Trans-Situated Learning: Supporting a Network of Practice with an Information Infrastructure

Emmanuelle Vaast () and Geoff Walsham ()
Additional contact information
Emmanuelle Vaast: School of Business, Long Island University, Brooklyn, New York 11201
Geoff Walsham: Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1AG, United Kingdom

Information Systems Research, 2009, vol. 20, issue 4, 547-564

Abstract: This paper investigates the practice-based learning dynamics that emerge among peers who share occupational practices but do not necessarily work with each other or even know each other because of geographical or organizational distance. To do so, it draws on the literatures on situated learning, networks of practice, and information infrastructures, and on insights from a longitudinal case study of the implementation of a Web-based information system used by people working in the field of environmental health. The system was deeply involved in the transformations of local practices as well as relationships between peers. Based on a dialogue between existing literatures and observations from the case study, this research extends the practice-based perspective on learning to the computer-mediated context of a network of practice. To that effect, it proposes a model of what we call trans-situated learning that is supported by the local universality of an information infrastructure whose use becomes embedded with other infrastructures.

Keywords: situated learning; network of practice; information infrastructure; case study; embeddedness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/isre.1080.0228 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:orisre:v:20:y:2009:i:4:p:547-564

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Information Systems Research from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().