Information infrastructures for distributed collective practices

Information infrastructures for distributed collective practices (DCPs) is discussed. DCP is used to signify collective activity mediated through geographical and conceptual distances time, collective resources, and heterogeneous perspectives or experiences. The study of DCP is central to the development of a rich understanding of the interplay of technology, organizational form and social and moral agendas. It is often carried out through information infrastructures and technologies such as collaboratories, organizational memories, scientific data repositories, digital libraries, multi-agent systems, communication networks, chat rooms, multi-player games, distance education environments. The concept invokes the infrastructure which has inserted itself between human and human in a huge range of collective activity. Programmers, information scientists, sociologists of technology, philosophers of ethics, members of the business community, and ordinary people are all concern with DCP.