What can Studies of e-Learning Teach us about Collaboration in e-Research? Some Findings from Digital Library Studies

Abstract

e-Research is intended to facilitate collaboration through distributed access to content, tools, and services. Lessons about collaboration are extracted from the findings of two large, long-term digital library research projects. Both the Alexandria Digital Earth Prototype Project (ADEPT) and the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing (CENS) project on data management leverage scientific research data for use in teaching. Two forms of collaboration were studied: (1) direct, in which faculty work together on research projects; and (2) indirect or serial, in which faculty use or contribute content to a common pool, such as teaching resources, concepts and relationships, or research data. Five aspects of collaboration in e-Research are discussed: (1) disciplinary factors, (2) incentives to adopt e-Learning and eResearch technologies, (3) user roles, (4) information sharing, and (5) technical requirements. Collaboration varied by research domain in both projects, and appears partly to be a function of the degree of instrumentation in data collection. Faculty members were more interested in tools to manage their own research data than in tools to facilitate teaching. They also were more reflective about their research than teaching activities. The availability of more content, tools, and services to incorporate primary data in teaching was only a minimal incentive to use these resources. Large investments in a knowledge base of scientific concepts and relationships for teaching did not result in re-use by other faculty during the course of the project. Metadata requirements for research and for teaching vary greatly, which further complicates the transfer of resources across applications. Personal digital libraries offer a middle ground between private control and public release of content, which is a promising direction for the design of digital libraries that will facilitate collaboration in e-Research.

Enhancing project-oriented learning by joining communities of practice and opening spaces for relatedness

“…From the side of industry, the DSS is seen as an excellent opportunity for PAM engineers to update their knowledge and to develop new competencies (Severinson et al 2001). The DSS can also be taken as a way to generate e-research (Borgman 2006), as it is intended to facilitate collaboration (university-industry, university-university) through distributed access to tools, services, and content on PAM.…”

Exposición Temprana de Nativos Digitales en Ambientes, Metodologías y Técnicas de Investigación en la Universidad

“…Si bien los ingentes volúmenes de datos provenientes de mediciones reales y disponibles a través de la red, abren inmensas posibilidades para hacer una docencia productora de nuevos conocimientos y, más aún, se comienzan a ver los esfuerzos por utilizar estas herramientas y metodologías de la e-investigación en la educación [32][33][34], existe una resistencia bien marcada por parte de los mismos investigadores en utilizar las TIC en su docencia cotidiana. Existe una extensa evidencia documental que muestra que la resistencia para la incorporación de las TIC en la enseñanza es una consecuencia cultural propia de los mo-e5407-4 Exposición Temprana de Nativos Digitales en Ambientes, Metodologías y Técnicas de Investigación en la Universidad mentos de transición modelos de sociedades: Industrial e informacional.…”

Emerging collaborative services in Personal Digital Libraries

“…In addition, Akkerman et al [12] categorized collaboration in terms of location of participants in five levels: Core group level, Department level, Faculty level, National level, and International level. In addition, Borgman [13] mentioned another category in terms of direct and indirect (or serial) collaboration. Direct collaboration takes place when participants work together on research projects, whereas in indirect collaboration faculty contributes with content to a common pool.…”

“…[16]. [13] This growing interest in collaboration in research proves benefits and significance of collaboration in scientific and scholarly communities. For instance, Elgort and Wilson [14] [14] listed benefits of collaboration in research as:…”

“…The importance of this service has been studied in other studies. Borgman [13] mentioned "collaborations in research are regularly based on sharing expensive resources and instruments". In addition, she said "sharing data is a core element of scientific collaboration".…”