An Emergent Global Biodiversity Information Infrastructure With lessons from the Long-Term Ecological Research Network Geof Bowker *, Karen Baker *, Helena Karasti + *University of California, San Diego and +Oulu University NSF/BDEI Workshop 2003: Managing Heterogeneity: Data, Collaborators, Organizations

Why a biodiversity informatics agenda? Biodiversity is key to the well-being of our planet Good biodiversity information is thus central to our collective well-being

Some agendas …for biodiversity informatics Negotiating Infrastructures –dreams, classification schemes, subdisciplines (Ada, Ages) –describe social, political, and ethical stakes that accompany development Articulating Evaluation Procedures –technological base and science culture (FNA) –develop new skills with formative evaluation Supporting Policy Creation –digital earth via models –locate working successes and make values visible

Protocols – a sociotechnical concept - Oxford English Dictionary defines a protocol as “the original note or minute of a transaction, negotiation, agreement or the like” - Working useage presents a protocol as part of communications technologies Technical standards –as code with numerical/algorithmic/classification elements –often articulated and then hidden Social arrangements –as work processes with ethical/moral/in_practice elements –often invisibile and requires articulation

The Need for SocioTechnical Informatics Or lessons from practice today Eco-Socio-Technical Partnering –cross discipline and domain: epistemologies, ontologies, and metaphors –communications influence infrastructure –roles require articulation –structures and values are integrated Cyberinfrastructure development as a process –understanding ecology of information practices –recognizing “one person’s infrastructure may be another’s barrier” –creating formative evaluative procedures –expecting ramifications from metadata Policy decisions as interdependent balances –dialogue and articulation Baker et al. 2000

Two Branches of Inquiry for our BDEI work Ethnography an approach for developing understandings of the everyday activities of particular communities of people. It is both a field practice and a discursive practice: a “process” of fieldwork, e.g. observations, interviewing, participation an analytic lens through which human activity can be viewed, a lens through which multiple voices can be heard in the process of designing effective information systems (CSCW/SI) 2002: 52 interviews of PIs, IMs, Designers, Admins, Students, Research Assistants, Field Technicians, Managers, and Associates Participatory Design an approach to the design and development of technological and organizational systems that places a premium on the active involvement of workplace practitioners in design and decision-making processes (PD) 2002: IM Executive Committee Meeting (Feb), IM Meeting (July), Dialogue (ongong)

Grounded in work practice… LTER IM Lived experiences “ The data manager knows a lot about what really are the good and bad aspects of the data. … because we have handled it, we know what works and what does not… That should be part of the metadata. Because ultimately if you don’t write those things down, they are going to get lost. … It’s stuff that is more valuable than a lot of this other descriptive information about a dataset. I mean in terms of a real quality ‘gut feeling’ of how good it is. You know, like a ‘subjective quality indicator’ of some sort.” - LTER IM 2002 “I feel like I am getting spread too thin” - LTER IM 2002

Karen Baker, Palmer LTER Information Manager, SIO/UCSD Helena Karasti, University of Oulu, Finland & UCSD Bringing everyday practices and lived experiences into the LTER metadata discussion LTER IM Meeting Orlando, Florida July 2002 Articulation and participation…

Three-component conceptual model Baker, Bowker and Karasti, 2002 Organizational Dynamics Environmental Sciences Earth Measurements IM CMC Human/ Social Sciences Information Sciences HCI CSCW SI PD Technology Participatory Design (PD) With established domains and communities of practice (CoP) Information Management

Technology Work practice Technologically determined Mutually constructed Work practice Invitation: to value and to articulate lived experiences and the everyday data/metadata practices Invitation issued at the LTER Information Manager’s Meeting 2002 …

Metadata – another sociotechnical concept Metadata is key to information retrieval and data integration across federated systems yet we are only beginning to understand the ramification of the diversity of approaches, logic based and alternatives: Classification (Bowker and Star,1999) Semantic interoperability (Sheth & Larson,1990) Interchange strategies (Goh et al,1999) Organizational frameworks (Kling, 1987; Weick, 1979; Davenport&Prussak 1998) Narrative (Boyce, 1996; Karasti, Baker and Bowker 2003)

Narrative as part of the metadata discussion… ACM: SIGGROUP 2003

The Challenges of Biodiversity Informatics Or designing for irreducible domain, cultural and policy heterogeneity Technology and knowledge transfer Networks and communities Theoretical and practical elements Data for domain scientists and for policy makers Electronic and human communication processes Call for Bridges and negotiations:

An infrastructure … is a collaborative work