Cerys Willoughby

Human Aspects of Smart Spaces for Knowledge Transfer

During May and June 2011, we ran two workshops with a theme entitled “Smart Spaces for Smart People” [1]. Although organized under the auspices of the e-Science Institute, the participants came from a variety of disciplines and brought a range interests. The workshops themselves were run as experiments in running smart meetings with the intentions of exchanging and recording knowledge and decisions discussed in the meeting. A recurring theme in the workshops was not only that technology can be provided in a smart space to help in the knowledge transfer and recording process, but also that the technology will only be adopted and exploited if the users of the smart space can easily use it. There are other human factors that affect the success of collaboration in a smart space. These include the willingness for participates to collaborate if they have concerns over privacy and anonymity, particularly when discussions and decisions are recorded using technology. The dynamics of how participants work together in groups to transfer knowledge can also be enhanced through the use of smart spaces. The fact that the workshops were run in different physical environments also provided insights into how the physical design of the meeting space might have on effective collaboration and therefore effective transmission of knowledge. This paper is the second in a series of three, each dealing with different aspects of the workshops and how they influenced our thinking about knowledge transfer meetings, particularly in the context of sharing research outputs.

Electronic lab notebooks: can they replace paper?

Despite the increasingly digital nature of society there are some areas of research that remain firmly rooted in the past; in this case the laboratory notebook, the last remaining paper component of an experiment. Countless electronic laboratory notebooks (ELNs) have been created in an attempt to digitise record keeping processes in the lab, but none of them have become a ‘key player’ in the ELN market, due to the many adoption barriers that have been identified in previous research and further explored in the user studies presented here. The main issues identified are the cost of the current available ELNs, their ease of use (or lack of it) and their accessibility issues across different devices and operating systems. Evidence suggests that whilst scientists willingly make use of generic notebooking software, spreadsheets and other general office and scientific tools to aid their work, current ELNs are lacking in the required functionality to meet the needs of the researchers. In this paper we present our extensive research and user study results to propose an ELN built upon a pre-existing cloud notebook platform that makes use of accessible popular scientific software and semantic web technologies to help overcome the identified barriers to adoption.

Smart Meetings: Experimenting with Space

During May and June 2011, motivated by the need to improve techniques for recording the processes and outputs of research, we ran two workshops under the auspices of the e-Science Institute. The theme title was “Smart Spaces for Smart People”. Although our initial intention was to explore interactions between the physical and digital worlds, the emphasis changed to the productive exploitation of spaces ascribed as smart. We explored the quality of smartness in the context of smart meetings, which led us to conclude that the role of hardware and software technologies is to confer capability. For a system to achieve smartness, we deem certain components to be essential, most notably people. However, we also consider the role of both technological and traditional techniques for capturing meeting outcomes. We learned lessons that are applicable not only to meetings about research but also in the more general knowledge transfer context. We conclude that the way forward for exploiting smart spaces relies on design and on empowering the users of such spaces in that design. This paper is the first in a series of three, each dealing with different aspects of the workshops and how they influenced our thinking about knowledge transfer meetings, particularly in the context of sharing research outputs.

Smart Meeting Spaces for Knowledge Transfer

During May and June 2011, we ran two workshops with a theme entitled “Smart Spaces for Smart People”. Although organized under the auspices of the e-Science Institute, the participants came from a variety of disciplines and brought a range interests. We placed a strong emphasis on facilitated discussion, with the clear intention to explore ideas about exploiting the interactions that could occur within smart spaces. Although the workshops formulated the view that no space is, or can be, inherently smart, we deemed certain components to be essential for a system to achieve smartness, most notably people; the role of hardware and software technologies is to confer capability. The lessons we learned are applicable to any smart meeting. We grouped our findings under four sub-themes that we identified as a basis for the successful planning and conduct of smart meetings. After examining the principal ideas associated with each sub-theme, we go on to consider how these ideas might influence strategies for exploiting smart meetings for knowledge transfer. This paper is the third in a series of three, each dealing with different aspects of the workshops and how they influenced our thinking about knowledge transfer meetings, particularly in the context of sharing research outputs.

Effects of using structured templates for recalling chemistry experiments

AbstractBackgroundThe way that we recall information is dependent upon both the knowledge in our memories and the conditions under which we recall the information. Electronic Laboratory Notebooks can provide a structured interface for the capture of experiment records through the use of forms and templates. These templates can be useful by providing cues to help researchers to remember to record particular aspects of their experiment, but they may also constrain the information that is recorded by encouraging them to record only what is asked for. It is therefore unknown whether using structured templates for capturing experiment records will have positive or negative effects on the quality and usefulness of the records for assessment and future use. In this paper we report on the results of a set of studies investigating the effects of different template designs on the recording of experiments by undergraduate students and academic researchers.ResultsThe results indicate that using structured templates to write up experiments does make a significant difference to the information that is recalled and recorded. These differences have both positive and negative effects, with templates prompting the capture of specific information that is otherwise forgotten, but also apparently losing some of the personal elements of the experiment experience such as observations and explanations. Other unexpected effects were seen with templates that can change the information that is captured, but also interfere with the way an experiment is conducted.ConclusionsOur results showed that using structured templates can improve the completeness of the experiment context information captured but can also cause a loss of personal elements of the experiment experience when compared with allowing the researcher to structure their own record. The results suggest that interfaces for recording information about chemistry experiments, whether paper-based questionnaires or templates in Electronic Laboratory Notebooks, can be an effective way to improve the quality of experiment write-ups, but that care needs to be taken to ensure that the correct cues are provided.Graphical abstractScientists have traditionally recorded their research in paper notebooks, a format that provides great flexibility for capturing information. In contrast, Electronic Laboratory Notebooks frequently make use of forms or structured templates for capturing experiment records. Structured templates can provide cues that can improve record quality by increasing the amount of information captured and encouraging consistency. However, using the wrong cues can lead to a loss of personal elements of the experiment experience and frustrate users. This image shows two participants from one of our studies recording their experiment using a computer-based template