Reflection in action: a critical reflection tool to help students deal with uncertainties in designing solutions for complex problems

At Delft University of Technology (DUT) in the Netherlands, multi-disciplinary teams of students collaborate with professionals in living labs to design solutions for real-life complex problems in technological innovation processes. Students are guided by a lecturer through the four phases of design to “cut through” the complexity of the problem. However, in these 'ill-defined wicked problems' nobody has an overall picture of the problem and students face many uncertainties. These uncertainties are often perceived as a barrier for decision-making within the design process. A reflection tool, based on theoretical insights in transformative and triple-loop learning, is developed to help students critically reflect in action, providing them with options to deal with their uncertainties. We distinguish between task, social, and individual uncertainty. In this study, the central question is: How can the reflection tool help students deal with their uncertainties in solving complex problems in DUT living labs. By means of surveys and interviews we monitored students in two living labs, one with bachelor and one with master students. We focused on what kind of uncertainties they encountered, how they dealt with these uncertainties and how the reflection tool supports them in this regard. Analysis of the data shows that students perceived all types of uncertainty in the various phases of the design process. By means of the reflection tool students gradually became aware of the many options they have in dealing with uncertainties, and particularly how these pertain to their decision-making in the design process

New practices in science communication: Roles of professionals in science and technology development

Currently, Science Communication (SC) professionals who are working in the context of science and technology development, have various jobs at universities, government agencies, NGOs and industry. Their positions have changed in recent years, due to developments in science and technology and to social trends. Increasingly, SC practitioners play a role as mediator in participatory processes, or facilitator of stakeholder meetings. These roles require decisions in difficult to manage processes and in situations that are hard to overlook. A decision support system would be able to help them. In this paper we describe the changing role of SC practitioners and the context in which they make decisions. Then we argue which requirements decision support systems must meet in order to support SC practitioners in their decision making processes. Our paper is based on a literature review on professionalization and in-depth interviews with science communication professionals. Our main conclusion is that a decision support system should not only support the SC practitioner‟s instrumental decisions, but shoul

Beyond Speculative Robot Ethics

In this article we develop a dialogue model for robot technology experts and designated users to discuss visions on the future of robotics in long-term care. Our vision assessment study aims for more distinguished and more informed visions on future robots. Surprisingly, our experiment also lead to some promising co-designed robot concepts in which jointly articulated moral guidelines are embedded. With our model we think to have designed an interesting response on a recent call for a less speculative ethics of technology by encouraging discussions about the quality of positive and negative visions on the future of robotics.

Disseminating Research News in HCI: Perceived Hazards, How-To's, and Opportunities for Innovation

Mass media afford researchers critical opportunities to disseminate research findings and trends to the general public. Yet researchers also perceive that their work can be miscommunicated in mass media, thus generating unintended understandings of HCI research by the general public. We conduct a Grounded Theory analysis of interviews with 12 HCI researchers and find that miscommunication can occur at four origins along the socio-technical infrastructure known as the Media Production Pipeline (MPP) for science news. Results yield researchers' perceived hazards of disseminating their work through mass media, as well as strategies for fostering effective communication of research. We conclude with implications for augmenting or innovating new MPP technologies.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, accepted paper to CHI 2020 conferenc

Substituent Effects in (k2-N,O)-Salicylaldiminato Nickel(II)-Methyl Pyridine Polymerization Catalysts : Terphenyls Controlling Polyethylene Microstructures

A series of (k2-N,O)-salicylaldiminato Ni(II)-methyl pyridine complexes 7-pyr and 8-pyr derived from 3,5-diiodosalicyaldehyde (3a) and 3-(9-anthryl)salicylaldehyde (3b), and terphenylamines 2,6-(3,5- R-4-R-C6H2)2C6H3-NH2 (4a, R=CF3, R'= H; 4b, R=tBu, R'=H; 4c, R=tBu, R'=OH; 4d, R=Me, R'=H; 4e, R=Me, R'=MeO; 4f, R=MeO, R'=H; 4g, R=MeO, R'=MeO), was prepared by reaction of the respective salicylaldimine (5a-f, 6a-g) with [(tmeda)Ni(CH3)2] (tmeda) N,N,N,N-tetramethylethylenediamine) or [(pyridine)2Ni(CH3)2]. Complexes 7-pyr and 8-pyr are highly active single component catalysts for the polymerization of ethylene, producing a wide range of different polyethylene microstructures. While comparable complexes derived from 3a, 3b, 5-nitrosalicylaldehyde, 3-tertbutylsalicylaldehyde,3,5-[3,5-(CF3)2C6H3]2-salicylaldehyde, and 2,6-[3,5-(CF3)2C6H3]2C6H3-NH2 afford polyethylenes with similar degrees of branching, variation of the terphenyl moieties in complexes 7-pyr and 8-pyr allows access to a wide range of polyethylene microstructures under identical reaction conditions. The X-ray diffraction analyses of complexes 7b-pyr and 8f-pyr are reported