skip to main content
10.1145/1316624.1316660acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagesgroupConference Proceedingsconference-collections
research-article

Growing an infrastructure: the role of gateway organizations in cultivating new communities of users

Published:04 November 2007Publication History

ABSTRACT

Issues of scaling are critical when an infrastructure is trying to grow. Systems that worked well with smaller numbers or particular types of users must change to meet the needs of an expanding and diversified user base. A first step toward growth is to cultivate new users. We present results from research that examines one approach to the challenge of attracting new users to a large-scale computing infrastructure. We describe gateway organizations and the important social and technical support they provide, which help potential users to conceptualize a use for the infrastructure and increase their willingness and ability to use it.

References

  1. Atkins, D., et al. Revolutionizing Science and Engineering through Cyberinfrastructure: Report of the National Science Foundation Blue-Ribbon Panel on Cyberinfrastructure. National Science Foundation, Washington, DC, USA, 2003.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  2. Bansler, J., and Havn, E. Technology-use mediation: Making sense of electronic communication in an organizational context. In Proceedings of the International ACM SIGGROUP Conference on Supporting Group Work (GROUP '03) (Sanibel Island, Florida, November 9--12, 2003), ACM Press, New York, NY, 2003, 135--143. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  3. Catlett, C., Beckman, P., Skow, D., and Foster, I. Creating and operating national-scale cyberinfrastructure services. CTWatch Quarterly, 2, 2, (May, 2006), 2--10.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  4. Damsgaard, J., and Lyytinen, K. The role of intermediating institutions in the diffusion of electronic data interchange (EDI): How industry associations intervened in Denmark, Finland, and Hong Kong. The Information Society 17, (2001), 195--201.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  5. David, P., and Bunn, J. The economics of gateway technologies and network evolution: Lessons from electricity supply history. Information Economics and Policy, 3 (1988), 165--202. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  6. Davis, F. Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. MIS Quarterly 13, 3, (1989), 319--339.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  7. Edwards, P., Jackson, S., Bowker, G., and Knobel, C. Understanding Infrastructure: Dynamics, Tensions, and Design. Report of a Workshop on History & Theory of Infrastructure: Lessons for New Scientific Cyberinfrastructures. University of Michigan, School of Information, Ann Arbor, MI. 2007.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  8. Ellisman, M. Cyberinfrastructure and the future of collaborative work. Issues in Science and Technology, 22, 1 (Fall, 2005), 43--50.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  9. Lawrence, K. A. Walking the tightrope: The balancing acts of a large e-Research project. Computer Supported Cooperative Work 15 (2006), 385--411. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  10. Lee, C., Dourish, P., and Mark, G. The human infrastructure of cyberinfrastructure. In Proceedings of the Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW '06) (Banff, Alberta, Canada, November 4-8, 2006). ACM Press, New York, NY, 2006, 483--492. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  11. Lynch, C. Research libraries engage the digital world: A US-UK comparative examination of recent history and future prospects. Ariadne 46 (2006). http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue46/lynch/Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  12. McCray, W. Large telescopes and the moral economy of recent astronomy. Social Studies of Science 30, 5, (2000)685--711.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  13. McGrath, O. Balancing act: Community and local requirements in an open source development process. In Proceedings of the 34th annual ACM SIGUCCS conference on User Services (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, November 5-8, 2006). ACM Press, New York, NY, 2006, 240--244. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  14. Monteiro, E. Scaling information infrastructure: The case of next-generation IP in the Internet. The Information Society 14 (1998), 229--245Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  15. National Research Council. Getting up to Speed: The Future of Supercomputing. National Academies Press, 2005.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  16. Orlikowski, W. J., Yates, J., Okamura, K., and Fujimoto, M. Shaping electronic communication: The metastructuring of technology in the context of use. Organization Science, 6, 4 (July-August 1995), 423--444.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  17. Proctor, R., et al. Usability research challenges for cyberinfrastructure and tools. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '06) (Montreal, Ontario, April 22--27, 2006). ACM Press, New York, NY, 2000, 1675--1678. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  18. Ribes, D., and Finholt, T. A. Tensions across the scales: Planning infrastructure for the long-term. In Proceedings of the International ACM SIGGROUP Conference on Supporting Group Work (GROUP '07) (Sanibel Island, Florida, November 4--7, 2007), ACM Press, New York, NY, 2007. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  19. Rogers, E. Diffusion of Innovations. 5th ed. Free Press, New York, 2003.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  20. Saxena, K. B. C., and Wagenaar, R. W. Critical success factors of EDI technology transfer: A conceptual framework. In Proceedings of the Third European Conference on Information Systems (Athens, Greece, 1995), 57--74.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  21. Schmidt, K., and Bannon, L. Taking CSCW seriously: Supporting articulation work. Computer Supported Cooperative Work 1 (1992), 7--40.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  22. Senkowsky, S. NEON: Planning for a new frontier in biology. BioScience 53, 5 (2003), 456--461Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  23. Sonnenwald, D. Expectations for a scientific collaboratory: A case study. In Proceedings of the International ACM SIGGROUP Conference on Supporting Group Work (GROUP '03) (Sanibel Island, Florida, November 9--12, 2003), ACM Press, New York, NY, 2003, 68--74. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  24. Star, S. The ethnography of infrastructure. American Behavioral Scientist 43, 3 (November/December, 1999), 377--391.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  25. Star S., and Ruhleder K. The ecology of infrastructure: Problems in the implementation of large-scale information systems. Information System Research 7 (1996), 111--134.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  26. Swan, J. A., and Newell, S. The role of professional associations in technology diffusion. Organization Studies 16, 5, (1995), 847--874.Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  27. Venkatesh, V., et al. User acceptance of information technology: Toward a unified view. MIS Quarterly 27, 3 (September 2003), 425--478. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarCross RefCross Ref
  28. West, J. E. Supercomputing in the participation age. HPC Wire 16, 14 (April 6, 2007). http://www.hpcwire.com/hpc/1351683.hmtlGoogle ScholarGoogle Scholar
  29. Wilkins-Diehr, N. Special issue: Science Gateways-common community interfaces to grid resources. Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience, 19, 6, (2006), 743--749. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  30. Zimmerman, A., and Nardi, B. Whither or whether HCI: Requirements analysis for multi-sited, multi-user cyberinfrastructures. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '06) (Montreal, Ontario, April 22-27, 2006). ACM Press, New York, NY, 2000, 1601--1606. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library

Index Terms

  1. Growing an infrastructure: the role of gateway organizations in cultivating new communities of users

        Recommendations

        Comments

        Login options

        Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

        Sign in
        • Published in

          cover image ACM Conferences
          GROUP '07: Proceedings of the 2007 ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work
          November 2007
          422 pages
          ISBN:9781595938459
          DOI:10.1145/1316624

          Copyright © 2007 ACM

          Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

          Publisher

          Association for Computing Machinery

          New York, NY, United States

          Publication History

          • Published: 4 November 2007

          Permissions

          Request permissions about this article.

          Request Permissions

          Check for updates

          Qualifiers

          • research-article

          Acceptance Rates

          Overall Acceptance Rate125of405submissions,31%

        PDF Format

        View or Download as a PDF file.

        PDF

        eReader

        View online with eReader.

        eReader