Knowledge in the making: practitioner-driven systems development in a community

This work contributes to the field of information systems and examines how practitioner-driven systems development is shaped by long-term theories- in-use on practitioners’ actual domain and community formation at grass-root level. The topic is approached as an in-situ infrastructuring process in a non-profit community where information technology (IT) is developed by non-IT-professionals. Such an approach to IT design is tentatively conceptualized as ‘organic’ infrastructuring, i.e. IT transformation  done by practitioners whose work is conditioned by aspects of their domain, community and its raison d’etre and realized in domain-specific IT developed continuously in everyday usage. The study shows how certain parts of infrastructures are difficult to approach by IT-driven design and demand the raison- d’etre scope and practitioners’ local expertise. Continuous systems development is particularly useful in communities of practitioners who seek new knowledge, work on open questions or with constantly changing topics.

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