Web 2.0 Use and Organizational Innovation: A Knowledge Transfer Enabling Perspective

Over the last several years, a variety of Web 2.0 applications has been widely adopted by individual users and recently has received great attention from organizations. While an increasing number of organizations have started utilizing Web 2.0 applications in hopes of boosting collaboration and driving innovations, only a small number of different theoretical perspectives are available in the literature that facilitate a further understanding of the phenomenon of organizational adoption of Web 2.0 to drive innovation. In this paper, we propose a theoretical model explicating this phenomenon from the perspective that Web 2.0 use enhances knowledge transfer by fostering the emergence of informal networks, weak ties, boundary spanners and social capital. This model conceptualizes the process through which organizations drive innovations by utilizing Web 2.0 applications. Based on this perspective, suggestions for organizations to facilitate this process are also provided

Web 2.0 Use and Knowledge Transfer: How Social Media Technologies Can Lead to Organizational Innovation

The concept of Web 2.0 has gained widespread prominence in recent years. The use of Web 2.0 applications on an individual level is currently extensive, and such applications have begun to be implemented by organizations in hopes of boosting collaboration and driving innovation. Despite this growing trend, only a small number of theoretical perspectives are available in the literature that discuss how such applications could be utilized to assist in innovation. In this paper, we propose a theoretical model explicating this phenomenon. We argue that organizational Web 2.0 use fosters the emergence and enhancement of informal networks, weak ties, boundary spanners, organizational absorptive capacity, which are reflected in three dimensions of social capital, structural, relational, and cognitive. The generation of social capital enables organizational knowledge transfer, which in turn leads to organizational innovation. Based on this model, suggestions for organizations to facilitate this process are also provided, and theoretical implications are discussed

Panel Discussion: Provost\u27s Open Educational Resource (OER) Fellows

While the adoption of open educational resources (OERs) in the undergraduate curriculum has the evident benefit of reducing cost to the student, thinking deeply about OER adoption reveals numerous questions: can OERs match the quality of traditional textbooks and other commercial educational resources? Are there problems associated with the current textbook landscape that OERs can solve? And how easily can OERs be integrated into classrooms with established modes of instruction? Each of the Provost’s OER Fellows will discuss briefly some of the most important conclusions from the current OER research literature and discuss these in the context of SUNY Albany and its students. They will be sharing their experiences adopting and adapting OER materials for courses in the humanities and the sciences

Exploring the impact of program structure on student and faculty scholarly communities in interdisciplinary Ph.D. programs

The Information Science doctoral program at the University at Albany, State University of New York, faces many of the same challenges found in highly interdisciplinary programs across educational institutions worldwide such as complex curricula development, abundant discipline languages and cultures, and stakeholders clinging to the traditional, single-discipline university system. In 2006, the University at Albany Information Science Ph.D. program faculty redefined the program's structure in hopes of addressing the challenges it was facing. Program structure is a social process shaped by community participation and is influenced by many factors including students, faculty members, and both informal and formal knowledge production. Drawing on data collected with both students and faculty present before, during and after the transition to the new program structure, a mixed-method research strategy was performed to examine student retention rates and time to degree, and to explore the experiences of program faculty members' and doctoral students' sense of community and connectedness. Drawing on Wenger's (1998) Community of Practice model and Tinto's model of Institutional Departure, this study occurs in three stages: [1] program and participants' content analysis, [2] surveying of student and faculty members, and [3] select interviews with student and faculty members. The data presented here highlights the unique challenges of doctoral interdisciplinary programs and supports the need for collaboration among faculty, and calls for the unquestionable patronage of the institution and the diverse departments involved. Seeing that interdisciplinary programs work across different disciplines, students and faculty alike often find it difficult to assimilate the diverse ways of teaching and methods of research thus calling for unique organizational and pedagogical strategies addressed in the curricula. Successful interdisciplinary programs need faculty who are broad-minded and willing to embrace and learn new methodologies, and respect sometimes conflicting viewpoints. Departments need to develop new models of organizational structure and funding sources to facilitate interdisciplinary research and interdisciplinary community. University leadership needs to move away from rigid hierarchical structures, add more flexibility to allow faculty members to have some movement between disciplinary departments, and needs to provide physical spaces to pull the diverse faculty and student communities together

Panel of Campus Advocates Speaking to Open Educational Resources at UAlbany

The University Faculty Senate passed a resolution on April 15th to formally recognize the use of open educational resources (OER) at the University at Albany and endorses that teaching faculty explore alternate learning materials and the possible adoption of OER as an important part of the University’s learning environment Soon thereafter, the Provost’s Office formed the OER Working Group made up of faculty, students, and University staff from Libraries, Advising, Registrar, Bookstore, UAS, IR, ITLAL and ETS. This panel, consisting of key OER Working Group stakeholders, will describe their accomplishments/ experiences with providing access to open educational resources at the University at Albany