Cooperative Knowledge Work and Practices of Trust: Sharing Environmental Planning Data Sets

Knowledge communities of all kinds have social and material practices for deciding what is known and who is to be trusted. In this paper, we address a specific kind of knowledge work, environmental planning, and a particular form of collaboration, the sharing of measurement data sets. We are interested in how trust is created; how trustability is assessed in the arm=s-length collaboration of sharing data sets; and how changes in technology interact with those practices of trust. We look at several elements of scientific practice that facilitate this sharing -- the publication system, communities of practice, boundary objects, and assemblages -- and discuss how a Web-based Digital Library might affect these elements and the knowledge work that they support. Keywords Knowledge work, environmental planning, boundary objects, assemblages, communities of practice, data sets, digital libraries, UC Berkeley Digital Library

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1998
• Where: CSCW
• Authors: Nancy A. Van House, Mark H. Butler, Lisa R. Schiff
• Keywords: CSCW 1998, Data Sets, Environmental Planning, Knowledge Work, Social Sciences