Reconciling rhythms: plans and temporal alignment in collaborative scientific work

Item Type Conference Paper Author Stephanie B. Steinhardt Author Steven J. Jackson URL https://doi.org/10.1145/2531602.2531736 Series CSCW '14 Place New York, NY, USA Publisher Association for Computing Machinery Pages 134–145 ISBN 978-1-4503-2540-0 Date February 15, 2014 DOI 10.1145/2531602.2531736 Accessed 2023-11-29 Library Catalog ACM Digital Library Abstract Plans and planning assume a central role and challenge of collaborative scientific work, bridging and coordinating often discordant rhythms and events emanating from the organizational, infrastructural, biographical and phenomenal dimensions of collaborative life. Plans align rhythms embedded in local practice with those operating at larger institutional levels, and establish shared temporal baselines around which local choice and action may be calibrated. This paper develops these arguments through ethnographic study of the Ocean Observatories Initiative, a prominent U.S.-based large-scale long-term collaborative research program in the ocean sciences. We emphasize the intersection between rhythms and plans at two crucial moments: formation ('plans-in-the-making'), and enactment ('plans-in-action') across complex fields of practice. Our findings hold important implications for CSCW research and practice around scientific and large-scale collaborative efforts, and for federal science policies meant to support productive forms of cooperation and discovery. Proceedings Title Proceedings of the 17th ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work & social computing Short Title Reconciling rhythms