Conceptualizing and advancing research networking systems

Abstract

Science in general, and biomedical research in particular, is becoming more collaborative. As a result, collaboration with the right individuals, teams, and institutions is increasingly crucial for scientific progress. We propose Research Networking Systems (RNS) as a new type of system designed to help scientists identify and choose collaborators, and suggest a corresponding research agenda. The research agenda covers four areas: foundations, presentation, architecture, and evaluation. Foundations includes project-, institution- and discipline-specific motivational factors; the role of social networks; and impression formation based on information beyond expertise and interests. Presentation addresses representing expertise in a comprehensive and up-to-date manner; the role of controlled vocabularies and folksonomies; the tension between seekers’ need for comprehensive information and potential collaborators’ desire to control how they are seen by others; and the need to support serendipitous discovery of collaborative opportunities. Architecture considers aggregation and synthesis of information from multiple sources, social system interoperability, and integration with the user’s primary work context. Lastly, evaluation focuses on assessment of collaboration decisions, measurement of user-specific costs and benefits, and how the large-scale impact of RNS could be evaluated with longitudinal and naturalistic methods. We hope that this article stimulates the human-computer interaction, computer-supported cooperative work, and related communities to pursue a broad and comprehensive agenda for developing research networking systems.

An Initial Log Analysis of Usage Patterns on a Research Networking System

“…Various potential evaluation metrics have been proposed for RNSs, e.g., measuring an increase in the publication rate of a researcher using the system 29 . Other methods of cost‐effectiveness analysis for RNSs have been suggested whereby the cost of internal networking socials for scientific professionals is weighed against the cost of RNS development both in terms of dollars spent and publication output.…”

“…The belief is that more interdisciplinary publications from within and across institutions would indicate enhanced networking and hopefully this would also come at a reduced cost. Such methods for measuring RNSs effectiveness would require a large amount of usage data that is not available for CUSP at present 29 . The paucity of query log analyses on RNSs is due, in part, to the difficulties in capturing the data and stratifying results by user type.…”

Developing an Open Social Scholarship Collaboration: Lessons from INKE

“…Spiller, Ball, Daniel, et al (2014 describe this as 'letting go' of individual focus and ' coming together' as a team. Ultimately, collaboration is time intensive and does not just happen without effort (Yu, Lau & Lee 2012;Schleyer et al 2012;O'Connor et al 2003). As a final challenge, the research team found that the pace of change with the technology used impacted the project itself, requiring flexibility and adaption in planning cycles and from researchers, institutions, and stakeholders.…”

“…However, this challenge can be mitigated when teams develop common understandings of the research question, encourage teamwork, and manage the assignment of academic credit (O'Connor et al 2003;Massey et al 2006). As can be appreciated, this becomes labour-intensive as teams work to coordinate tasks and people, often without the benefit of face-to-face meetings (Cummings and Kiesler 2005;Katz and Martin 1997;Schleyer et al 2012;Kanfer et al 2000). These challenges can be balanced by the benefits, something that teams must find a way to achieve.…”

“…In addition, these projects often require different perspectives from various disciplines, again requiring a team approach (O'Connor et al 2003; He and Jeng 2016; van Rijnsoever and Hessels 2011; Siemens and Burr 2013). These trends are reflected through the number and increase in co-author publications and multi-investigator grants (Schleyer et al 2012;Kraut, Galegher and Egido 1987). Further, funding agencies are encouraging this work through programs geared to large-scale projects and ones that require multiple disciplines (Office of Digital Humanities 2010; SSHRC 2013; Katz and Martin 1997;Bammer 2008;Jeffrey 2003).…”