PECE SHARED ANALYTIC /IINTERPRETIVE ANNOTATON: Reading Digital Infrastructure The following set of questions were developed to enable collaborative evaluation of diverse digital platforms, aiming to understand how different digital platforms work, enacting particular language ideologies and assumptions about the dynamics of knowledge production and communication. This set of questions (operating as what PECE terms a “light structure”) was developed to enhance methodological capacity to make sense of digital infrastructure as textual and cultural as well as technical forms. What we learn from the comparative analysis guided by these questions can help orient further development of PECE. In order to “annotate” a digital platform, a user would first create an artifact pointing to the digital platform to be evaluated. Then any user on the system could annotate the artifact by responding to these shared questions through an Edit interface on the PECE platform. New questions can be added at any time, by any users. Users of the shared questions are free to skip questions that they are uninterested in or unable to respond to. The PECE design group is developing a tool that will allow aggregation of responses so that different readings of diverse digital projects can be compared and visualized. General
1. Who was the system built to serve, and why?
2. What functions does the system provide?
3. How are functions technically supported?
4. What other systems, platforms, or modules does the system rely on? Do other systems or platforms rely on it?
Data
1. What kinds of data do users enter?
2. How is the data stored (backend technologies, data formats)?
3. Where is data stored on the platform? In what structure is it stored? Describe the structure.
4. How is data organized?
5. How does data move through the system? What functions allow for data discovery?
6. How does the app translate user data into information?
7. What kinds of environmental, medical etc. information does the app pull in and provide users?
8. How does environmental, medical, etc. information contextualize/frame user data?
9. Are there public or private interfaces to collect data? (if so, what are the terms of use?)
10. Are the data available to the public? If so, what is the license? If not, who uses the data and for what purposes?
Use
1. How is the system actually used, and what accounts for divergence between intended and actual use?
2. What pathways are users directed to take through the system?
3. What other pathways through the system seem to have emerged?
4. What user data is collected on the system, and what opportunities are there for user feedback?
5. To what extent is the work done on the system visible or transparent? What processes appear to be hidden?
6. Are there protocols in place for managing the use of the systems, and if so, are they are following industry standards or had internal groups defining policies?
7. How do users reference their use of the system? (by paying for it, by citing it as one would an academic paper?)
Support and sustainability
1. Who built the system, with what skills, and with what kinds of social or commercial commitments?
2. What is the business model?
3. What can we tell about the sustainability (and plans for) of this system?
4. Who responds to platform issues/breakdowns/bugs?
Ethnographic practice
1. What assumptions about ethnographic practice seem to be built in?
2. How does collaboration seem to be conceived and how is it implemented?
3. What assumptions about language and knowledge are built in?
The following set of questions were developed to enable collaborative evaluation of diverse digital platforms, aiming to understand how different digital platforms work, enacting particular language ideologies and assumptions about the dynamics of knowledge production and communication. This set of questions (operating as what PECE terms a “light structure”) was developed to enhance methodological capacity to make sense of digital infrastructure as textual and cultural as well as technical forms. What we learn from the comparative analysis guided by these questions can help orient further development of PECE.
In order to “annotate” a digital platform, a user would first create an artifact pointing to the digital platform to be evaluated. Then any user on the system could annotate the artifact by responding to these shared questions through an Edit interface on the PECE platform. New questions can be added at any time, by any users. Users of the shared questions are free to skip questions that they are uninterested in or unable to respond to. The PECE design group is developing a tool that will allow aggregation of responses so that different readings of diverse digital projects can be compared and visualized.
General
- 1. Who was the system built to serve, and why?
- 2. What functions does the system provide?
- 3. How are functions technically supported?
- 4. What other systems, platforms, or modules does the system rely on? Do other systems or platforms rely on it?
Data- 1. What kinds of data do users enter?
- 2. How is the data stored (backend technologies, data formats)?
- 3. Where is data stored on the platform? In what structure is it stored? Describe the structure.
- 4. How is data organized?
- 5. How does data move through the system? What functions allow for data discovery?
- 6. How does the app translate user data into information?
- 7. What kinds of environmental, medical etc. information does the app pull in and provide users?
- 8. How does environmental, medical, etc. information contextualize/frame user data?
- 9. Are there public or private interfaces to collect data? (if so, what are the terms of use?)
- 10. Are the data available to the public? If so, what is the license? If not, who uses the data and for what purposes?
Use- 1. How is the system actually used, and what accounts for divergence between intended and actual use?
- 2. What pathways are users directed to take through the system?
- 3. What other pathways through the system seem to have emerged?
- 4. What user data is collected on the system, and what opportunities are there for user feedback?
- 5. To what extent is the work done on the system visible or transparent? What processes appear to be hidden?
- 6. Are there protocols in place for managing the use of the systems, and if so, are they are following industry standards or had internal groups defining policies?
- 7. How do users reference their use of the system? (by paying for it, by citing it as one would an academic paper?)
Support and sustainability- 1. Who built the system, with what skills, and with what kinds of social or commercial commitments?
- 2. What is the business model?
- 3. What can we tell about the sustainability (and plans for) of this system?
- 4. Who responds to platform issues/breakdowns/bugs?
Ethnographic practice