Helena Karasti

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I earned my PhD in Information Systems in 2001 from the University of Oulu, Finland and was nominated docent of Computer Supported Cooperative Work in 2008 by University of Turku, Finland and docent of Infrastructuring in 2015 by University of Oulu, Finland. I have worked in academic positions in Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and USA.

My longstanding, interdisciplinarity research interests include:
1) ethnographic study of everyday practices
2) integration of ethnography and participatory/co-design
3) infrastructuring
4) information/knowledge/research infrastructures in-formation
5) critical studies of research data (management/curation)

The main empirical domains of my research have been within the health care sector and scientific collaborations and infrastructures, particularly in Long Term Ecological Research networks.
My work contributes to the fields of computer supported cooperative work (CSCW), participatory design (PD), and science and technology studies (STS).
Phone: +358407093606
Address: INTERACT unit
University of Oulu
90014 University of Oulu
Finland

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Tätä sivua ei enää ylläpidetä. Siirry uuteen julkaisuluetteloon tästä Increasing sensitivity towards everyday work practice in system design

herkules.oulu.fi

This thesis explores the integration of work practice and system design in deliberating upon how ... more This thesis explores the integration of work practice and system design in deliberating upon how to increase the sensitivity of system design towards everyday work practice. The attempt to make work practice visible and intelligible for system design necessarily relates to two very different bodies of knowledge: the actual work activities and knowledge of practitioners, and what is considered relevant information for requirements analysis in system design. The strategy of this work comprises the integration of ...

Reflexive engagement

This paper joins the discussion on participation in Participatory Design (PD) by proposing reflex... more This paper joins the discussion on participation in Participatory Design (PD) by proposing reflexivity as an orientation for engaging in design and for the plurality of participation. Based on our study in which a social media-supported collaboration model was designed with professionals working against workplace harassment, the paper recounts how the designer--researcher's reflexive orientation allowed participation to be uncovered as manifold and dynamic and how this affected the design process. We discuss the critical sensitivity and attentiveness enacted in design practice as reflexive engagement that encouraged negotiations of roles, goals, and technology. Regarding participation, we discuss reflexive engagement with multiple relationships, participatory assemblies and their intersections and overlaps---participation in plural---in our study. We conclude by proposing the conceptualization of reflexive engagement as an orientation for PD designers to engage in the particularities of situated design practices, while holding to the ethical (political), practical and creative commitments of PD.

Framework for information management in an European LTER Network – experiences from ALTER-Net

The paper summarizes the work and results of ALTER-Net in the field of information management and... more The paper summarizes the work and results of ALTER-Net in the field of information management and knowledge transfer which aimed to facilitate data sharing. Data sharing can broadly be considered through three aspects: technical, content, and legal. Within ALTER-Net the focus of information management was on the technical aspect. The proposed information management framework consists of the following components: metadata collection (LTER InfoBase), definition of a common domain model and ontology (SERONTO) and the technical concept of the data integration framework. The semantic mediation system, as important part of the data integration framework, based on existing tools was successfully tested using SERONTO as the common ontology for integration. The paper highlights the experiences of ALTER-Net in the fields of (1) the technical framework for data management, (2) the support and collection of metadata about the LTER infrastructure, (3) the work on anthologies as the common domain...

Reflexive engagement

Proceedings of the 14th Participatory Design Conference: Full papers - Volume 1, 2016

Sosiaalinen media turvallisuutta ja työhyvinvointia edistävien yhteisöjen tukena. Openrisk hankkeen loppuraportti more

Sosiaalinen media turvallisuutta ja tyohyvinvointia edistavien yhteisojen tukena Openrisk-hankk... more Sosiaalinen media turvallisuutta ja tyohyvinvointia edistavien yhteisojen tukena Openrisk-hankkeen loppuraportti Jouko Heikkila| Asta Back| Anna-Mari Heikkila| Paivi Hamalainen| Pirjo Nakki| Kaarin Ruuhilehto| Suvi Pihkala| Helena Karasti| Jukka Huhtamaki| Anne-Maritta Tervakari| Jarno Marttila Zoom lilxio rtO ly TO" 1 Reilu peli-pilotin aikajanaa 130__ 100-00 Aildftlunt^ jryhmjn online-rjpjjinjncn (ACP) WrJ «l% t «J■■.. II::!-...■. 0? lf# b? 8 Frt 7. Mm k Mjr 21-J6 Hjr 4. Apr 11. Apr 18. Apr js. Apr 2. Hay 9. H* y 16, Hty j? W. iy jo.** y 6. ...

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Notes on gendered experiences in fieldwork related to a teleradiology experiment

Proc. 6th International IFIP-Conference Women, Work and Computerization: Spinning the Web from Past to Future, Springer-Verlag, Bonn, Jun 27, 1997

Abstract. This paper discusses experiences of how gender mattered in fieldwork carried out in rel... more Abstract. This paper discusses experiences of how gender mattered in fieldwork carried out in relation to an experimental teleradiology project. The purpose was to study emerging teleradiology work practice in order to provide information for redesigning the system. The paper starts with selected notes on gendered experiences as encountered during the fieldwork and proceeds to describe how these affected further involvement and intervention in the provision of redesign information. It concludes with a brief discussion of the ...

Basic Set of Domain Ontologies

Peterseil, J.; Magagna, B.; Schentz, H.; Werf, DC van der; KertÈsz, M.; Bertrand, N.; Kuitunen, P... more

Supporting shared interpretation of a space of representations: A case of radiological conferences

First International Conference on Cognitive Technology, Aug 1, 1995

Steps Towards Understanding Long-Term Problematics in Information Infrastructure Work–Case of Long-Term Ecological Research

Proceedings of the 30th Information Systems Research Seminar in Scandinavia IRIS, 2007

Call for Position Papers: Computer Supported Scientific Collaboration Workshop, ECSCW’03, September 14-18 2003, Helsinki Finland

Helena Karasti, Karen Baker, Geoffrey C. Bowker (Editors), Sep 7, 2003

The predominant interest within CSCW has been on forms of work other than scientific collaboratio... more The predominant interest within CSCW has been on forms of work other than scientific collaboration. Some research communities, such as Science and Technology Studies, have a long tradition of studying scientific work and recently examples can be found also in CSCW conferences and literature. Scientific collaboration differs in several ways from the business communities which CSCW has centered on. Today's scientific work can be characterized as orchestrating responses to an explosion of data leading to'phenomenal ...

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Reflexive Engagement - Reflexive Orientation for Participatory Design

Fostering Research Data Management in Collaborative Research Contexts: Lessons learnt from an ‘Embedded’ Evaluation on designing a ‘Data Story’

Research Square (Research Square), Nov 15, 2022

Research Data Management (RDM) practices-spanning the curation, storage, sharing, and reusability... more Research Data Management (RDM) practices-spanning the curation, storage, sharing, and reusability of research data-are foundational to the Open Science (OS) agenda. Because of that, many and various funding institutions are increasingly demanding active engagement of researchers in them. Nevertheless, recent studies suggest that RDM practices are not yet properly integrated into daily research work ows, nor supported by any tools researchers typically use. In this paper, we introduce evaluation results of a technological aid for implementing a design concept called 'Data Story', drawing on ideas from digital and data storytelling. This concept has been devised to facilitate the appropriation of RDM practices by researchers working mainly with qualitative data in their daily work ows. It integrates traditional data curation approaches with a more narrative, contextual, and collaborative organizational layer that can be thought of as a 'story'. Our ndings come from a long-term 'embedded' evaluation of the concept and show: (1) the potential bene ts of engaging with a Data Story for RDM; (2) Data Curation issues and learning opportunities; and (3) a broader set of issues and concerns that remain unaddressed in the current state of play. Our contribution, based on lessons learnt, is to provide a new design approach for RDM and for new collaborative research data practices, one grounded in narrative structures, capable to negotiate between top-down policies and bottom-up practices, which supports 're ective' learning opportunities-with and about data-of many kinds.

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Towards Response-able PD: Putting Feminist New Materialisms to Work in the Practices of Participatory Design

This paper contributes to recent discussions in the field of Participatory Design (PD) that have ... more This paper contributes to recent discussions in the field of Participatory Design (PD) that have considered relationality, becoming, non-human, and more-than-human to invent alternative, more expansive, responsible, and accountable ways of understanding and doing PD. To add to these PD discussions of sociomaterial relationality and emergence, our aim is to bring PD practices into generative dialogue with feminist new materialist praxis. For this, we consider our past and ongoing participatory research and design engagements related to collaboration with union professionals and creative research-activism with children. Drawing methodological insights from the ways in which sociomaterial relationality and becoming informed these processes, we explore how feminist new materialism can inform PD 1) when setting up participatory practices, 2) when engaging during design events, and 3) when rethinking designer-researchers' responsibilities and accountabilities as unfolding from multiplicitous, multiscalar engagements. We tentatively propose the notion of response-able PD to bring these insights together. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Interaction design; Interaction design process and methods; Participatory design.

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Surfacing the arctic

The1 ongoing adoption of sensor networks, algorithms, and digital data comes with the promise of ... more The1 ongoing adoption of sensor networks, algorithms, and digital data comes with the promise of opening up participation in knowledge production. However, the dynamics of the participatory design (PD) processes in these infrastructuring endeavors remain underspecified. This short paper draws on a study of an oil company's project to design an open digital platform to produce knowledge about the Arctic marine environment. Fraught with political controversies, this effort encompasses several stakeholders with contrasting agendas. Leveraging the relational quality of infrastructure, we propose to revitalize the political roots of PD by problematizing simultaneously the roles of human and non-human participants, foregrounding both digital technology and the monitored natural ecosystems. We discuss how infrastructuring aimed at letting humans visualize the inaccessible, also shapes participation by creating spaces of (in)visibility and concentrating control over knowledge creation in the hands of the most powerful stakeholders.

Designing a Data Story: An Innovative Approach for the Selective Care of Qualitative and Ethnographic Data

transcript Verlag eBooks, Sep 30, 2022

Fostering Research Data Management in Collaborative Research Contexts: Lessons learnt from an ‘Embedded’ Evaluation of ‘Data Story’

Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)

Designing a Data Story: A Storytelling Approach to Curation, Sharing and Data Reuse in Support of Ethnographically-driven Research

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction

In this paper, we introduce an innovative design concept for the curation of data, which we call ... more In this paper, we introduce an innovative design concept for the curation of data, which we call 'Data Story'. We view this as an additional resource for data curation, aimed specifically at supporting the sharing of qualitative and ethnographic data. The Data Story concept is motivated by three elements: 1. the increased attention of funding agencies and academic institutions on Research Data Management and Open Science; 2. our own work with colleagues applying ethnographic research methods; and 3. existing literature that has identified specific challenges in this context. Ongoing issues entailed in dealing with certain contextual factors that are inherent to qualitative research reveal the extent to which we still lack technical design solutions that can support meaningful curation and sharing. Data Story provides a singular way of addressing these issues by integrating traditional data curation approaches, where research data are treated as 'objects' to be curate...

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Long live the data! Embedded data management at a long‐term ecological research site

Ecosphere

Open‐access data associated with research efforts depend upon managing, packaging, and preserving... more Open‐access data associated with research efforts depend upon managing, packaging, and preserving data for sharing with collaborators and the public. The U.S. Long‐Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network, established in 1980, provides an early example of embedded data management supporting long‐term, place‐based research and contributes to our understanding of the enactment of open data access within scientific research arenas. Here, we examine collective data activities enabled by embedding data management within the Shortgrass Steppe (SGS) research site. Study of the SGS LTER, a member of the U.S. LTER Network for more than three decades, provided a unique opportunity to investigate data management practices and challenges during the life cycle of a long‐term project. It illustrates how a continuous, uninterrupted focus on data management positioned in dynamic interaction with researchers at a site as well as with an active network‐wide data management committee can stimulate the ...

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Politics in environmental research infrastructure formation:when top-down policy-making meets bottom-up fragmentation

Permalink: http://blog.castac.org/2018/06/research-infrastructure/

What does infrastructuring look like in STS? When? Workshop Report

Helena Karasti

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