| Title | Steps Toward an Ecology of Infrastructure: Design and Access for Large Information Spaces |
| Publication Type | Journal Article |
| Authors | Star, Susan Leigh, and Karen Ruhleder |
| Journal | Information Systems Research |
| Volume | 7 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pagination | 111-134 |
| ISSN | 10477047 |
| Abstract | We analyze a large-scale custom software effort, the Worm Community System (WCS), a collaborative system designed for a geographically dispersed community of geneticists. There were complex challenges in creating this infrastructural tool, ranging from simple lack of resources to complex organizational and intellectual communication failures and tradeoffs. Despite high user satisfaction with the system and interface, and extensive user needs assessment, feedback, and analysis, many users experienced difficulties in signing on and use. The study was conducted during a lime of unprecedented growth in the Internet and its utilities (1991- 1994), and many respondents turned to the World Wide Web for their information exchange. Using Bateson's model of levels of learning, we analyze the levels of infrastructural complexity involved in system access and designer-user communication. We analyze the connection between systems development aimed at supporting specific forms of collaborative knowledge work, local organizational transformation, and large-scale infrastructural change. |
| Notes | 'This is sort of the origin article for information infrastructure studies, defining information infrastructures and establishing a series of logic types. I find the article to be a bit too definitive - for instance, Brian Larkin points out in his Anthro review article on infrastucture that some infrastructures (in spite of Star and Ruhleder\'s definition) are extremely visible.\n - poiril'
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| URL | http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=4430768&site=ehost-live&scope=site |
| Short Title | Steps Toward an Ecology of Infrastructure |
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