Further Information
One of the major challenges of a collaborative information management system revolves around how diverse stakeholders engage with the data within. Each group might interpret data differently, drawing on different interpretive contexts and previous experiences, their understanding of the situation at hand, the stakeholders they are engaged with, and their routine practices. Much of what a given set of data is based upon cannot be translated for other groups, since it reflects not just different terminologies or contexts but also different ways of acting in the world. Supporting contextual reasoning helps make sure that one group’s data is not misused or misapplied, avoiding unintentional liabilities. In addition, collaboration requires common expectations and shared goals, which are not possible without understanding the why and the how of the information being shared. Working with this context to understand these different practices and forms of reasoning will make for more ethical interactions.
Examples
In one BRIDGE co-design session, first responders were concerned about logging information without sufficient contextual information. As they argued, while the logging might be useful for training purposes, it could problematic if used for evaluation, because the log of the event misses large parts of situational context which is crucial for evaluating the performance of rescue personal fairly. As one paramedic explained.
“I‘m afraid of the logging system telling what I did on that patient, because we [only] see the patient’s vital data, we don’t see how the patient lies, what was around in the room, did the paramedic have a bad situation of working that influenced what he was capable of doing. So the log shows a poor treatment of a patient, but that was actually the best treatment the patient could get in that situation. So that’s my concern about logging and use it without thinking about consequences or you see the point on a screen and you say, “oh, he’s doing it, he’s not doing it well”, but he was maybe on the worst part of the scenery and that could be a problem, … we have to go in the “why” it must be, the logging must be the scene, which puts up the next question – why did it happen like that? To investigate more of it. Then the logging is good.”
(Liegl et al 2017: 103)