Paper Number
ICIS2025-1386
Paper Type
Complete
Abstract
This study focuses on how a specific type of digital artefact, a digital bearer, facilitates and transforms interfacing digital objects in open communities. Open communities rely on openness of access, design, architecture, and blueprints. However, in practice, there are facets of open communities that are less open while others are completely closed. We argue that digital bearers, the interfacing component between digital objects influence openness that arise in the community’s product and development processes. Openness is not a binary condition; it is instead a continuum. Our qualitative study focuses on data in an open source software community. The community employed digital bearers to create possibilities for openness in their product and by relation in the community. We contribute a theorization of how digital bearers are used to both establish and impede varying forms of openness of adjacent digital objects as well as the open community in which they are embedded.
Recommended Citation
Shaikh, Maha and Pujol Priego, Laia, "Digital Objects Establishing Openness in Open Communities" (2025). ICIS 2025 Proceedings. 10.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2025/hti/hti/10
Digital Objects Establishing Openness in Open Communities
This study focuses on how a specific type of digital artefact, a digital bearer, facilitates and transforms interfacing digital objects in open communities. Open communities rely on openness of access, design, architecture, and blueprints. However, in practice, there are facets of open communities that are less open while others are completely closed. We argue that digital bearers, the interfacing component between digital objects influence openness that arise in the community’s product and development processes. Openness is not a binary condition; it is instead a continuum. Our qualitative study focuses on data in an open source software community. The community employed digital bearers to create possibilities for openness in their product and by relation in the community. We contribute a theorization of how digital bearers are used to both establish and impede varying forms of openness of adjacent digital objects as well as the open community in which they are embedded.
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