Pieter J. Beers

Designing Electronic Collaborative Learning Environments

Electronic collaborative learning environments for learning and working are in vogue. Designers design them according to their own constructivist interpretations of what collaborative learning is and what it should achieve. Educators employ them with different educational approaches and in diverse situations to achieve different ends. Students use them, sometimes very enthusiastically, but often in a perfunctory way. Finally, researchers study them and—as is usually the case when apples and oranges are compared—find no conclusive evidence as to whether or not they work, where they do or do not work, when they do or do not work and, most importantly, why, they do or do not work. This contribution presents an affordance framework for such collaborative learning environments; an interaction design procedure for designing, developing, and implementing them; and an educational affordance approach to the use of tasks in those environments. It also presents the results of three projects dealing with these three issues.

Computer support for knowledge construction in collaborative learning environments

Organisations increasingly use multidisciplinary teams to construct solutions for complex problems. Research has shown that multidisciplinary teams do not guarantee good problem solutions. Common ground is seen as vital to team performance. In this paper an ICT-tool to support complex problem solving is studied. A framework for knowledge construction inspired the design of computer support for knowledge construction. The basic support principle consisted of making individual perspectives explicit, which serves as a basis for negotiating common ground. This principle was embedded in a collaborative learning environment in three ways, which differed from each other in the extent to which users were coerced to adhere to the embedded support principles. Coercion, as expected, was correlated with negotiation of common ground; the more coercion, the more participants would negotiate the meaning of contributions to the ICT-tool, and the more common ground they would have. Self-report data suggested that Intermediate coercion resulted in the least common ground. This may have been caused by some disruption of group processes.

Coercing shared knowledge in collaborative learning environments

Multidisciplinary teams are used in industry, government, and education for solving complex problems because they allow different perspectives to be brought to bear on a problem and thus enrich the problem space. This, in turn, is expected to allow for rich problem analyses and solutions. However, multidisciplinarity is not always advantageous. Good team solutions require team members to possess a good degree of common ground. To address this, researchers and educators often chose techniques such as collaboration scripts or scenarios to structure collaboration or how ICT-tools are used. They do this by making use of formalisms or constraints to structure conversation and discourse among collaborators with the aim of guiding the exchange of knowledge and information or both. Such techniques and tools have attained good results on cognitive aspects of group learning by focusing on task aspects. However, they have not explicitly addressed the problem of how teams with expertise diversity reach common ground. This article presents the results of a series of experiments that have shown that a tool that is capable of scripting the negotiation of both meaning and standpoint can have very positive effects on achieving common ground.

Facilitating Interdisciplinary Modelling of Complex Problems

In this paper the system-decomposition method is presented, which facilitates the process of modeling of complex systems by multidisciplinary teams. Such modeling is non-trivial, because these teams must codify knowledge from different scientific disciplines in order to create models that exhibit realistic behaviour. The system-decomposition method has been developed to facilitate the creation of a standard interface for and between researchers, model parts find computer model, code. The method was applied to three different complex system modeling efforts. The remits demonstrate that It reduces modeling costs, improves model quality and enables the integration of knowledge in multidisciplinary teams, the models they produce and the actual written computer code

Coercing knowledge construction in collaborative learning environments

Multidisciplinary teams are often employed to solve complex problems, but research has shown that using such teams does not guarantee arriving at good solutions. Good team-solutions require team members possessing a good degree of common ground. In this contribution an ICT-tool based upon making individual perspectives explicit to other team members is studied. Two versions of the tool that differed in the extent to which users were coerced to adhere to embedded support principles were used, in both a laboratory and a secondary professional education setting. Coercion, as expected, increased negotiation of common ground in both settings. However, results were contradictory with regard the amount of common ground achieved. Overall, it can be concluded that NTool and its underlying framework affect negotiation of common ground, and that adding some coercion increases this effect. However, one should be careful with the specific task and audience before implementing NTool.

Policy makers, information and learning

To gain insight in how policy makers work and learn, in‐depth interviews were held with seven Dutch policy makers working on global sustainability issues. The focus of the interview was on the information needs, information gathering practices, and working styles of the policy makers. Our results indicate that policy makers have a strong need for information on linkages between different policy problems, and on different cultural perspectives on those problems. Information gathering is marked by an emphasis on information filtering towards the policy issue at hand. Finally, policy makers appear to be predisposed to an application‐oriented working style. The combination of an application‐oriented working style with a policy‐driven search for information seems inadequate for satisfying policy makers’ information needs. Current learning practices among policy makers appear to be inadequate for coping with complexity.

Eliciting Conceptual Models to Support Interdisciplinary Research

Constructing interdisciplinary knowledge requires knowledge sharing between researchers studying the same object from different disciplinary angles. Such sharing is particularly difficult because the knowledge is situated in different scientific disciplines. Researchers must find common ground to share, and this causes high transaction costs. This paper reports on an experiment with a method of conceptual analysis to elicit, analyse and compare conceptual models used by individual researchers, with the ultimate aim to facilitate researchers in sharing these models. Using an open coding method, we analysed the papers of two researchers from an interdisciplinary research project. The resulting conceptual models were validated in semi-structured interviews. The method was found to be effective in eliciting concepts, also those used implicitly. The interviews also revealed certain mechanisms by which researchers adopt new concepts and choose words for strategic reasons. However, the analysis costs are high, while the benefits remain as of yet uncertain

Knowledge Management for Multi- and Crossdisciplinary Research Projects

Theories on knowledge management (KM) have matured to include organizational practices, information systems and knowledge processes. Sharing of knowledge between actors having different (scientific) perspectives has received relatively little attention, whereas this is especially relevant to large-scale multidisciplinary research projects. In such projects, the actors are academics, the knowledge content is diverse and shaped (and often confined) by scientific disciplines, whereas strategies to cross disciplinary boundaries seem to be lacking. These projects face the challenge of overcoming disciplinary and theoretical differences in order to reap the benefits of crossdisciplinary inquiry. This minitrack focuses on the management of knowledge within large-scale multidisciplinary and crossdisciplinary research projects.

Conceptual analysis of interdisciplinary scientific work

The main advantage to interdisciplinary professional practice is that it can produce novel product designs and problem solutions. However, it requires knowledge sharing and integration to leverage this potential. This paper reports on a study with a method of conceptual analysis to elicit, analyse and compare conceptual models used by individual researchers, with the ultimate aim to facilitate researchers in sharing and integrating their conceptual notions. We build on an earlier study by extending an existing conceptual model with conceptual notions from two additional researchers from an interdisciplinary research project. The results of the present study suggest that the time costs of adding more information to the existing model diminish with each addition to the existing model, and that the method of conceptual analysis can validly represent researchers conceptual notions. Furthermore, our results offer some indication that conceptual analysis can reduce transaction costs related to grounding.