Plan for possible points of infrastructuring, including breakdowns and anticipation work¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

This third IMPROV action area determines when infrastructuring activities could unfold. The article defines that "a point of infrastructuring is the moment when an infrastructure is visible to its users so that it can be brought to the fore to be improved." Breakdowns are classic points because infrastructures remain invisible while functioning; anticipation work complements them by envisioning needs or repairs in unknown futures, which matters for long-term sustainability.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Points of infrastructuring are always local, embedded in practice, and significantly impacted by how infrastructure is perceived by users

Constraints¶

• Designing for future users can be challenging, causing frustration and attrition among participants

Target Learners¶

• teachers
• project teams implementing innovations

Target Learning Goals¶

• creating opportunities to negotiate changes with current infrastructures

Related Strategies¶

• Rally for coherence-making and infrastructure remaking activities between innovation and practice
• Identify key social actors and expand design areas to include design in-use by practitioners
• Evaluate infrastructures continually using process-tracking methods such as ethnography and embedded sensors
• Orchestrate meta-design and capacity building so practitioners can engage in design in-use
• Make visible the installed base of existing infrastructures and discern its relationship with the innovation
• Identifying Obstacles

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Chen, B. (2024). A framework for infrastructuring sustainable innovations in education. Journal of the Learning Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508406.2024.2320159