P-nets (2013 – 2016)
P-nets is co-financed by the European Social Fund (ESF) and Greek national funds through the Operatioal Program “Education and Lifelong Learning” of the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) – Research Funding Program: ARCHEMEDES. The project is led by the Technological Education Institude of Crete (Department of Informatics Engineering) with collaborators affiliated with the University of Derby (UK), Universite catholigue de Louvain (Belgium) and the Department of Music Technology & Acoustics Engineering of The Technological Education Institute of Crete.
The project aims to advance the theory and practice of online collaboration and virtual networking. At highest level, the project investigates the question of what is it that creates social bonds and sustains togetherness in virtual space for professional communities? Is it the community as pre-existent structure or the activities themselves that form the ‘glue’ holding together a configuration of people, artifacts and social relations?
The specific objective of P-nets is to unfold a new perspective into analyzing professional collaboration and the means through which it is achieved in virtual settings. At core, this is approached by refining the concept of practice lens and testing its explanatory and analytical capabilities using a field study. The practice lens is a particular research stream in what is called the ‘practice turn’ which draws a distinction between appropriation and enactment of structures inscribed in technology. Through this perspective, we seek to understand the emergence of novel cyber structures such as cross-organization virtual alliances, the means through which they are cultivated and the tools facilitating their collaborative practices. Respectively, the project aims to attain a set of key objectives:
- Theory-based insights to understanding virtual cross-organizational alliances based on the practice members become engaged in.
- Technology-based tools encapsulating boundary spanning artifacts and the technology-inscribed structures of social media for virtual collaboration.
- Pilot developments demonstrating the feasibility of a practice-based approach to collaboration and virtual networking in the area of organic agriculture.
Publications: IISA-2013, PCI 2014, IEEE SAI’2015.
Trade Fairs: EBEH-2014.
