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Activity Theory As A Theoretical Framework

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Literature article
Roos, A., (2015) Activity theory as a theoretical framework in the study of information practices in molecular medicine. Health Information & Libraries Journal, 32, 23–36

This article uses the “Research studies in social or collaborative computing which use the theory as a framework to examine the use of a product” option to apply the Activity theory to a current social issue.
This paper describes the application Activity Theory (AT)2 to
1. comprehend the systematic step-wise approaches (TOOLS) followed by the SUBJECTS (genomic researchers using bioinformatics and molecular biology tools) to move from conception (hypothesis) to the experimental design, followed by protocol development, and data generation and …show more content…

The latter actually carry out most of the bench work (“foot soldiers”) and also scan the web for research protocols. The PI and SRS develop the ideas and protocols and use web extensively to assess what’s been done already so as not to “respin the wheels”. The researchers also use central facilities (manned by a service-type organization of specialized researchers) that processes routine requests like immunohistological tissue slice processing. In a clinical trial setting, non-research subjects (healthy individuals and patients) join the study in a phased manner as shown below4:
• Phase I: A small group of healthy human subjects enrolled to test the safety profile, efficacy of the drug.
• Phase II: Administration to a larger group of people with a view to seek same outcomes as in Phase I
• Phase III: Scope now focused on efficacy, side effects, treatments comparison, and safely alerts.
• Phase IV: Long term efficacy spanning multiple years across different demographics
The research teams are supported by a layer of non research personnel who take care of the operations (grant administrators, facilities maintenance, etc.).

2. Tools: How’s (What means are the subjects using to engage in this activity?)
PI writes and submits grant proposals to NIH, NSF or other Not-for-profit organizations via the web using the preliminary results generated by the

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