Walking the Tightrope: The Balancing Acts of a Large e-Research Project

Abstract

Abstract. Although e-Research has received much attention and acclaim in recent years, the realities of distributed collaboration still challenge even the most well-planned endeavors. This case study of an e-Research project examines the 'balancing actsÕ associated with multidisciplinary, geographically distributed, large-scale research and development work. After briefly describing the history and organizational design of this information technology and atmospheric science research project, I identify five paradoxical challenges that cannot be resolved: research versus development, harmony versus conflict, consensus versus top-down decision making, frequency and modes of communication, and fast versus slow pacing. Although collaboration and communication technologies supported the projectÕs management and organization, most of the complexities faced by the team were not technological in nature. From the five paradoxical challenges associated with the project, I distill three cross-cutting issues that could be relevant to other e-Research projects of this magnitude: satisfying the multiple needs of a multidisciplinary project, managing information, and engaging all participants. I identify the practical implications of these challenges and issues, specifically that organizational and low-tech solutions -not the introduction of more sophisticated technology tools -are needed to solve these challenges and to better streamline coordination.

Toward Information Infrastructure Studies: Ways of Knowing in a Networked Environment

“…Similarly, LEAD "Linked Environments for Atmospheric Discovery" seeks to enable real-time analysis of weather data for meteorologists and atmospheric scientists (http://leadproject.org). Both projects are ambitious and have encountered problems in working across disciplinary boundaries (Lawrence, 2006;Ribes & Bowker, 2008). Challenges exist across temporal boundaries as well.…”

Usability Specialists as Boundary Spanners – An Appraisal of Usability Specialists’ Work in Multiparty Distributed Open Source Software Development Effort

“…This paper empirically examined what kinds of roles usability specialists adopt in multiparty, distributed IT development setting sand contrasted the empirical findings with the existing research on the suitable roles for usability specialists to take in the development and with the theoretical framework on boundary spanning [22] that outlines the conditions for successful knowledge sharing and arriving at shared understandings in collaborative settings involving numerous organizations, disciplines, areas of expertise and nationalities [5,19,21,22], and maybe even generations [10]. The paper argues for HCI research to acknowledge that it would be useful for usability specialists to view themselves as boundary spanners, facilitating knowledge sharing and arriving at mutual understanding among multiparty design teams, involving at least users and developers in addition to usability specialists, as well as possibly sales, marketing, management and documentation [2,4,7,8,13,15,16,25,28] and perhaps even numerous other areas of expertise, disciplines, nationalities and generations [5,10,19,20,21,22,24,26].…”

“…On the other hand, the literature on multiparty IT development efforts reveals that there nowadays are parties from numerous organizations and even countries involved, representing different kinds of areas of expertise: not only technology, marketing and business, but also strategy, manufacturing, education, curation, meteorology etc. [5,19,20,21,22]. In this kind of a design team collaboration is a true challenge [e.g.…”

“…In multiparty design teams, in which there are experts representing different disciplines, professions, organizations and nationalities cooperating, it has been reported that communicating, collaborating, and arriving at shared understandings are very challenging [5,19,20,21]. However, knowledge sharing and the creation of shared understandings are also postulated as vital for successful multiparty design teams.…”

“…10,24], there is a lack of research on the participation of children in large-scale multiparty development efforts. The literature on global, distributed, open source and multiparty development efforts reveals that nowadays there might be multiple organizations, professions, areas of expertise, disciplines, and nationalities involved in IT development, making collaboration challenging [1,5,19,21,22,26]. To make sense of the work of the usability specialists in such a complex setting, indeed involving multiple organizations, professions, areas of expertise, disciplines, nationalities as well as generations, we will rely on theoretical framework on boundary spanning [22].…”