1 / 16

Real Work / Web Work: Getting It Done in the Interim

Real Work / Web Work: Getting It Done in the Interim. Jim Coleman Project Manager Science and Technology in the Making. Theses. “Real World” work is well-understood and has a social infrastructure

daquan-banks
Download Presentation

Real Work / Web Work: Getting It Done in the Interim

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Real Work / Web Work:Getting It Done in the Interim Jim ColemanProject ManagerScience and Technology in the Making

  2. Theses • “Real World” work is well-understood and has a social infrastructure • “Web World” work searches for the question to which it is the answer, and has, at best, an emerging social infrastructure • Work — and its outcome — needs capture in the interim • Sloan projects test both the membrane between the two worlds and our ability to succeed “in the meantime” Real Work/Web Work

  3. “Real World” Work • Occurs within the established context of research/scholarly communication • Is supported by organizations within a social infrastructure • Tends to be outcome based, with desirable outcomes established through community standards Real Work/Web Work

  4. “Web World” Work • Has no established context along the communication channel • Has in the best instances a technical robust infrastructure, but lacks community • Has an ambiguous relationship to outcomes and products in the academic world • Wants to blur the line between the other and the self Real Work/Web Work

  5. What Makes “Web Work” Real? • Pre-formed communities enhance/continue work (face-to-face) • New communities can evolve/self-evolve • Outcomes and products can be given definition through communities • Boundaries between “real” and “web” work cross over Real Work/Web Work

  6. “Web Work” Communities • It is difficult to transform “real world” communities into “web world” communities • Interactivity is a prerequisite — members must form their world — but is not enough in itself • What encourages “stickiness” ultimately are products, outcomes, and the community itself Real Work/Web Work

  7. STIMCore Site Objectives • Offer consulting and design services for PI’s • Provide core technical infrastructure/support • Provide “toolkit” approach for interactivity • Point to “best practices”in the digital library experience • Help sites to move past the granting period into the “interim” Real Work/Web Work

  8. STIM Realities (Core Site) • Original project team lacked some necessary skills • Original technology solution was unviable • Team and PI’s often lacked same understanding of roles • Real costs of core team work/infrastructure were significantly underfunded Real Work/Web Work

  9. STIM Conclusions (Core Site) • Supporting research projects should not be a research project in itself • Project management skills are a prerequisite • Agreement on needs and implementation plans are necessary • Stronger integration into research agenda and concomitant infrastructure should be required (by Sloan/other granting agencies) Real Work/Web Work

  10. Needs • Right Technology • Right Staff • Unflagging willingness to mix “real world” work with “web world” work • Clear vision of when the current research goal is met • Understanding of “web work” product life cycle Real Work/Web Work

  11. What Makes the Projects Real? • Making connections to the communities, through either “real world” or “Web world” means • Developing content-rich sites that both accumulates and publishes data • Self-sustaining sites OR sites that have an archival presence • Supporting and furthering the research understanding of the PI’s • PI’s “real world” work becomes “Web work” Real Work/Web Work

  12. Economics of “Web Work” • Costs of infrastructure are not small • Team/staff skill set required for success is large • Success of “Web Work” is largely dependent on success in “real world” interactions • “Interim” costs are essentially unknown and potentially unbounded Real Work/Web Work

  13. How Long IS the Interim? • “Real World” economics work against persistence • Market forces require obsolescence to remain competitive (MP3/White Album) • Market hegemony is both a blessing and a curse (Microsoft vs. Linux) • In comparison with past information systems, the interim is forever Real Work/Web Work

  14. What Helps? • Standards-based activities offer some help where they have market support • Economic/community model of scholarly information interchange is subject to change/influence • Greater depth of publishing/archiving is possible, but the tensions of doing more and retaining more presents a conundrum Real Work/Web Work

  15. Leveraging Reality with “Web Work” • “Web Work” has reinvigorated many scholarly practices • “WW” can renew concern for/interest in collecting and creating primary documentation • The products of “WW” can be more open to scrutiny of the community at large • Incremental costs can be insignificant in the interim Real Work/Web Work

  16. Getting It Done (Institutions) • Decide your level of risk • Develop an economic model locally that reflects globally • Build bridges between “real work” and “Web Work” • Risk behaving “as if” the community, business model, and infrastructure were in place Real Work/Web Work

More Related