Blueprints for success: Guidelines for building multidisciplinary collaboration teams

From the International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence. J.Filipe and A.L.N.Fred. Vilamoura, Algarve, Portugal, SciTePress. 1: 387-393.Finding collaborators to engage in academic research is a challenging task, especially when the collaboration is multidisciplinary in nature and collaborators are needed from different disciplines. This paper uses evidence of successful multidisciplinary collaborations, funded proposals, in a novel way: as an input for a method of recommendation of multidisciplinary collaboration teams. We attempt to answer two questions posed by a collaboration seeker: what disciplines provide collaboration opportunities and what combinations of characteristics of collaborators have been successful in the past? We describe a two-step recommendation framework where the first step recommends potential disciplines with collaboration potential based on current trends in funding. The second step recommends characteristics for a collaboration team that are consistent with past instances of successful collaborations. We examine how this information source can be used in a case-based recommender system and present a preliminary validation of the system using statistical methods

Role of Networking in Innovation Promotion and Cluster Modernization: “House of the Future” Case

This paper stresses the potential of innovative business cooperation networks in promoting regional competitiveness. It is based on the case study of a cooperation network, named “House of the Future”, carried out in the framework of a project where the University of Aveiro has an important role. It suggests success factors in the development of co-operation networks between firms from various sectors and a university. The aim of the “House of the Future” initiative is to promote an innovative approach to inter-organizational cooperation joining together firms from a number of different industrial activities related with the habitat meta-sector. This collaborative effort can function as an experiment for the design of regional innovation policies.

Lessons Learned from Applying Social Network Analysis on an Industrial Free/Libre/Open Source Software Ecosystem

Many software projects are no longer done in-house by a single organization. Instead, we are in a new age where software is developed by a networked community of individuals and organizations, which base their relations to each other on mutual interest. Paradoxically, recent research suggests that software development can actually be jointly-developed by rival firms. For instance, it is known that the mobile-device makers Apple and Samsung kept collaborating in open source projects while running expensive patent wars in the court. Taking a case study approach, we explore how rival firms collaborate in the open source arena by employing a multi-method approach that combines qualitative analysis of archival data (QA) with mining software repositories (MSR) and Social Network Analysis (SNA). While exploring collaborative processes within the OpenStack ecosystem, our research contributes to Software Engineering research by exploring the role of groups, sub-communities and business models within a high-networked open source ecosystem. Surprising results point out that competition for the same revenue model (i.e., operating conflicting business models) does not necessary affect collaboration within the ecosystem. Moreover, while detecting the different sub-communities of the OpenStack community, we found out that the expected social tendency of developers to work with developers from same firm (i.e., homophily) did not hold within the OpenStack ecosystem. Furthermore, while addressing a novel, complex and unexplored open source case, this research also contributes to the management literature in coopetition strategy and high-tech entrepreneurship with a rich description on how heterogeneous actors within a high-networked ecosystem (involving individuals, startups, established firms and public organizations) joint-develop a complex infrastructure for big-data in the open source arena.Comment: As accepted by the Journal of Internet Services and Applications (JISA

Pre-service teachers as designers in the context of advertising literacy education

The present study describes how teacher design teams (TDTs) in pre-service education were set up to create in-school programs about advertising. A multiple case-study design was employed to reveal what kinds of input-, process-, and output-related factors facilitate or hinder the collaboration of three voluntarily participating teams of pre-service teachers. By combining pre-TDT questionnaire data with an analysis of audiorecorded team design discussions and reflective data collected after the design process, we found that the participating student teachers (1) were unfamiliar with design assignments at the start of the project, but were all intrinsically motivated to take part; (2) especially express practical concerns when designing learning materials, and (3) argue that TDTs positively contribute to their professional development. As this study revealed both facilitating and hindering factors, recommendations for future organization of and research on TDTs in pre-service education are offered

Service Design in the Public Sector

The digital transformations revolutionizing so many aspects of contemporary culture are also dramatically changing government services. Designers have an important role to play in these shifts. A wide range of government services— from applying for birth certifications to voting and paying taxes; from immigration applications to citizenship and permitting processes—are becoming available in digital formats. This extension of government services from traditional countertop services to digital access means that governments are hiring designers to build these online applications and platforms. This redesign of services, when including human-centric research methods, enables citizens to have a say in the government decision-making process (Stewart, Dubow, Hofman & Stolk, 2016), and has resulted in exciting design opportunities as well as significant challenges. In this thesis, I elaborate on the practice of service design in a government context, from micro and macro perspectives, using three case studies. In the first case study, I will give an example of how governments are transitioning to redesign specific public services using Agile principles. Agile describes how prototyping and development teams experiment with different possibilities in short “agile” periods of time, allowing real end users to contribute their insights. Using rapid prototyping methods such as Agile helps provide simple and useful ways for citizens to find, use, and contribute to the design of government services. This first case study will describe agile practice in the rapid prototyping lab at Ontario Digital Service (ODS), an organization under a provincial government ministry. In the second case study, I will describe how governments practice service design from a broader perspective. This example comes from my work with Public Digital Innovation Space (PDIS), an organization under Taiwan Open Government. PDIS contributes to facilitating public collaboration with citizens and the government under a mandate from the Taiwanese ministry called Open Government. In this case study, the service design organization is tasked with encouraging citizens and other stakeholders to participate in the government decision- making process and social discussions. In the context of my Master’s research, it was important to investigate ethical issues in bringing neo-liberal rapid prototyping methods to government service design (Kimbell & Bailey, 2017). The final case study outlines a workshop I held with fellow design students to investigate one ethical issue in design; power dynamics within multidisciplinary teams. I had realized that there was a lack of discussion around design ethics in the public sector

Intimate Partner Violence in Omaha

While the greater Omaha area has an extensive network of service providers addressing the needs of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) survivors and has made great strides to increase collaboration and outreach, opportunities exist to enhance service delivery according to this report

How Labor-Management Partnerships Improve Patient Care, Cost Control, and Labor Relations: Case Studies of Fletcher Allen Health Care, Kaiser Permanente, and Montefiore Medical Center’s Care Management Corporation

[Excerpt] This paper explores the ways in which healthcare unions and their members are strategically engaging with management through partnership to control costs and improve the patient experience, clinical outcomes, workplace environment, and labor relations. These initiatives depend on making use of the knowledge of front-line healthcare workers, improving communication between all staff members, and increasing transparency. In turn, these initiatives can also lead to more robust and dynamic local unions. Through participating in joint work activities, many union members note feeling more respected in their workplace and more connected to their union. Unions can benefit from these activities by offering their members the ability to inform decisions about how work gets done

Engagement and retention of clients with co-occurring disorders : practice wisdom of a multidisciplinary treatment unit : a project based upon an independent investigation

Individuals with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders typically have multiple impairments making them difficult to engage and retain in treatment. The most consistent finding across studies is that the most effective service delivery is integrated, i.e. the same clinician or clinical team provides appropriate mental health and substance abuse interventions in a coordinated fashion in a single setting with a goal of helping the client to manage both illnesses. While critical components of integrated service delivery have been identified, how these components are successfully integrated to engage and retain clients in a case has been more elusive. This qualitative study employed a sample of convenience to discern what could be learned from the practice wisdom of seasoned practitioners on an integrated co-occurring treatment unit about specific successful engagement and retention strategies. The major findings were that participants viewed engagement and retention as a seamless process and identified five categories of strategies that were used for both engagement and retention. All of these strategies had to do with the practitioner\u27s use of self in relationship with the client. There was reciprocity in the valuing of the relationship and use of self with a client for engagement and retention on the part of participants, i.e., the relationship with clients was clearly one of the personally satisfying parts of the work