Practice-Centered e-Science: A Practice Turn Perspective on Cyberinfrastructure Design

Cyberinfrastructure is a rapidly growing area of global research and funding with a history of emphasizing the role technology will play in changing scientific work practices. This paper proposes a practice-theoretic perspective that is informative to cyberinfrastructure research and design. To illustrate the relevancy of a practice-theoretic perspective to cyberinfrastructure, this paper presents a critical review of 160 cyberinfrastructure research papers and reports published in the last decade through a perspective of embodied practice. After relating common cyberinfrastructure research themes through a focus on embodied practice, the authors propose a series of early implications for design aimed at incorporating the lessons of embodied practice into the design and development of future cyberinfrastructure applications.