Pasi Pohjola

The pragmatic web: some key issues

In recent years interests towards the Pragmatic Web have been increasing. Since the preliminary sketches and initial ideas in the first years of this decade, some attempts at defining and characterizing the Pragmatic Web has emerged. Building upon the initial characterizations, the aim of this paper is to develop some of the key issues concerning the Pragmatic Web, especially those that distinguish it from the semantic web. By drawing ideas from the linguistic metaphor and from research conducted in technology studies, the paper aims at characterizing certain central features that make the web a pragmatic one. The central argument of this paper is that the Pragmatic Web is a collaborative technology, dependent on communities of users and the practices of use of the community.

Perspectives to performance of environment and health assessments and models--from outputs to outcomes?

The calls for knowledge-based policy and policy-relevant research invoke a need to evaluate and manage environment and health assessments and models according to their societal outcomes. This review explores how well the existing approaches to assessment and model performance serve this need. The perspectives to assessment and model performance in the scientific literature can be called: (1) quality assurance/control, (2) uncertainty analysis, (3) technical assessment of models, (4) effectiveness and (5) other perspectives, according to what is primarily seen to constitute the goodness of assessments and models. The categorization is not strict and methods, tools and frameworks in different perspectives may overlap. However, altogether it seems that most approaches to assessment and model performance are relatively narrow in their scope. The focus in most approaches is on the outputs and making of assessments and models. Practical application of the outputs and the consequential outcomes are often left unaddressed. It appears that more comprehensive approaches that combine the essential characteristics of different perspectives are needed. This necessitates a better account of the mechanisms of collective knowledge creation and the relations between knowledge and practical action. Some new approaches to assessment, modeling and their evaluation and management span the chain from knowledge creation to societal outcomes, but the complexity of evaluating societal outcomes remains a challenge.

Social work as knowledge work: knowledge practices and multi-professional collaboration

This paper investigates new kinds of practices of social work in Finland through two relevant issues to all current professions: (i) organizing effective knowledge work and (ii) organizing effective multi-professional collaboration. We look into how various forms of creating and using knowledge relate to social work and the collaboration between social work and other public services. The theoretical contribution of this paper is in the introduction of knowledge practices as a theoretical concept suitable for analysing the new forms of technology-mediated social work. The result the paper shows is that although multi-professional work has become one central issue in the development of new kinds of services, they still rely on relatively traditional knowledge tools. Majority of tools developed for the purposes of these service practices are directed at enhancement of traditional knowledge tasks such as gathering data about the client’s situation. Only few of the analysed practices actually had tools aimed at enhancing collaboration between the professionals or between clients and the professionals. Furthermore, the multi-professionalism in these practices was mainly focused on the interaction between the professionals and only few were targeted to enhance the active role of the clients in these processes. In conclusion, the development of practices of multi-professional work still require further attention to the active role of the clients in these processes as well as to tools that enhance collaborative knowledge creation in these practices in a way that it enhances client participation.

Organisational learning in forensic fingerprint investigation

The present study analyses data collected from a series of developmental seminars in a fingerprint laboratory during which fingerprint examiners jointly discussed and developed their work processes, analytical methods, decision-making criteria and rules of documentation. The analysed organizational development took place in the context of moving from paper to digital documentation and from individually to collectively mastered work process. The fingerprint examiners who participated in the seminar series jointly reflected on their existing professional rules and operational practices, improvement of which was called for to facilitate organizational learning. The analysed data set consists of 10 audio-recorded developmental seminars with written documents as well as notes and decisions that were made during the seminar. The results of the study will reveal the complex ways in which the fingerprint examiners share their practical professional knowledge and collectively create decision-making criteria and rules of investigative practices so as to adapt their work practices to the changing quality requirements, evolving international standards and digitalization of research documentation.The present study analyses data collected from a series of developmental seminars in a fingerprint laboratory during which fingerprint examiners jointly discussed and developed their work processes, analytical methods, decision-making criteria and rules of documentation. The analysed organizational development took place in the context of moving from paper to digital documentation and from individually to collectively mastered work process. The fingerprint examiners who participated in the seminar series jointly reflected on their existing professional rules and operational practices, improvement of which was called for to facilitate organizational learning. The analysed data set consists of 10 audio-recorded developmental seminars with written documents as well as notes and decisions that were made during the seminar. The results of the study will reveal the complex ways in which the fingerprint examiners share their practical professional knowledge and collectively create decision-making criteria and rules of investigative practices so as to adapt their work practices to the changing quality requirements, evolving international standards and digitalization of research documentation.

Full length articleOrganizational learning in forensic fingerprint investigation: Solving critical challenges with organizational rule construction

The present study analyses data collected from a series of developmental seminars in a fingerprint laboratory during which fingerprint examiners jointly discussed and developed their work processes, analytical methods, decision-making criteria and rules of documentation. The analysed organizational development took place in the context of moving from paper to digital documentation and from individually to collectively mastered work process. The fingerprint examiners who participated in the seminar series jointly reflected on their existing professional rules and operational practices, improvement of which was called for to facilitate organizational learning. The analysed data set consists of 10 audio-recorded developmental seminars with written documents as well as notes and decisions that were made during the seminar. The results of the study will reveal the complex ways in which the fingerprint examiners share their practical professional knowledge and collectively create decision-making criteria and rules of investigative practices so as to adapt their work practices to the changing quality requirements, evolving international standards and digitalization of research documentation.The present study analyses data collected from a series of developmental seminars in a fingerprint laboratory during which fingerprint examiners jointly discussed and developed their work processes, analytical methods, decision-making criteria and rules of documentation. The analysed organizational development took place in the context of moving from paper to digital documentation and from individually to collectively mastered work process. The fingerprint examiners who participated in the seminar series jointly reflected on their existing professional rules and operational practices, improvement of which was called for to facilitate organizational learning. The analysed data set consists of 10 audio-recorded developmental seminars with written documents as well as notes and decisions that were made during the seminar. The results of the study will reveal the complex ways in which the fingerprint examiners share their practical professional knowledge and collectively create decision-making criteria and rules of investigative practices so as to adapt their work practices to the changing quality requirements, evolving international standards and digitalization of research documentation.

Organizational learning in forensic fingerprint investigation: Solving critical challenges with organizational rule construction

The present study analyses data collected from a series of developmental seminars in a fingerprint laboratory during which fingerprint examiners jointly discussed and developed their work processes, analytical methods, decision-making criteria and rules of documentation. The analysed organizational development took place in the context of moving from paper to digital documentation and from individually to collectively mastered work process. The fingerprint examiners who participated in the seminar series jointly reflected on their existing professional rules and operational practices, improvement of which was called for to facilitate organizational learning. The analysed data set consists of 10 audio-recorded developmental seminars with written documents as well as notes and decisions that were made during the seminar. The results of the study will reveal the complex ways in which the fingerprint examiners share their practical professional knowledge and collectively create decision-making criteria and rules of investigative practices so as to adapt their work practices to the changing quality requirements, evolving international standards and digitalization of research documentation.The present study analyses data collected from a series of developmental seminars in a fingerprint laboratory during which fingerprint examiners jointly discussed and developed their work processes, analytical methods, decision-making criteria and rules of documentation. The analysed organizational development took place in the context of moving from paper to digital documentation and from individually to collectively mastered work process. The fingerprint examiners who participated in the seminar series jointly reflected on their existing professional rules and operational practices, improvement of which was called for to facilitate organizational learning. The analysed data set consists of 10 audio-recorded developmental seminars with written documents as well as notes and decisions that were made during the seminar. The results of the study will reveal the complex ways in which the fingerprint examiners share their practical professional knowledge and collectively create decision-making criteria and rules of investigative practices so as to adapt their work practices to the changing quality requirements, evolving international standards and digitalization of research documentation.

Doing Together: Co-Designing the Socio-Materiality of Services in Public Sector

This article examines a systemic innovation model into which the relational approach of actor-network theory ANT has been incorporated. The article examines what the relational approach can contribute to the conceptualization of services and to the co-development and co-design activities of them. The article operates in the context of public welfare and health services, but its analysis might be applied in any other sector and with any other object of development as well. The article presents the systemic innovation model developed in a national Innovillage project in 2009-2013 in Finland. Further, the article studies how the model has been translated into practice in the design activities of a strategic development program of social and health sector run by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Finland. In the discussion analytical and practical challenges of the model are specified and its further development is discussed.