Sociotechnical research increasingly includes the social sub-networks that emerge from large-scale sociotechnical infrastructure, including the infrastructure for building open source software. This paper addresses these numerous sub-networks as advantageous for researchers. It provides a methodological synthesis focusing on how researchers can best span adjacent social sub-networks during engaged field research. Specifically, we describe practices and artifacts that aid movement from one social subsystem within a more extensive technical infrastructure to another. To surface the importance of spanning sub-networks, we incorporate a discussion of social capital and the role of technical infrastructure in its development for sociotechnical researchers. We then characterize a five-step process for spanning social sub-networks during engaged field research: commitment, context mapping, jargon competence, returning value, and bridging. We then present our experience studying corporate open source software projects and the role of that experience in accelerating our work in open source scientific software research as described through the lens of bridging social capital. Based on our analysis, we offer recommendations for engaging in fieldwork in adjacent social sub-networks that share a technical context and discussion of how the relationship between social and technically acquired social capital is a missing but critical methodological dimension for research on large-scale sociotechnical research.

翻译：社会技术研究日益关注从大规模社会技术基础设施（包括构建开源软件的基础设施）中涌现的社会子网络。本文将这些众多子网络视为研究者的优势资源，提出一种方法论综合框架，重点探讨研究者如何在参与式实地研究中有效跨越相邻社会子网络。具体而言，我们描述了有助于从大型技术基础设施内的一个社会子系统迁移至另一个子系统的实践方法和人工制品。为揭示跨越子网络的重要性，我们融入了对社会资本及技术基础设施在社会技术研究者发展社会资本中所扮演角色的讨论。随后，我们刻画了参与式实地研究中跨越社会子网络的五步流程：承诺、情境映射、术语能力、价值回馈与桥接。接着，我们以桥接社会资本的视角，介绍了研究企业开源软件项目的经验，以及该经验如何加速我们在开源科学软件研究中的工作。基于分析，我们为在共享技术背景的相邻社会子网络中开展实地工作提出建议，并探讨社会资本与技术获取型社会资本之间的关系为何是大规模社会技术研究中缺失但至关重要的方法论维度。