role of participating users and who, or what, they represent, and (3) representative participation requires rethinking a project’s structure.
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