DOIN Research Notes: Knowledge Infrastructure, Community Capacity, and Data Equity
Source: Wofford, M.F., Thomer, A.K., Hemphill, L., Polasek, K., & Yakel, E. (2025). “Valuing Curation Infrastructures.” Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology. 1
Knowledge Infrastructure
Key Finding
The authors argue that curation infrastructures should be understood as knowledge infrastructures: networks of people, technologies, artifacts, and institutions that generate, share, preserve, and maintain knowledge over time. 1
DOIN Interpretation
DOIN can be conceptualized as a regional knowledge infrastructure that connects community organizations, educational institutions, government agencies, technical systems, and local expertise to preserve and transfer knowledge across generations and sectors. 1
Sustainability and Long-Term Stewardship
Key Finding
Stakeholders valued curation infrastructure because it preserves access to information over long periods, making future and currently unforeseen uses of knowledge possible. 1
DOIN Interpretation
The long-term value of DOIN extends beyond immediate project outcomes. By preserving community knowledge and institutional memory, DOIN creates opportunities for future innovation, research, workforce development, and community problem-solving that may not yet be identifiable. 1
Infrastructure as Community Capacity
Key Finding
Effective infrastructures depend on organizational, financial, social, and technical foundations that evolve continuously over time. 1
DOIN Interpretation
DOIN should be viewed not simply as a technology platform but as a capacity-building system rooted in relationships, governance, funding mechanisms, and community participation. Its resilience comes from the interaction of social and technical systems. 1
Trust Through Transparency
Key Finding
Transparency increases trust by making processes, decision-making, and information lineage visible and understandable to stakeholders. 1
DOIN Interpretation
To maintain legitimacy and community confidence, DOIN should clearly document how information is collected, interpreted, shared, and maintained. Transparent knowledge practices strengthen both participation and trust. 1
Research Efficiency and Resource Multiplication
Key Finding
Infrastructure creates efficiencies by allowing knowledge, systems, and processes to be reused rather than repeatedly recreated. One participant described infrastructure as a “build once, use many” investment. 1
DOIN Interpretation
By organizing and preserving community knowledge, DOIN allows organizations to build on previous work, reducing duplication and enabling faster, more informed decision-making across sectors. 1
Community Building
Key Finding
Participants viewed curation infrastructures as hubs that connect disciplines, organizations, and communities while fostering shared understanding and collaboration. 1
DOIN Interpretation
A core function of DOIN is to serve as a regional connective tissue that links diverse stakeholders through shared knowledge resources, creating opportunities for collaboration, learning, and collective action. 1
Embeddedness in Local Context
Key Finding
Successful infrastructures are embedded within the social and organizational environments they serve. 1
DOIN Interpretation
DOIN’s effectiveness depends on its alignment with local culture, institutions, priorities, and relationships. The network must emerge from community needs rather than being imposed through external models alone. 1
Equity and Democratization
Key Finding
Stakeholders consistently viewed infrastructure as a mechanism for lowering barriers to participation and democratizing access to knowledge and opportunity. 1
DOIN Interpretation
DOIN can advance digital opportunity by ensuring that individuals and organizations without extensive resources or institutional connections can access the information, expertise, and opportunities necessary to participate in innovation and development efforts. 1
Reducing Gatekeeping
Key Finding
Well-curated and openly accessible resources reduce dependence on personal relationships and insider networks. 1
DOIN Interpretation
One of DOIN’s most significant contributions is its ability to reduce knowledge gatekeeping by making information discoverable and accessible regardless of a person’s professional network, organizational affiliation, or geographic location. 1
Educational Empowerment
Key Finding
Open and well-organized knowledge resources help students, emerging researchers, and practitioners participate more fully in knowledge creation and discovery. 1
DOIN Interpretation
DOIN can function as a community learning platform that empowers residents, students, educators, and local leaders to explore questions, conduct research, and contribute to collective knowledge without requiring institutional permission or specialized access. 1
Infrastructure as a Public Good
Key Finding
Participants frequently described curated knowledge resources as public goods that support accountability, transparency, reuse, and future discovery. 1
DOIN Interpretation
The information, relationships, and community intelligence generated through DOIN should be viewed as shared public assets whose value increases through collective stewardship, reuse, and broad participation. 1
The Invisibility Problem
Key Finding
Infrastructure is often undervalued because its contributions become most visible only when it fails or disappears. 1
DOIN Interpretation
The importance of DOIN may be easiest to recognize when institutional memory is lost, community relationships weaken, or critical knowledge becomes inaccessible. Its greatest successes may remain largely invisible during normal operations. 1
Long-Term Investment Horizons
Key Finding
Infrastructure value typically emerges over long time horizons that do not align well with short-term funding cycles. 1
DOIN Interpretation
Assessing the impact of DOIN requires a long-term perspective. Community knowledge systems generate cumulative value over years and decades through relationship-building, knowledge retention, and increased civic and organizational capacity. 1
Potential Citation-Ready Synthesis for DOIN
DOIN functions as a regional knowledge infrastructure that creates value through sustainability, trust, efficiency, community-building, and equity. By preserving institutional memory, reducing barriers to participation, and connecting people, organizations, and information resources, the network transforms local knowledge into long-term community capacity and resilience. 1
Like other successful knowledge infrastructures, DOIN derives its strength not merely from technology but from the relationships, standards, governance structures, and shared practices that enable knowledge to persist and remain useful across organizational, disciplinary, and generational boundaries. 1
The ultimate value of DOIN lies in its ability to democratize access to information, foster trust through transparency, and create a durable foundation for future learning, innovation, and regional development. 1