1. Designing an Infrastructure for Heterogeneity of Ecosystem
Data, Collaborators, Organizations
Karen Baker, Palmer LTER Information Manager, SIO/UCSD
Geoffrey C. Bowker, Dept of Communications, UCSD
Helena Karasti, University of Oulu, Finland & UCSD

2. What is this project? What is our support?
We will observe the data ecologies and work practices within the LTER, elicit and articulate significant elements of collaboration and community, and consider design artifacts that enhance network science in order to better understand and to plan for the management of scientific heterogeneity.
What is our support?
NSF/BDEI - Biodiversity and Ecosystem Informatics incubation grant
SIO/UCSD - Scripps Institution of Oceanography Matching Funds
NSF/LTER Palmer/Network - Matching Time
Academy of Finland - Research Abroad Support

3. Ethnography Participatory Design
Ethnography is 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 conducting fieldwork (e.g. observations, interviewing, participation)
an analytic lens through which human activity can be viewed
in the case of CSCW/SI it is a lens through which multiple voices can be heard in the process of designing effective information systems
Participatory Design
is 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
encompasses diverse approaches, e.g. strong traditions in the Scandinavian countries, worker participation in tehcnology development is included in the legislation.
PD conference
formative evaluation (feeding back to both communities, design and users)
Ethnography
qualitative research project whose purpose is rich description

4. Exploring and understanding scientific heterogeneity
through bridging environmental sciences and social sciences
SOCIAL SCIENCES
Computer Supported Cooperative Work
Social Informatics
Ethnography
Participatory Design
LTER Network Science
”playing field”
Social science triangle
Natural science triangle
CSCW and SI - both about 15 yrs, and deal with the same subject area of People and Information Technologies. However,
CSCW is more system design and technology development oriented - my backgroun in system design has lead me to CSCW.
SI, having roots in the social sciences, is oriented more towards social the social end. Geoffrey Bowker, background in history and long-time interest in technologies, has become associated with Social Informatics.
Ethnography is what these both use as a tool. - To learn about the actual technologically mediated practices (in this case within the LTER)... These findings feed into a form of Participatory Design (several traditions) where we meet the ”Natural Sciences/and particularly the LTER information practices!.
EcoInformatics
Information Management
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

5. Ecologies exist at multiple levels
Data: data collection and archive
Collaborator: multiple views and human interfaces
Organization: organization environment and memory

6. One view of the Antarctic marine system:
Palmer LTER, 1998

7. Palmer LTER Information System
One view of data ecology:
WWW
Palmer LTER Information System
data catalog
SUPPORT
RESEARCH
site
description
bibliography
data
personnel
procedures
data dictionaries
metadata
Baker, 2000
Component 1
Component 2
Component N

8. LTER Operational Chart
One view of network ecology:
LTER Operational Chart
NSF
NAB
Network
Office
Standing
Committees
21 Sites
and
1100 Scientists
Planning
Implementation
Coordinating
Committee
Exec
Chair
LTER Network, 2001

9. One view of the earth: Figure 8.1 Two-component conceptual model
Odum, 1998

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

11. Databases as communication tools
in a biodiverse world
The Data: We gather, document, archive and manipulate ontologically diverse data
The People: We possess a variety of different views of the environment
Heterogeneity in Our Working Knowledge: We find the digital culture leads us very quickly into deep theoretical questions and to questions of communication patterns within and between scientific disciplines as well as with legal and political bodies