Desituating Context in Ubiquitous Computing

Abstract

Context awareness forms a core concern in ubiquitous computing and goes hand in hand with today’s extensive use of sensor technologies. This paper focuses on the use of sensors as part of remote diagnostic systems (RDS) in industrial organizations. The study shows that the process of desituating context, that is, capturing context and transferring it to another context, is critical for the successful use of the technology. The processes of capturing and transferring context are explored in industrial maintenance work through interviews with suppliers and users of RDS. To successfully manage the desituation of context, industrial organizations must find strategies of creating and managing a center of calculation, a center where the captured contexts meet and merge. To enable the long-distance control of the equipment, all data must be compiled into one manageable view without losing the specifics of the local contexts. The data collection must be designed with this in mind. Moreover, to bridge the gap between the digital and the physical world created by the new way of organizing the maintenance work, a new kind of maintenance network must be formed, one in which local technicians’ practices are reconfigured and instituted.