Design of knowledge system as social organization

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In this project, first of all, we researched on how access to knowledge is socio-technologically organized based on the ethnographic research of repair technicians of copier and how repair technicians use or ignore documents and knowledge management system concerning technical information of repair and maintenance of copiers. In doing so, I attempt to describe how some artifacts become boundary objects based on ethnographic research on repair technicians of copiers and to reformulate the concept of "boundary object." For example, it is illustrated that artifacts that have some specific characteristics such as figures, drawings and lists do not necessarily become a boundary objects. Rather, artifacts become boundary objects when they are embedded in a broker's activities of making linkage among sites. Further, a hierarchical linkage among sites sometimes prevents technicians from accessing knowledge and skills because distribution of knowledge and skills produced in various fields is controlled and interrupted by gatekeepers in the middle of hierarchical organization. Informal network among technicians mediated by a mobile phone supports their mutual access to knowledge and skills although a span of this network is pretty confined. Thus, I proposed how new linkage among technicians in various fields can be socio-technologically organized. For organizing new linkage among technicians in various fields, this project design a mobile knowledge system that is accessible to knowledge system on a server base on participatory design.