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Today, most design projects are infrastructuring projects, because they build on technologies, competencies and practices that already exist. While infrastructuring was originally seen as being full of conflicts and contradictions with what is already present, we find that many contemporary reports seem to mainly address participatory infrastructuring as horizontal co-design and local, mutual learning processes in which people attempt to make the most out of available technology. In this paper we expand our view of design activities in three dimensions: First, how participatory processes play out vertically in different political and practical arenas; second, on the back stage of design, the messy activities that occur before, between and after the participatory workshops. And third, on their reach; how they tie into existing networks across organizations, and how agency and initiatives become dispersed within these networks. To illustrate and discuss the process of participatory infrastructuring we use a case study from an educational context. This particular project contains a diverse set of design activities at many organizational levels revolving around technology, decision-making, competence-building, commitment and policy-making. The project highlights these complexities, and our discussions lead to a vocabulary for participatory infrastructuring that focuses on knotworking, rather than structure, and on both horizontal and vertical reach and sustainability. This vocabulary is grounded in the meeting of the literature on infrastructuring, participatory design, and activity theory, and leads to a revised understanding of, for example, learning and conflicts in participatory infrastructuring.

This paper focuses on evaluation in Participatory Design (PD), and especially upon how the central aims of mutual learning, empowerment, democracy and workplace quality have been assessed. We surveyed all Participatory Design Conference papers (1990-2014) and papers from special journal issues on PD, focusing on systematic, explicit evaluations. The survey resulted in 143 papers of which 66 were deemed relevant. Of these, 17 papers deal with evaluation of the above mentioned aims. Based on evaluation theory, we propose seven key questions through which to characterize evaluations in PD and analyze the 17 papers. Our analysis reveals that formal evaluations of PD's aims are rare; generally lack details on methods; are researcher- and not participant-led, and that a corpus of work around evaluations needs to be developed. We suggest more explicit, systematic evaluations of PD's central aims to enhance accountability, learning and knowledge building, and to strengthen PD internally and externally.Full text at ACM

We propose computational empowerment as an approach and a Participatory Design response to challenges related to digitalization of society and the emerging need for digital literacy in K12 education. Our approach extends the current focus on computational thinking to include contextual, human-centred and societal challenges and impacts involved in students' creative and critical engagement with digital technology. Our research is based on the FabLab@School project, in which a PD approach to computational empowerment provided opportunities as well as further challenges for the complex agenda of digital technology in education. We argue that PD has the potential to drive a computational empowerment agenda in education by connecting political PD with contemporary visions for addressing a future digitalized labour market and society.Full text at ACM

We account for the first research results from a governmentinitiated experiment that scales Making to a national discipline. The Ministry of Education, in Denmark, has introduced Technology Comprehension as a new discipline for lower secondary education. Technology Comprehension is first experimented as an elective subject in 13 schools. The discipline combines elements from computing, design, and the societal aspect of technology and, thus, resonates with the existing FabLearn and Making initiatives in Scandinavia. We report the identified opportunities and challenges based on interviews, surveys, and a theme discussion with experienced teachers from the 13 schools. The main takeaways are: First, the teachers did not perceive Technology Comprehension as a distinguished discipline, which calls for more research on how Making is scaled into a national discipline. Second, Technology Comprehension opens up for interdisciplinary and engaging learning activities, but teachers need scaffolding and support to actualise these opportunities. Third, Technology Comprehension challenges teachers' existing competencies in relation to the discipline and students' prerequisites and needs. Teachers need pedagogical means to take the societal aspect into account within the discipline. Finally, we argue for further research on supporting teachers when scaling Technology Comprehension on a national level. ; peerReviewed

1975-1985-1995-2005 — the decennial Aarhus conferences have traditionally been instrumental for setting new agendas for critically engaged thinking about information technology. The conference series is fundamentally interdisciplinary and emphasizes thinking that is firmly anchored in action, intervention, and schol- arly critical practice. With the title Critical Computing – between sense and sen- sibility, the 2005 edition of the conference marked that computing was rapidly seeping into everyday life. In 2015, we see critical alternatives in alignment with utopian principles—that is, the aspiration that life might not only be different but also radically better. At the same time, radically better alternatives do not emerge out of nowhere: they emerged from contested analyses of the mundane present and demand both commitment and labor to work towards them. Critical alternatives matter and make people reflect. The fifth decennial Aarhus conference, Critical Alternatives, in 2015 aims to set new agendas for theory and practice in computing for quality of human life. While the early Aarhus conferences, from 1975 and onwards, focused on computing in working life, computing today is influencing most parts of human life (civic life, the welfare state, health, learning, leisure, culture, intimacy, .), thereby calling for critical alternatives from a general quality of life perspective. The papers selected for the conference have undergone a meticulous reviewing process looking at methodical soundness as well as potentials for the creating alternatives and provoking debate. Among 71 full and short paper submissions 21 were accepted. The accepted papers span a broad range of positions and concerns ranging from play to politics. We would like to express great thanks for help and support to the numerous peo- ple who have contributed to making the conference possible. In particular we want to thank Marianne Dammand and Ann Mølhave for secretarial help, including reg- istration and hotel arrangements. We want to thank the center for Participatory IT (PIT) and the Department of Computer Science, University of Aarhus for providing resources for the planning and operation of the conference. We hope that the conference will inspire critical and alternative thinking and action for the next decennium.