after copenhagen

The digitalSTS workshop in Copenhagen was a blast. It got me, and my collaborator Janet Vertesi, really excited to keep the project going. Here is our report, and expect to hear more about this soon!

The folk at the University of Syracuse iSchool have been kind enough to invite me to speak on my new research. I'll be presenting my work entitled 'Flexibility relative to what? Change and the protean research infrastructure' which broadens argues that we, as analysts, have largely seen change to infrastructure as a matter of the sociotechnical (technologies of collaboration and data), this talk will also argue for the need to focus on institutional change (funding and regulatory regimes) and the almost completely ignored facet of phenomenotechncial change (change to objects of research, instruments and scientific practice).

I'll also be presenting research at the iConference, for the sociotechnical systems folk. I'll be focusing on my work on materiality and organizing.

A Busy Fall (2012 edition)

Many events this fall!

1- I will be presenting a keynote talk at the Innovation in Information Infrastructures (III) Workshop in Edinburgh, UK. This talk will focus on my recent research on organizing for ontological change.

2- I'll then head over to Copenhagen for a day long workshop on Digital STS that I am coorganizing with Janet Vertesi at the IT University of Copenhagen. The workshop is sponsored by the National Science Foundation's Sociotechnical RCN and by the Sloan Foundation. Our goal is bring together the heterogeneous threads of STS that are interested in digitality, networks, information, HCI, infrastructure, hacktivism and a whole lot more that is going on in our broad sphere!

3- At 4S itself (Society for Social Studies of Science - Copenhagen) I am coorganizing a double panel with Paul Edwards on 'Sociotemporalities: Infrastructure, Time and Space'. Details below:

263. Spatiotemporalities I - Infrastructure and the
Long Now
2:00 to 3:30 pm
Kilen: K146
Chair:
Geof Bowker, University of California-Irvine
Participants:
Data bite man: the work of sustaining a long-term study. David
Ribes, Georgetown University; Steven Jackson, University of
Michigan
Time to Degree: How Graduate Students Experience the Long
Term. R. Stuart Geiger, UC-Berkeley
Infrastructure cascades for interesting times. Ben Li, University
of Oulu
Discussant:
Eeva Furman, Finnish Environment Institute

292. Spatiotemporalities II: Space and
Infrastructures
4:00 to 5:30 pm
Kilen: K146
Chair:
Paul N. Edwards, University of Michigan
Participants:
Digital mappings in use: The non-representational use of spatial
infrastructure. Barry Brown, Mobile Life Centre, Stockholm
University
Global Dimensions: Water, Ships, & the Infrastructures of the
Panama Canal. Ashley Carse, Whittier College
Producing Space: The infrastructures of planetary exploration.
Janet Vertesi, Princeton University
Scaling Disaster: Simulating the Extent of the Deepwater
Horizon and the Fukushima Meltdowns. Paul N. Edwards,
University of Michigan

Whirlwind Tour

I seem to be on a bit of a whirlwind travel tour. For an STS audience I am presenting my historical ontology and infrastructure research at Northwestern University's Klopsteg lecture series on Science in Human Culture.

I'll then be heading to Arizona State University where I'll presenting the same research but with a policy slant in their Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes.

Finally I'll be attending the first all-hands meeting of the ecological NSF-Research Collaboration Network (RCN) meeting. I am on the advisory board. Should be interesting.

iConference 2012

My next trip will be to the iConference in Toronto.

This will be the first presentation of my new research thread focusing on historical ontology and phenomeno-technical change. This is really exciting for me, and there is more to come!

Historical Ontology and Infrastructure

ABSTRACT
We explore the relationship between long-term scientific
infrastructure and its changing objects of research. Specifically,
we focus on the historical changes in HIV disease during the life
of a longitudinal medical study that has been investigating it for
nearly thirty years. We ask: within the study of information
infrastructure and research-based organizations, what are the
things that inherently change, and how do such changes
reverberate through the structure and organization of
infrastructure? In applying the notion of historical ontology to
cyberinfrastructure, we present the groundwork for a broader
understanding of the sustainability of infrastructure within an
environment inherently in flux.

I am also co-organizing (with Jillian Wallis) a discussion panel of Monitoring, Modeling and Memory (MMM) Cyberinfrastructure scholars:

The State of Infrastructure Studies

Paul N. Edwards – What is Infrastructure Studies? (University of Michigan)
Geoffrey C. Bowker – When is Infrastructure? (University of Pittsburgh)
Ayse G. Buyuktur – Method in Infrastructure Studies (University of Michigan)
Steven J. Jackson – Maintenance and Repair (Cornell)
David Ribes – Units of Analysis: Beyond ‘the Project’ (Georgetown)
Jillian C. Wallis & Christine L. Borgman – Collaborative responsibility for scientific data (UCLA)

Heading to Social Studies of Science (4S)

4S is now just around the corner. I've got a stellar double panel of scholars reflecting on 'STS following the digital turn', co-organized with Janet Vertesi:

SATURDAY

153. STS 2.0: Taking the Canon Digital – l
8:30 to 10:00 am
Crowne Plaza: Fuldheim
Chair:
Janet Vertesi, Princeton University
Discussants:
Trevor Pinch, Cornell University
Joshua Mark Greenberg, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Morana Alac, University of California, San Diego
Lucy Suchman, Lancaster University

173. STS 2.0: Taking the Canon Digital – ll
10:30 to 12:00 pm
Crowne Plaza: Fuldheim
Chair:
David Ribes, Georgetown University
Discussants:
Geoffrey Bowker, Santa Clara University
Paul Dourish, University of California at Irvine
E. Gabriella Coleman, New York University
Anita Chan, University of Illinois

I won't be presenting any of my research on (cyber)infrastructure, but here are some great panels:

THURSDAY

013. Collaboration Infrastructures in the Sciences:
Sociotechnical Issues
8:30 to 10:00 am
Crowne Plaza: Van Sweringen
Chair:
Florence Millerand, Universite du Quebec a Montreal
Participants:
Open Infrastructure Supporting Heterogeneous Collaboration: The
Case of TelaBotanica. Lorna Heaton, Universite de Montreal;
Florence Millerand, Universite du Quebec a Montreal
Integrating Heterogeneity in a Database. Florence Millerand,
Universite du Quebec a Montreal; Olivier Gratton‐Gagné,
Universite du Quebec a Montreal
Cyberinfrastructure Supported Interdisciplinarity. Drew Paine,
University of Washington; Tony Ferro, University of Washington
Reuse of Data and Technologies across Cyberinfrastructure
Development Projects. Charlotte P. Lee, University of
Washington; Matthew J. Bietz, University of California Irvine;
Katie Derthick, University of Washington; Drew Paine, University
of Washington

THURSDAY

062. Collaboration and Interdisciplinarity
1:30 to 3:00 pm
Crowne Plaza: Hope
Chair:
Elihu M Gerson, Tremont Research Institute
Participants:
The Shape of Information Management: Fostering Collaboration
across Data, Science and Technology in a Design Studio. Joan
Marie Donovan, University of California San Diego; Karen S.
Baker, University of California San Diego/ Scripps Institution of
Oceanography
Scalefree Geographical Mapping of Scientific Collaboration of
Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Olivier H. Beauchesne, Science‐
Metrix, Inc; Éric Archambault, Science‐Metrix, Inc
What Factors Might Affect Physicians for Conducting Collaborative
Research? Yuko Ito, National Institute of Science and Technology
Policy; Hiromi Saito, GRIPS
Junctures: A Kind of Research Organization. Elihu M Gerson,
Tremont Research Institute

THURSDAY

058. Scientometrics and STS
1:30 to 3:00 pm
Crowne Plaza: Rockefeller
Chair:
Matthew Mayernik, University of California, Los Angeles
Participants:
Evaluating the Long Now of Cyber‐Science and Engineering. Cory
Philip Knobel, University of Pittsburgh; Astrid Schrader, Sarah
Lawrence College
Interactive Overlays: A New Method for Generating Global Journal
Maps from Web‐of‐Science Data. Loet Leydesdorff, University of
Amsterdam; Ismael Rafols, University of Sussex
Bringing Scientometrics and Science and Technology Studies
Together ‐ Again: Lessons from ANT. Ira Monarch, Carnegie
Mellon
Data Citations in the Geo‐Sciences: Motivations, Measurements,
and Organizational Alignments. Matthew Mayernik, University of
California, Los Angeles

SATURDAY

198. Friction: Data, Metadata and Collaborative Scientific
Work
1:30 to 3:00 pm
Crowne Plaza: Grand Ballroom ‐ West
Chair:
Ayse G. Buyuktur, University of Michigan
Participants:
Distribution of Data Management Responsibilities. Jillian C Wallis,
University of California, Los Angeles
S a tur d a y
From Practices to Institutions: Metadata Structures Within
Scientific Collaboratories. Matthew Mayernik, University of
California, Los Angeles; Archer L. Batcheller, University of
Michigan
Of Shrines and Samples: Innovation and Integrity in Long‐Term
Ecological Data Practice. Matt Burton, University of Michigan;
Steven Jackson, University of Michigan
The Science Database as a Communicative Genre. Dharma Akmon,
University of Michigan

SATURDAY

228. Representing the World: Mediation and Database Design
3:30 to 5:00 pm
Crowne Plaza: Allen
Chair:
Matthew J. Bietz, University of California Irvine
Participants:
Databases and Metagenomics: Enforcing Genomic Ways of
Knowing. Matthew J. Bietz, University of California Irvine
Constructing Cyberinfrastructure. Cory Philip Knobel, University of
Pittsburgh
Recontexting Disease: Interpreting Shared Data in Cancer
Epidemiology. Betsy Rolland, University of Washington
Impossible Deaths: Facebook’s Exclusion of Mortality in the
Representation of Our Lives. Jed R. Brubaker, University of
California ‐ Irvine
Discussant:
Charlotte P. Lee, University of Washington