While educational technologies such as MOOCs have helped scale content-based learning, scaling situated learning is still challenging. The time it takes to define a real-world project and to mentor learners is often prohibitive, especially given the limited contributions that novices are able to make. This paper introduces micro-role hierarchies, a form of coordination that integrates workflows and hierarchies to help short-term novices predictably contribute to complex projects. Individuals contribute through micro-roles, small experiential assignments taking roughly 2 hours. These micro-roles support execution of the desired work process, but also sequence into learning pathways, resulting in a learning dynamic similar to moving up an organizational hierarchy. We demonstrate micro-role hierarchies through Causeway, a platform for learning web development while building websites for nonprofits. We carry out a proof-of-concept study in which learners built static websites for refugee resettlement agencies in 2 hour long roles.

We conducted a 6-month project with a physical therapy clinic, involving equal parts ethnographic fieldwork and rapid prototyping. It differed from most reported user-informed design by having an explicit dual purpose. On the one hand, the prototype should provide significant, measurable improvements for the field site. On the other hand, the project sponsor did not intend to develop the prototype into a product but rather identify future opportunities and needs in the small-to-medium health care sector, requirements for next generation multifunction peripherals (MFPs), and business applications of existing technology. Thus, the project simultaneously investigated specific solutions for a specific work practice while looking for key technologies to address future needs. This paper provides a detailed account of the process and results, highlighting particular contingencies that come with a dual-purpose exploration, as well as the benefits of a small, focused team that oscillates between research and deployment.

A document log is an ordered list of entries providing a history for any sort of media or file, just as a logfile provides a history of a computer program and a logbook provides a history of a journey. The history of a document may consist of copyright information, approvals, annotations, or any sort of metadata. This paper describes a metadata architecture using Content Based Identifiers and Document Logs that facilitates location of metadata from distributed sources, caching, ordering of log entries, and detection of changes in metadata or documents. The techniques used complement existing metadata format standards and are contrasted with storage of metadata in a file or document management system.