Aditya Johri

Boundary spanning knowledge broker: An emerging role in global engineering firms

With the emergence of globalization, engineering firms as well as engineers that work in those firms are faced with new opportunities and challenges. Recent globalization has led to new work roles for engineers. Whether formally or informally, an increasing number of engineers are now playing the role of boundary spanners and are brokering knowledge across geographic boundaries. In this paper I present a case study to identify the requirements and characteristics of this role. The data for this paper comes from two sources: selected interviews with software engineers and an ethnographic study of a global engineering R&D firm. The informants represent the U.S., Japan, and India. The findings show that agency of workers in the midlevel of the organizational hierarchy drives successful global practices. Moreover, given the dynamic nature of work in the present knowledge economy, the requirements of this role keep changing. In addition to skills such as working across time zones, using technology effectively, and developing interpersonal networks, there are additional tacit aspects of this role that can be learned only through participation. I present and analytical model and discuss the relevance of these findings for preparing engineers for the global workforce.

Uncovering Trajectories of Informal Learning in Large Online Communities of Creators

We analyzed informal learning in Scratch Online -- an online community with over 4.3 million users and 6.7 million user-generated content. Users develop projects, which are graphical interfaces involving manipulation of programming blocks. We investigated two fundamental questions: how can we model informal learning, and what patterns of informal learning emerge. We proceeded in two phases. First, we modeled learning as a trajectory of cumulative programming block usage by long-term users who created at least 50 projects. Second, we applied K-means++ clustering to uncover patterns of learning and corresponding subpopulations. We found four groups of users manifesting four different patterns of learning, ranging from the smallest to the largest improvement. At one end of the spectrum, users learned more and in a faster manner. At the opposite end, users did not show much learning, even after creating dozens of projects. The modeling and clustering of trajectory patterns that enabled us to quantitatively analyze informal learning may be applicable to other similar communities. The results can also support administrators of online communities in implementing customized interventions for specific subpopulations.

Harnessing global expertise: A comparative study of expertise profiling methods for online communities

Building expertise profiles in global online communities is a critical step in leveraging the range of expertise available in the global knowledge economy. In this paper we introduce a three-stage framework that automatically generates expertise profiles of online community members. In the first two stages, document-topic relevance and user-document association are estimated for calculating users’ expertise levels on individual topics. We empirically compare two state-of-the-art information retrieval techniques, the vector space model and the language model, with a Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) based model for computing document-topic relevance as well as the direct and indirect association models for computing user-document association. In the third stage we test whether a filtering strategy can improve the performance of expert profiling. Our experimental results using two real datasets provide useful insights on how to select the best models for profiling users’ expertise in online communities that can work across a range of global communities.

Facilitating guided participation through mobile technologies: designing creative learning environments for self and others

We appropriate Rogoff’s (Apprenticeship in thinking: Cognitive development in social context, 1991; in: Wertsch et al. (eds.) Sociocultural studies of mind, 1993) notion of guided participation to demonstrate, through abbreviated case studies, our strategy for integrating mobile technology-based learning experiences in higher education. Guided participation implies facilitating access to shared community-valued practices by supporting new members in legitimate participation. We illustrate how mobile technologies and social software can be used to (a) facilitate guided participation among undergraduate engineering students within classes and (b) teach graduate students in instructional technology to design for guided participation. Thus, students are not only transitioned into respective learning communities but also gain experience in designing for others. Given the recent advances in computing and trends in the adoption, diffusion, and use of mobile technologies, we argue that mobile technologies provide a substantive, fertile, and invigorating area for teaching and research in higher education for the foreseeable future.

Bridging Artifacts and Actors: Expertise Sharing in Organizational Ecosystems

We synthesize findings from longitudinal case studies examining work practices in three different organizations and propose analytical and methodological frameworks to guide the design and implementation of technologies for expertise and knowledge management. We appropriate the concept of ecosystem to argue that we can create active and useful solutions for knowledge management through a focus on interaction between two mutually intertwined elements of an ecosystem—artifacts and actors. We show that in expertise and knowledge sharing systems domain knowledge and technological knowledge are complementary and we present evidence that small solutions can have far reaching effects. Finally, we make a case for full integration of IT developers as an element of expertise sharing ecosystem.

Capable and convivial design (CCD): a framework for designing information and communication technologies for human development

Scholarship and implementation in information and communication technologies for development (ICTD/ICT4D) have seen an exponential increase over the past decade. In spite of enormous headway in both research and application, ICTD lacks a clear unified framework that can guide contextually grounded user-focussed design of ICT. This shortcoming results largely from the fields unusual placement at the intersection of research, policy, and practice, each driven by different philosophical traditions and application intentions. We argue that this gap can be overcome by adopting design-based approaches in ICTD. Towards this end, we advance a design framework – capable and convivial design (CCD) – that appropriates Sens idea of capabilities and Illichs notion of conviviality. We contend that these two sets of complementary theoretical traditions are markedly well suited to guide the design of contextually relevant and user empowering ICTs. We test the CCD framework against multiple input shared computing, a well-documented ICTD case, to illustrate its analytical usefulness and improve its analytical precision. Annika Andersson, Åke Grönlund and Gudrun Wicander are the accepting Guest Editors for this article.

Look ma, no email!: blogs and IRC as primary and preferred communication tools in a distributed firm

Email has been the primary communication medium in organizations for decades and despite studies that demonstrate its obvious disadvantages, the prevailing thinking is that email is irreplaceable. In this paper I challenge that view through a field study of a distributed firm that is highly successful in developing and delivering products without regular use of email in the workplace. Group blogging and IRC were the primary tools used and they allowed improved coordination and knowledge sharing compared to email. This paper contributes to scant literature in CSCW on firm-level technology use.

Cambridge Handbook of Engineering Education Research: Professional Engineering Work

Introduction The focus of our chapter is on current research-based understandings of professional engineering work. We argue for the relevance of these understandings to engineering education. We will also argue, as others have as well (Barley, 2004; Trevelyan, 2007, 2010; Vinck, 2003), that research on professional engineering work is too sparse. Therefore a good part of this chapter is oriented in a programmatic, agenda setting direction. From the perspective of engineering education, the sparseness of research on professional engineering work is puzzling for a number of reasons. First, engineering education is often reorganized against the backdrop of claims about what professional engineering work is now or will be in the future. Without trustworthy and specific representations of engineering work practice and of the dispositions, skills, and identity orientations of professional engineers, how are engineering educators to know whether engineering education is preparing engineering students to be successful, creative, or impactful engineers? A prominent consensus report from the National Academy of Engineering highlights a “disconnect between engineers in practice and engineers in academe” (National Academy of Engineering [NAE], 2005, pp. 20–21). The report stated that “the great majority of engineering faculty, for example, have no industry experience. Industry representatives point to this disconnect as the reason that engineering students are not adequately prepared, in their view, to enter todays workforce” (National Academy of Engineering [NAE], 2005, pp. 20–21). It is important that a focus on “preparation” of future engineers not be tied to an agenda that solely emphasizes what professional engineering “needs” and economic competitiveness. It also is possible to organize an engineering educational system to prepare recent graduates to be change agents and participants in new social movements within engineering work practice. However, in either case, concrete images of engineering work are critical resources for rethinking engineering education and making empirically based assessments of progress.

Learning from marginalized users: reciprocity in HCI4D

Users in the developing world continue to appropriate information and communication technologies (ICTs) in pioneering ways resulting in innovations such as M-Pesa, the popular mobile money transfer system developed in Kenya. M-Pesas success demonstrates the emergence of user-centered innovative applications in resource-constrained settings. The goals of our workshop are twofold: 1) to uncover more of these examples and 2) to discuss how they can influence design in developed countries.

Fast, functional, and fitting: expert response dynamics and response quality in an online newcomer help forum

In online communities a few experts are able to help a large number of help-seekers -- whether in Q&A communities or other forms of online forums. How is this efficiency achieved? How useful is this help? We show that expert help-giving can be characterized as: (1) Fast -- Most active help-givers gave response promptly and were most responsive during peak activity; (2) Functional -- There was little duplication of help-giving effort; and, (3) Fitting -- Initial responses were of high quality and reduced the need for further clarifications and corrections; high quality responses were provided earlier in the thread. Examination of differences across experts revealed that the most highly rated group of experts responded to 69% of the questions with a median response time of 16 minutes, twice as fast as other experts. Finally, we demonstrate the high quality of response through a taxonomy that characterizes expert responses as: framing, guiding, or engaged help.