CHS: Medium: Understanding and Improving the Social Impact of High-Bandwidth Farm Networking Infrastructure

该项目的目标是(1)调查无处不在、低成本、高带宽的通信基础设施对美国农场的潜在社会影响，以及(2)开发改善这些技术的社会影响的方案。支持高带宽农场数据通信的新网络解决方案将能够收集大量传感器数据，将其传输到云或其他服务器，并将其处理和用于农业决策。这些转变将改变农业生产和经济组织。该项目将追求下一代农业网络解决方案设计研究的价值，以及对农业利益攸关方目前采用信息丰富的方法进行农场管理的实证研究。该项目将把农业企业利益攸关方的关切纳入农场联网发展的早期阶段；促进技术、农业和政策利益攸关方就这项技术的潜在社会影响进行知情讨论；并制定和传播实用的政策和设计备选方案，以改善农场联网的社会影响。它将通过暑期研究讲习班支持来自代表性不足群体的学生在网络、针对社会影响的设计和数字农业的未来方面的研究培训。研究采用技术，以在技术设计的早期阶段整合社会考虑，以应对在解决基础设施的社会影响方面出现的具体挑战。该项目将(1)利用农业网络技术开发中的人种学参与者观察，并与技术合作伙伴合作，以确定技术决策可能与社会影响挑战相关联的时刻；(2)与农业利益攸关方开展实地工作，分析采用类似技术的现有基础设施如何被新出现的社会实践塑造和塑造，以产生具体影响；(3)制定未来设计方案，充实和具体化技术决策、未来政策和组织做法之间的潜在关系，以及由此产生的好处和缺点；以及(4)使用这些方案协作确定特定的技术、组织和政策选项，以提高或减少场内高带宽通信技术的优势或缺陷。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The goals of this project are to (1) investigate the potential social impact of ubiquitous, low-cost, high-bandwidth communication infrastructure on America's farms, and (2) develop options for improving the social impact of these technologies. New networking solutions to support high-bandwidth on-farm data communication will enable the collection of massive amounts of sensor data, its transmission to the cloud or other servers, and its processing and use for agricultural decision-making. These shifts stand poised to transform agricultural production and economic organization. This project will pursue values in design research into next generation network solutions for agriculture, as well as empirical research with agricultural stakeholders currently engaging information-rich approaches to farm management. The project will integrate concerns of agribusiness stakeholders into the early stages of on-farm networking development; foster informed discussion among technical, agricultural, and policy stakeholders about the potential social impact of this technology; and develop and disseminate practical policy and design options to improve the social impact of on-farm networking. It will support the training of students from underrepresented groups in research through summer research workshops in networking, design for social impact, and the futures of digital agriculture.The research adapts techniques to integrate societal considerations in the early stages of technology design, in order to manage the specific challenges that come up in addressing the social impact of infrastructure. The project will (1) use ethnographic participant-observation in the development of farm networking technology and collaboration with technical partners to identify moments where technical decisions could be associated with social impact challenges; (2) conduct fieldwork with agricultural stakeholders to analyze how existing infrastructures incorporating analogous technologies are shaping and shaped by emerging social practices to create specific impacts; (3) develop future design scenarios that flesh out and concretize potential relationships between technological decisions, future policies and organizational practices, and the resulting benefits and drawbacks; and (4) use these scenarios to collaboratively identify specific technical, organizational, and policy options that could improve the benefits or reduce the drawbacks of on-farm high-bandwidth communication technologies.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.