Collaboration in Emerging Ecological Practice Human-Computer Interaction in Biodiversity Informatics Workshop June 2, 2005 Bonnie A. Nardi Department of Informatics School of Information and Computer Science University of California, Irvine

Bonnie A. Nardi 2 Biodiversity Workshop, June 2, 2005 My background Anthropologist Computer-supported collaborative work Science studies (how does science work?) Activity theory (culture and cognition)

Bonnie A. Nardi 3 Biodiversity Workshop, June 2, 2005 Research on collaborative tools for ecologists

Bonnie A. Nardi 4 Biodiversity Workshop, June 2, 2005 Why Ecology? Pressing needs to understand environmental change Moment in time: ecology transforming to big science Activity theory asks how such transformations happen Interesting issues of changes in collaborative technologies and practices during such transformations

Bonnie A. Nardi 5 Biodiversity Workshop, June 2, 2005 General approach to my work Ethnographic studies of work practices Design of new tools Prototype, test new tools to evaluate their usefulness and usability working with technical people

Bonnie A. Nardi 6 Biodiversity Workshop, June 2, 2005 Research on “emerging practice” in ecology Current practice: single investigator or small teams Emerging practice: larger teams, more data, more technology Transforming to “big science” (or trying to)

Bonnie A. Nardi 7 Biodiversity Workshop, June 2, 2005 “Big science” Broad, problem-directed goals Interdisciplinary teams of scientists, engineers, technicians Work is often distributed Extensive instrumentation (such as NEON sensor network) Processing of large volumes of data Projects are professionally managed

Bonnie A. Nardi 8 Biodiversity Workshop, June 2, 2005 Drivers of move to big science in ecology Long Term Ecological Research Network (LTER) EcoVisions Project of Ecological Society of America NEON, CUAHSI (hydrology), CLEANER, and others Availability of terabyte scale datasets from NASA, DOE, EPA, USGS and other government agencies Individual scientists discovering these datasets

Bonnie A. Nardi 9 Biodiversity Workshop, June 2, 2005 Collaboration in Ecology As ecology scales up to big science, need for different kinds of collaboration: interdisciplinary distributed involves sharing and interpreting large volumes of data What kinds of technologies will sustain such collaboration? Are the problems similar to those of other fields?

Bonnie A. Nardi 10 Biodiversity Workshop, June 2, 2005 Something that might be unique to ecology: Combination of: Data from heterogeneous sources, including historical field-based data which can be quite old Very complex interactions among variables living things in complex contexts

Bonnie A. Nardi 11 Biodiversity Workshop, June 2, 2005 What I’ve done so far

Bonnie A. Nardi 12 Biodiversity Workshop, June 2, 2005 Collaboration in Ecology Workshop at UC Irvine, October, 2004 Karen Baker (data manager) Stephen Bocking (historian who studies ecology) Scott Collins (ecologist) Paul Dourish (computer scientist) Cliff Duke (ESA) Anna Gold (librarian) Bryan Heidorn (librarian) Vivian Hutchison (USGS) Roberta Lamb (computer scientist) Renee Miller (computer scientist) Gary Olson (psychologist) Diane Pataki (ecologist)

Bonnie A. Nardi 13 Biodiversity Workshop, June 2, 2005 Collaboration in Ecology Workshop Mark Schildhaeur (NCEAS) Katie Suding (ecologist) Bill Tomlinson (computer scientist) Ferdinando Villa (ecologist) Ann Zimmerman (librarian and co-organizer)

Bonnie A. Nardi 14 Biodiversity Workshop, June 2, 2005 What else… NSF Grant submitted: Collaboration in Transformational Science (with Ann Zimmerman at U Michigan and Susan Sim, UCI) Ongoing interviews with ecologists at UC Irvine Participation in NEON Member NEON (National Ecological Observatory Network) Design Consortium’s Information Technology and Communication Subcommittee (“Cyberinfrastructure”)

Bonnie A. Nardi 15 Biodiversity Workshop, June 2, 2005 What else… Ph.D. student will study seismologists at UC San Diego this summer How they work with technicians and engineers to configure distributed sensors and design experiments

Bonnie A. Nardi 16 Biodiversity Workshop, June 2, 2005 Preliminary ideas on collaboration problems of interest “Dating” Design Data

Bonnie A. Nardi 17 Biodiversity Workshop, June 2, 2005 “Dating” Problem: Find collaborators with special expertise in a particular area of ecology or in another field As in dating, half the problem is locating the right person and the other half is getting the relationship to work Possible Solution: Online directory (like Friendster) Service for linking people to collaborate in small light-weight projects to get to know each other

Bonnie A. Nardi 18 Biodiversity Workshop, June 2, 2005 Design Problem: Experiments with large sensor network Or analyses with government databases How to design large experiments, analyses, observations? Solutions: ?? Need ethnographic work here

Bonnie A. Nardi 19 Biodiversity Workshop, June 2, 2005 Data Problem: NCEAS et al. working on data problems of data integration, metadata How to interpet data scientists did not collect, especially when there are large volumes of data

Bonnie A. Nardi 20 Biodiversity Workshop, June 2, 2005 Interpreting data “Data are not simple carriers of meaning. [C]onverting raw data into scientific or social meaning is an active, context-dependent process” (Birnholtz and Bietz, 2003) Solution: Talk to others about their experiences with the data

Bonnie A. Nardi 21 Biodiversity Workshop, June 2, 2005 People talk about data to interpret it Zimmerman interviewed an ecologist who was formerly an economist: In economics, typically people are working with a shared data set. There are hundreds of people that work with the current population survey, for example, and you can go and find out, “Well, what are the problems with this data set?” Everyone can tell you, “Oh yeah, ’79 was a really bad year, and there’s a glitch, and you are going to have to reprocess this field if you want to use it.”

Bonnie A. Nardi 22 Biodiversity Workshop, June 2, 2005 Solution: Data Conversations Communications research has shown that conversation is efficient for clarification, coordination, updates, brainstorming, interpretation, critiquing and elaboration of complex ideas. Harvest electronic conversations in instant messaging, wikis, blogs, chats, listservs. Make available to wider group of scientists Tools for summary and presentation needed

Bonnie A. Nardi 23 Biodiversity Workshop, June 2, 2005 Conclusion: Outputs of research a. New understandings of transformational science b. New collaborative tools for ecologists working toward transformational science c. Testing of ideas about collaboration in activity theory (which involve a and b).