Electronic infrastructure feature requests
From Sociotechwiki
This is a page for brainstorming what kind of electronic infrastructure(s) we would need to do the work we hope the CSST can accomplish.
Kevin Crowston articulated a division between information that is created primarily for reference, and information that is created primarily for providing awareness. Because wikis are well suited for reference information, but poorly suited for awareness information, this reference-awareness distinction is currently the driving force behind the organization of the wiki, and the decisions which are made regarding what information to put on the wiki. Thus, some information that is more awareness-oriented will not be included on this wiki, and different forms of information storage and distribution will need to be found for such information.
[edit] Requirements for Reference Information
These requirements are primarily aimed at the wiki because this is the infrastructure we currently have in place. If we transition or diversify, most of these requirements will likely be transitioned to some new piece of electronic infrastructure.
[edit] Collect Community History
near-term & long-term
- Wiki software preserves history, so a good fit for the problem.
- The CSST 2008 pages on the CSST 2008 wiki have been properly categorized, and re-named when appropriate, to preserve them in the face of continued use of the infrastructure. However, many of these pages remain private, since they were created specifically for CSST 2008 and it is unclear whether the contributors would be comfortable with having their work made public on this wiki.
- One of the workshop reports is currently uploaded to the CSST 2008 wiki. Whoever (Tom?) has the two earlier workshop reports still needs to upload them. None are uploaded here because it is unclear whether they can be made public, yet.
[edit] Continued Development of Sociotechnical Reading List
near-term & long-term
- Need to figure out how best to port over the recommended readings from the CSST 2008 wiki due to authorship considerations.
- Continue obtaining contributions of readings to read.
- Possibly: develop better organization to support browsing
- Might need better software support for indexing and searching, if such functionality is desired
- However, must ensure that the browsing and annotation functionality supported via a wiki layout is not lost.
[edit] Repository of Approved IRB Proposals
long-term
- As a reference source for writing your own IRB proposals
- As a means of showing IRB proposals that have been approved by other major institutions
- Wiki software is workable for this, but probably not ideal due to limited file management functionality and lack of indexed search functionality
- For now, wiki can be used as a stop-gap measure.
[edit] Knowledge Base of Social Network Connections
long-term
- Industry connections
- Government connections
- Connections to other disciplines (e.g., Computer Science)
- International connections
[edit] Repository of Experience & Other Stories
long-term
- Sharing stories of success with talking to government, such as senators, senate hearings, etc.
- Policy activism/reports
[edit] Repository of Course Syllabi
near-term to long-term
- Create an online repository of course syllabi.
- The wiki is workable for this, but is probably better to have some dedicated software
- It seems there are a number of different kinds of repositories that are desired, maybe there is some repository software that exists or can be developed which can have different collections in it. (Greenstone, D-Space, come to mind, but may not be ideal.)
[edit] FAQ/Answer Garden
near-term to long-term
- FAQ/work
- Answer Garden (probably not replicable on a wiki)
- Answer Garden: a tool for growing organizational memory
- Answer Garden 2: merging organizational memory with collaborative help
- best practices doc
[edit] Pre-print Repository
long-term
A social science version of arxiv.
- wiki can work but file management system is less than ideal. Better software ought to be available.
- pre-print serving
[edit] Requirements for Reference/Awareness Hybrid Information
[edit] Community Blog
near-term to long-term
- A riff on the suggestion that we write an article for a professional magazine, this suggestion is to create a community blog where several members of the community come together to write posts on a variety of topics.
- Blogs are hybrid awareness/reference tools, and attempts at using wikis to support blogging are often not very successful. Thus, it seems dedicated architecture ought to be used to support such an endeavor, perhaps via Wordpress.
[edit] Community Activity Awareness
near-term to long-term
- conference destinations
- A place to post "what conferences I'm going to go to this year"
- Can be done on the wiki for now: it is pull awareness information
[edit] Requirements for Awareness Information
[edit] Online Writing Workshops/Reading Groups
near-term
- a place where we can coordinate critical reading of each others papers, to improve them before submitting them to publication.
- basically: online reading groups (of papers for publication)
- one model of an email based way of circulating working papers and getting comments and critique suggested by Dan Perkel: Media Anthropology e-seminars
- see also: Writing Workshops
[edit] Other
- use the wiki as a separate page to each contribute one or two problems to indicate where we want to go next.
- Research ideas page(s)
