This paper asks what can we learn from breaking down systems to understand the development of systems. Through ethnographic fieldwork around a large-scale infrastructure development project in the ocean sciences experiencing a scale downward and threat of further defunding, I highlight four often overlooked components of innovation and development that have important implications for the HCI community. The first debunks the mythical liquidation and restart of Western development's "fail fast, fail often" mantra by tracing the complexities of breaking down an infrastructure, highlighting that the end of a technology is entrenched in longer-lived social, political and organizational consequences. The second dives deeper into these social consequences, as formalized structures are broken down and new temporary and contingent working orders surface to fill their place. Third, I signal the critical consequences of the thoughtful practices of assessment and evaluation of both human and material resources that occur during the downturn of systems. Last, I discuss the deeply personal connections that amplify through processes of breaking down systems.

Problems of temporality in distributed cooperative work have emerged as an important theme of CSCW and HCI work. This paper draws on ethnographic fieldwork into large-scale infrastructure development in ecology and ocean science and analyses of futurism in science and technology studies to call attention to "anticipation work": the practices that cultivate and channel expectations of the future, design pathways into those imaginations, and maintain those visions in the face of a dynamic world. We advance three basic claims: first, that long term technological development and sustainability in science is guided by complex and distributed forms of futurism; second, that all actors (both individual and collective) orient towards the future (at both temporally close and distant scales); and third, that actors engage in complex and skilled forms of anticipation work -- individual and collective, formal and informal -- that guide and shape the present character and experience of collaborative life.

Plans and planning assume a central role and challenge of collaborative scientific work, bridging and coordinating often discordant rhythms and events emanating from the organizational, infrastructural, biographical and phenomenal dimensions of collaborative life. Plans align rhythms embedded in local practice with those operating at larger institutional levels, and establish shared temporal baselines around which local choice and action may be calibrated. This paper develops these arguments through ethnographic study of the Ocean Observatories Initiative, a prominent U.S.-based large-scale long-term collaborative research program in the ocean sciences. We emphasize the intersection between rhythms and plans at two crucial moments: formation ('plans-in-the-making'), and enactment ('plans-in-action') across complex fields of practice. Our findings hold important implications for CSCW research and practice around scientific and large-scale collaborative efforts, and for federal science policies meant to support productive forms of cooperation and discovery.

Writing documents together using collaborative editing tools has become extremely common with the widespread availability of tools such as Google Docs. The design of such tools, rooted in early CSCW research, has historically been focused on providing awareness of the presence and activities of one's collaborators. Evidence from a recent qualitative study, however, suggests that people are also concerned about how their behaviors -- and they themselves -- will be perceived by others; and take steps to mitigate possible negative perceptions. We present an experimental study of dyads composing documents together, focusing in particular on group maintenance, impression management and relationship-focused behavior. Results suggest that communication is positively related to social relations, but only for synchronous writing in a shared space; the reverse can be true in asynchronous commenting and editing.

This paper explores the relationship between CSCW studies of scientific collaboration and the larger worlds of science practice and policy they are embedded in. We argue that CSCW has much to learn from debates in science policy, including questions around the changing nature of science and science-society relations that are partly but obliquely referenced in technology- or data-centered accounts of scientific change. At the same time, science policy has much to learn from CSCW -- about design, infrastructure, and the organizational complexities of distributed collaborative practice. We conclude with recommendations for a better integration of the CSCW and science policy literatures around collaboration and new infrastructure development in the sciences, and speculation around what a post-normal cyberinfrastructure -- and post-normal CSCW -- might look like.