The Impact of Virtual Collaboration and Collaboration Technologies on Knowledge Transfer and Team Performance in Distributed Organizations

Science.gov (United States)

Ngoma, Ngoma Sylvestre

2013-01-01

Virtual teams are increasingly viewed as a powerful determinant of competitive advantage in geographically distributed organizations. This study was designed to provide insights into the interdependencies between virtual collaboration, collaboration technologies, knowledge transfer, and virtual team performance in an effort to understand whether…

Communication dynamics in hospice teams: understanding the role of the chaplain in interdisciplinary team collaboration.

Science.gov (United States)

Wittenberg-Lyles, Elaine; Oliver, Debra Parker; Demiris, George; Baldwin, Paula; Regehr, Kelly

2008-12-01

Hospice chaplains provide a specific expertise to patient and family care, however, individual roles and responsibilities that facilitate the interdisciplinary team environment are less well known. The primary aim of this study was to investigate how hospice chaplains perceive their role in interdisciplinary team meetings and to what extent hospice chaplains share common experiences within the interdisciplinary team approach in hospice. Hospice chaplains within a 10-state region participated in a 39-item phone survey about professional roles, group roles, and structural characteristics that influence their ability to participate in interdisciplinary collaboration. Findings revealed that professional role conflict is experienced, primarily with social workers. Informal group task and maintenance roles included team spiritual care advisor and conflict manager, and structural characteristics consisted of extracurricular communication outside of the organization. Although chaplains foster interdisciplinary collaboration within the hospice team, future research needs to address improvements to the chaplain's role within the interdisciplinary team process.

Managing Dynamic Collaborative Action Teams in a Net-Centric Environment

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Salamacha, Christine O; Briscoe, N. R; Forsythe, Steven L

2005-01-01

...) and collaborative groups. While collaborative groups and teams are not new concepts, new technologies will transform collaborative C2 and how warfighters interact in the same way that the internal combustion engine combined...

Patterns for collaborative work in health care teams.

Science.gov (United States)

Grando, Maria Adela; Peleg, Mor; Cuggia, Marc; Glasspool, David

2011-11-01

The problem of designing and managing teams of workers that can collaborate working together towards common goals is a challenging one. Incomplete or ambiguous specification of responsibilities and accountabilities, lack of continuity in teams working in shifts, inefficient organization of teams due to lack of information about workers' competences and lack of clarity to determine if the work is delegated or assigned are examples of important problems related to collaborative work in healthcare teams. Here we address these problems by specifying goal-based patterns for abstracting the delegation and assignment of services. The proposed patterns should provide generic and reusable solutions and be flexible enough to be customizable at run time to the particular context of execution. Most importantly the patterns should support a mechanism for detecting abnormal events (exceptions) and for transferring responsibility and accountability for recovering from exceptions to the appropriate actor. To provide a generic solution to the problematic issues arising from collaborative work in teams of health workers we start from definitions of standard terms relevant for team work: competence, responsibility, and accountability. We make explicit the properties satisfied by service assignment and delegation in terms of competences, responsibilities, and accountability in normal scenarios and abnormal situations that require the enactment of recovery strategies. Based on these definitions we specify (1) a basic terminology, (2) design patterns for service assignment and delegation (with and without supervision), and (3) an exception manager for detecting and recovering from exceptions. We use a formal framework to specify design patterns and exceptions. We have proved using Owicki-Gries Theory that the proposed patterns satisfy the properties that characterize service assignment and delegation in terms of competence, responsibility and accountability in normal and abnormal

COLLABORATING WITH THE COMMUNITY: THE EXTRA-TERRITORIAL TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH TEAM.

Science.gov (United States)

Kotarba, Joseph A; Croisant, Sharon A; Elferink, Cornelis; Scott, Lauren E

2014-12-05

The purpose of the present study is to suggest a revision of the team science concept to the more inclusive extra-territorial research team (ETRT). Translational thinking is largely marked by the perception of the team as a thing-like structure at the center of the scientific activity. Collaboration accordingly involves bringing external others (e.g., scientists, community members, and clinicians) into the team through limited or dependent participation. We suggest that a promising and innovative way to see the team is as an idea : a schema for assembling and managing relationships among otherwise disparate individuals with vested interests in the problem at hand. Thus, the ETRT can be seen as a process as well as an object . We provide a case study derived from a qualitative analysis of the impact of the logic of translational science on a team assessment of environmental health following an off-coast oil disaster. The ETRT in question displayed the following principles of constructive relationship management: a high sense of adventure given the quick pace and timeliness given the relevance of the oil spill to all team members; regular meetings in the community to avoid the appearance of academic hegemony; open access by lay as well as institutional scientists; integration of emergency management coordinators into the group; and the languages of public health, environmental pharmacology/toxicology and coastal culture seamlessly interwoven in discussion. The ETRT model is an appropriate strategy for mobilizing and integrating the knowledge and skills needed for comprehensive science and service responses, especially during crisis.

Improved ant Colony Optimization for Virtual Teams Building in Collaborative Process Planning

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yingying Su

2014-02-01

Full Text Available Virtual teams have been adopted by organizations to gain competitive advantages in this global economy. Virtual teams are a ubiquitous part of getting work done in almost every organization. For the purpose of building virtual teams in collaborative process planning, the method based on improved ant colony algorithm (IMACO was proposed. The concept of virtual team was illustrated and the necessity of building virtual teams in collaborative process planning was analyzed. The sub tasks with certain timing relationship were described and the model of building virtual teams in collaborative process planning was established, which was solved by improved ant colony algorithm. In this paper applications of the IMACO and ACO are compared and demonstrate that the use of the IMACO algorithm performs better. An example was studied to illustrate the effectiveness of the strategy.

Developing Team Skills through a Collaborative Writing Assignment

Science.gov (United States)

Thomas, Theda Ann

2014-01-01

Employers want students who are able to work effectively as members of a team, and expect universities to develop this ability in their graduates. This paper proposes a framework for a collaborative writing assignment that specifically develops students' ability to work in teams. The framework has been tested using two iterations of an action…

Explaining variation in perceived team effectiveness: Results from eleven quality improvement collaboratives

NARCIS (Netherlands)

M.M.H. Strating (Mathilde); A.P. Nieboer (Anna)

2013-01-01

textabstractAims and objectives. Explore effectiveness of 11 collaboratives focusing on 11 different topics, as perceived by local improvement teams and to explore associations with collaborative-, organisational- and team-level factors. Background. Evidence underlying the effectiveness of quality

Experience of collaboration between a Dutch surgical team in a ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Experience of collaboration between a Dutch surgical team in a Ghanaian Orthopaedic Teaching Hospital. ... medical teams from our hospital were deployed to St. Joseph's Hospital. These teams were completely self-supporting. They were encouraged to work together with the local-staff. Apart from clinical work, effort was

Collaborative curriculum development in teacher design teams

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Handelzalts, Adam

2009-01-01

Teachers’ participation in collaborative curriculum development is considered as having great potential for creating materials which are suitable for their specific context and for their professional development. However, the process in which teacher teams commonly negotiate the process of

Problem-solving phase transitions during team collaboration

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Wiltshire, Travis; Butner, Jonathan E.; Fiore, Stephen M.

2018-01-01

) with dynamical systems theory suggesting that when a system is undergoing a phase transition it should exhibit a peak in entropy and that entropy levels should also relate to team performance. Communications from 40 teams that collaborated on a complex problem were coded for occurrence of problem......-solving processes. We applied a sliding window entropy technique to each team's communications and specified criteria for (a) identifying data points that qualify as peaks and (b) determining which peaks were robust. We used multilevel modeling, and provide a qualitative example, to evaluate whether phases exhibit...... phases. Peaks in entropy thus corresponded to qualitative shifts in teams’ CPS communications, providing empirical evidence that teams exhibit phase transitions during CPS. Also, lower average levels of entropy at the phase transition points predicted better CPS performance. We specify future directions...

Distributed collaborative team effectiveness: measurement and process improvement

Science.gov (United States)

Wheeler, R.; Hihn, J.; Wilkinson, B.

2002-01-01

This paper describes a measurement methodology developed for assessing the readiness, and identifying opportunities for improving the effectiveness, of distributed collaborative design teams preparing to conduct a coccurent design session.

Collaboration between competitors’ NPD teams : in search of effective modes of management control

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Smets, L.P.M.; Langerak, F.; Tatikonda, M.V.

Successful collaboration between new product development (NPD) teams maintained by competitors (so-called horizontal NPD collaboration) requires the use of formal modes of management control that simultaneously coordinate the teams' interdependent development activities and encourage their

Shared responsibility: school nurses' experience of collaborating in school-based interprofessional teams.

Science.gov (United States)

Reuterswärd, Marina; Hylander, Ingrid

2017-06-01

The Swedish Education Act (2011) mandated a new combination of services to boost students' physical health, their mental health and special education through interprofessional pupil health and well-being (PH) teams. For Swedish school nurses, providing these services presents new challenges. To describe how Swedish school nurses experience their work and collaboration within the interprofessional PH teams. Twenty-five school nurses (SNs) were interviewed in five focus groups. Content analysis was used to examine the data and to explore SNs' workplace characteristics by using the components of the sense of coherence (SOC) framework. SNs' experiences of work and collaboration within PH teams can be described using three domains: the expectations of others regarding SNs' roles, SNs' contributions to pupils' health and well-being, and collaboration among SNs within PH teams. The results indicate a discrepancy between SNs' own experiences of their contribution and their experiences of other professionals' expectations regarding those contributions. Some duties were perceived as expected, comprehensible, manageable and meaningful, while other duties - though expected - were perceived as less meaningful, taking time away from school-related matters. Other duties that were not explicitly expected - promoting general health and creating safety zones for pupils, teachers and parents, for example - were nonetheless perceived as meaningful. Collaboration within PH teams was considered meaningful, comprehensible and manageable only if the objectives of the team meetings were clear, if other professionals were available and if professional roles on the team were clearly communicated. The SNs reported a lack of clarity regarding their role in PH and its implementation in schools, indicating that professionals in PH teams need to discuss collaboration so as to find their niche given the new conditions. SOC theory emerged as a useful framework for discussing concrete work

Librarians as Part of Cross-Disciplinary, Multi-Institutional Team Projects: Experiences from the VIVO Collaboration

Science.gov (United States)

Garcia-Milian, Rolando; Norton, Hannah F.; Auten, Beth; Davis, Valrie I.; Holmes, Kristi L.; Johnson, Margeaux; Tennant, Michele R.

2013-01-01

Cross-disciplinary, team-based collaboration is essential for addressing today’s complex research questions, and librarians are increasingly entering into such collaborations. This study identifies skills needed as librarians integrate into cross-disciplinary teams, based on the experiences of librarians involved in the development and implementation of VIVO, a research discovery and collaboration platform. Participants discussed the challenges, skills gained, and lessons learned throughout the project. Their responses were analyzed in the light of the science of team science literature, and factors affecting collaboration on the VIVO team were identified. Skills in inclusive thinking, communication, perseverance, adaptability, and leadership were found to be essential. PMID:23833333

Get it together: Issues that facilitate collaboration in teams of learners in intensive care.

Science.gov (United States)

Conte, Helen; Jirwe, Maria; Scheja, Max; Hjelmqvist, Hans

2016-05-01

The study describes issues that facilitate collaboration in teams of learners in an interprofessional education unit in intensive care. A descriptive qualitative study design was applied using semi-structured interviews based on the critical incident technique and qualitative content analysis. Nineteen participants, eight learners in their specialist training, nine supervisors and two head supervisors in Sweden identified 47 incidents. Teams of learners having control was the core issue. Motivation, time, experiences and reflection were central issues for facilitating collaboration. Efficiently training teams how to collaborate requires learners having control while acting on their common understanding and supervisors taking a facilitating role supporting teams to take control of their critical analysis.

Making a World of Difference: Collaboration. Excellence for Intercultural Teams

Science.gov (United States)

Schneider, Luise; Romberg, Claudia

2011-01-01

Cultural awareness training that emphasizes communication delivers only a partial solution to the challenges that intercultural work teams face. Improving collaboration requires a strong foundation of performance management before a work team can determine how they will cooperate to perform to excellence. Against the backdrop of the authors'…

Individual teacher learning in a context of collaboration in teams

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Meirink, Jacobiene Albertina

2007-01-01

In this study we aimed to examine teacher learning within a context of collaboration in interdisciplinary teams. Five interdisciplinary teams were studied for a period of one year. Data was collected on what and how the teachers learned, by means of examining changes in beliefs and by asking

Interprofessional Teamwork and Collaboration Between Community Health Workers and Healthcare Teams

Science.gov (United States)

Bernhardt, Jean M.; Lopez, Ruth Palan; Long-Middleton, Ellen R.; Davis, Sheila

2015-01-01

Objectives: Community Health Workers (CHWs) serve as a means of improving outcomes for underserved populations. However, their relationship within health care teams is not well studied. The purpose of this integrative review was to examine published research reports that demonstrated positive health outcomes as a result of CHW intervention to identify interprofessional teamwork and collaboration between CHWs and health care teams. Methods: A total of 47 studies spanning 33 years were reviewed using an integrative literature review methodology for evidence to support the following assumptions of effective interprofessional teamwork between CHWs and health care teams: (1) shared understanding of roles, norms, values, and goals of the team; (2) egalitarianism; (3) cooperation; (4) interdependence; and(5) synergy. Results: Of the 47 studies, 12 reported at least one assumption of effective interprofessional teamwork. Four studies demonstrated all 5 assumptions of interprofessional teamwork. Conclusions: Four studies identified in this integrative review serve as exemplars for effective interprofessional teamwork between CHWs and health care teams. Further study is needed to describe the nature of interprofessional teamwork and collaboration in relation to patient health outcomes. PMID:28462254

Flexible Access Control for Dynamic Collaborative Environments

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Dekker, M.A.C.

2009-01-01

Access control is used in computer systems to control access to confidential data. In this thesis we focus on access control for dynamic collaborative environments where multiple users and systems access and exchange data in an ad hoc manner. In such environments it is difficult to protect

Contributions of team climate in the study of interprofessional collaboration: A conceptual analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Agreli, Heloise F; Peduzzi, Marina; Bailey, Christopher

2017-11-01

The concept of team climate is widely used to understand and evaluate working environments. It shares some important features with Interprofessional Collaboration (IPC). The four-factor theory of climate for work group innovation, which underpins team climate, could provide a better basis for understanding both teamwork and IPC. This article examines in detail the common ground between team climate and IPC, and assesses the relevance of team climate as a theoretical approach to understanding IPC. There are important potential areas of overlap between team climate and IPC that we have grouped under four headings: (1) interaction and communication between team members; (2) common objectives around which collective work is organised; (3) responsibility for performing work to a high standard; and (4) promoting innovation in working practices. These overlapping areas suggest common characteristics that could provide elements of a framework for considering the contribution of team climate to collaborative working, both from a conceptual perspective and, potentially, in operational terms as, for example, a diagnostic tool.

Integration of Slack, a cloud-based team collaboration application, into research coordination.

Science.gov (United States)

Gofine, Miriam; Clark, Sunday

2017-06-30

Practitioners of epidemiology require efficient real-time communication and shared access to numerous documents in order to effectively manage a study. Much of this communication involves study logistics and does not require use of Protected Health Information. Slack is a team collaboration app; it archives all direct messages and group conversations, hosts documents internally, and integrates with the Google Docs application. Slack has both desktop and mobile applications, allowing users to communicate in real-time without the need to find email addresses or phone numbers or create contact lists. METHOD: We piloted the integration of Slack into our research team of one faculty member, one research coordinator, and approximately 20 research assistants. Statistics describing the app's usage were calculated twelve months after its implementation. RESULTS: Results indicating heavy usage by both research professionals and assistants are presented. Our Slack group included a cumulative 51 users. Between October 2015 and November 2016, approximately 10,600 messages were sent through Slack; 53% were sent by RA's and 47% were sent by us. Of the 106 files stored on Slack, 82% were uploaded by research staff. In a January 2016 survey, 100% of RA's agreed or strongly agreed that Slack improved communication within the team. CONCLUSION: We demonstrate a model for integration of communication technology into academic activities by research teams. Slack is easily integrated into the workflow at an urban, academic medical center and is adopted by users as a highly effective tool for meeting research teams' communication and document management needs.

Incorporating Virtually Immersive Environments as a Collaborative Medium for Virtual Teaming

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Charles J. Lesko, Jr.

2012-08-01

Full Text Available Virtually immersive environments incorporate the use of various computer modelling and simulation techniques enabling geographically dispersed virtual project teams to interact within an artificially projected three-dimensional space online. This study focused on adoption of virtually immersive technologies as a collaborative media to support virtual teaming of both graduate and undergraduate-level project management students. The data and information from this study has implications for educators using virtually immersive environments in the classroom. In this study, we specifically evaluated two key components in this paper: 1 students’ level of trust and; 2 students’ willingness to use the technology, along with their belief about the virtual environment’s ability to extend and improve knowledge sharing in their team work environment. We learned that while students did find the environment a positive add on for working collaboratively, there were students who were neither more nor less likely to use the technology for future collaborative ventures. Most of the students who were not very positive about the environment were “fence sitters” likely indicating needs related to additional training to improve communication skills. Finally, based on the full study results we have provided basic recommendations designed to support team trust building in the system along with interpersonal trust building to facilitate knowledge transfer and better strategic us of the technology.

Human-Robot Teaming: Communication, Coordination, and Collaboration

Science.gov (United States)

Fong, Terry

2017-01-01

In this talk, I will describe how NASA Ames has been studying how human-robot teams can increase the performance, reduce the cost, and increase the success of a variety of endeavors. The central premise of our work is that humans and robots should support one another in order to compensate for limitations of automation and manual control. This principle has broad applicability to a wide range of domains, environments, and situations. At the same time, however, effective human-robot teaming requires communication, coordination, and collaboration -- all of which present significant research challenges. I will discuss some of the ways that NASA Ames is addressing these challenges and present examples of our work involving planetary rovers, free-flying robots, and self-driving cars.

Accessible Collaborative Learning Using Mobile Devices

Science.gov (United States)

Wald, Mike; Li, Yunjia; Draffan, E. A.

2014-01-01

This paper describes accessible collaborative learning using mobile devices with mobile enhancements to Synote, the freely available, award winning, open source, web based application that makes web hosted recordings easier to access, search, manage, and exploit for all learners, teachers and other users. Notes taken live during lectures using…

Interprofessional Collaboration between General Physicians and Emergency Department Teams in Belgium: A Qualitative Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marlène Karam

2017-10-01

Full Text Available This study aimed to assess interprofessional collaboration between general physicians and emergency departments in the French speaking regions of Belgium. Eight group interviews were conducted both in rural and urban areas, including in Brussels. Findings showed that the relational components of collaboration, which are highly valued by individuals involved, comprise mutual acquaintanceship and trust, shared power and objectives. The organizational components of collaboration included out-of-hours services, role clarification, leadership and overall environment. Communication and patient’s role were also found to be key elements in enhancing or hindering collaboration across these two levels of care. Relationships between general physicians and emergency departments’ teams were tightly linked to organizational factors and the general macro-environment. Health system regulation did not appear to play a significant role in promoting collaboration between actors. A better role clarification is needed in order to foster multidisciplinary team coordination for a more efficient patient management. Finally, economic power and private practice impeded interprofessional collaboration between the care teams. In conclusion, many challenges need to be addressed for achievement of a better collaboration and more efficient integration. Not only should integration policies aim at reinforcing the role of general physicians as gatekeepers, also they should target patients’ awareness and empowerment.

Collaborative and Competitive Strategies in Virtual Teams of e-Entrepreneurs: A pan-European Perspective

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Harry Matlay

2009-08-01

Full Text Available Recent advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs and the advent of the Internet have facilitated the emergence and growth of collaborative strategies amongst small e-Businesses (Matlay & Westhead, 2005. In addition, during the last decade or so, team-led entrepreneurship has been identified as a highly profitable alternative to single founder entrepreneurship. Recent research suggests that growth oriented, small e-Businesses operating in international e-Markets are more likely to be founded and managed by teams of e-Entrepreneurs (Matlay & Westhead, 2007. In increasingly globalised and hyper-competitive markets, "virtual teams" of e-Entrepreneurs search, discover and exploit new entrepreneurial opportunities. This type of entrepreneurial team consists of geographically dispersed entrepreneurs who are led by common entrepreneurial interests and interact electronically in order to promote interdependent strategies and fulfil entrepreneurial goals. In this article, an illustrative longitudinal case study of a pan-European virtual team of 24 e-Entrepreneur members is used to evaluate emergent collaborative and competitive strategies in small e-Businesses that are lead and managed by members. Collaborative and competitive strategies of e-Businesses are identified and related outcomes are analysed. Future research opportunities are suggested and pertinent policy recommendations are offered.

Integration of Slack, a cloud-based team collaboration application, into research coordination

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Miriam Gofine

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Background: Practitioners of epidemiology require efficient real-time communication and shared access to numerous documents in order to effectively manage a study. Much of this communication involves study logistics and does not require use of Protected Health Information. Slack is a team collaboration app; it archives all direct messages and group conversations, hosts documents internally, and integrates with the Google Docs application. Slack has both desktop and mobile applications, allowing users to communicate in real-time without the need to find email addresses or phone numbers or create contact lists.  Method: We piloted the integration of Slack into our research team of one faculty member, one research coordinator, and approximately 20 research assistants. Statistics describing the app’s usage were calculated twelve months after its implementation.  Results: Results indicating heavy usage by both research professionals and assistants are presented. our Slack group included a cumulative 51 users. Between October 2015 and November 2016, approximately 10,600 messages were sent through Slack; 53% were sent by RA’s and 47% were sent by us. Of the 106 files stored on Slack, 82% were uploaded by research staff. In a January 2016 survey, 100% of RA’s agreed or strongly agreed that Slack improved communication within the team.  Conclusion: We demonstrate a model for integration of communication technology into academic activities by research teams. Slack is easily integrated into the workflow at an urban, academic medical center and is adopted by users as a highly effective tool for meeting research teams’ communication and document management needs.

Interdisciplinary collaboration within project-level NEPA teams in the US Forest Service

Science.gov (United States)

James W. Freeman; Marc J. Stern; Michael Mortimer; Dale J. Blahna; Lee K. Cerveny

2011-01-01

Interdisciplinary teamwork has become a foundation of natural resources planning and management in the US. Yet, we know little about the degree of interdisciplinary collaboration of natural resource planning teams. We conducted 10 case studies of Forest Service NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) teams working on projects related to the 2005 Travel Management Rule...

The power of a collaborative relationship between technical assistance providers and community prevention teams: A correlational and longitudinal study.

Science.gov (United States)

Chilenski, Sarah M; Perkins, Daniel F; Olson, Jonathan; Hoffman, Lesa; Feinberg, Mark E; Greenberg, Mark; Welsh, Janet; Crowley, D Max; Spoth, Richard

2016-02-01

Historically, effectiveness of community collaborative prevention efforts has been mixed. Consequently, research has been undertaken to better understand the factors that support their effectiveness; theory and some related empirical research suggests that the provision of technical assistance is one important supporting factor. The current study examines one aspect of technical assistance that may be important in supporting coalition effectiveness, the collaborative relationship between the technical assistance provider and site lead implementer. Four and one-half years of data were collected from technical assistance providers and prevention team members from the 14 community prevention teams involved in the PROSPER project. Spearman correlation analyses with longitudinal data show that the levels of the collaborative relationship during one phase of collaborative team functioning associated with characteristics of internal team functioning in future phases. Results suggest that community collaborative prevention work should consider the collaborative nature of the technical assistance provider - prevention community team relationship when designing and conducting technical assistance activities, and it may be important to continually assess these dynamics to support high quality implementation. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Team collaborative innovation management based on primary pipes automatic welding project

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Li Jing; Wang Dong; Zhang Ke

2012-01-01

The welding quality of primary pipe directly affects the safe operation of nuclear power plants. Primary pipe automatic welding, first of its kind in China, is a complex systematic project involving many facets, such as design, manufacturing, material, and on-site construction. A R and D team was formed by China Guangdong Nuclear Power Engineering Co., Ltd. (CNPEC) together with other domestic nuclear power design institutes, and manufacturing and construction enterprises. According to the characteristics of nuclear power plant construction, and adopting team collaborative innovation management mode, through project co-ordination, resources allocation and building production, education and research collaborative innovation platform, CNPEC successfully developed the primary pipe automatic welding technique which has been widely applied to the construction of nuclear power plant, creating considerable economic benefits. (authors)

Improving Engineering Student Team Collaborative Discussions by Moving Them Online: An Investigation of Synchronous Chat and Face-to-Face Team Conversations

Science.gov (United States)

Fowler, Robin Revette

2014-01-01

Collaborative learning, particularly in the context of team-based, project-based learning, is common in undergraduate engineering education and is associated with deeper learning and enhanced student motivation and retention. However, grouping students in teams for project-based learning sometimes has negative outcomes, which can include lowered…

The Effect of Nurse-Physician Collaboration on Job Satisfaction, Team Commitment, and Turnover Intention in Nurses.

Science.gov (United States)

Galletta, Maura; Portoghese, Igor; Carta, Mauro Giovanni; D'Aloja, Ernesto; Campagna, Marcello

2016-10-01

Voluntary turnover in nursing can lead to nursing shortages that affect both individuals and the entire hospital unit. We investigated the relationship between group- and individual-level variables by examining the association of nurses' job satisfaction and team commitment at the individual level, and nurse-physician collaboration at the group level, with individuals' intention to leave the unit at the individual level. A self-report questionnaire was administered to 1,024 nurses on 72 units in 3 Italian hospitals. At the individual level, affective commitment partially mediated the relationship between job satisfaction and nursing turnover intention. Moreover, a cross-level interaction was found. Nurses with high levels of job satisfaction showed high levels of identification with their team, and this relationship was stronger when the group perception of nurse-physician collaboration was high. Results suggested that managerial strategies to promote nurse-physician collaboration may be important to increase nurses' affective commitment to the team. At the individual level, job satisfaction and team affective commitment are important factors for retaining staff, and at the group level, good work collaboration with physicians is instrumental in developing nurses' affective identification with the team. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Improving Video Game Development: Facilitating Heterogeneous Team Collaboration through Flexible Software Processes

Science.gov (United States)

Musil, Juergen; Schweda, Angelika; Winkler, Dietmar; Biffl, Stefan

Based on our observations of Austrian video game software development (VGSD) practices we identified a lack of systematic processes/method support and inefficient collaboration between various involved disciplines, i.e. engineers and artists. VGSD includes heterogeneous disciplines, e.g. creative arts, game/content design, and software. Nevertheless, improving team collaboration and process support is an ongoing challenge to enable a comprehensive view on game development projects. Lessons learned from software engineering practices can help game developers to increase game development processes within a heterogeneous environment. Based on a state of the practice survey in the Austrian games industry, this paper presents (a) first results with focus on process/method support and (b) suggests a candidate flexible process approach based on Scrum to improve VGSD and team collaboration. Results showed (a) a trend to highly flexible software processes involving various disciplines and (b) identified the suggested flexible process approach as feasible and useful for project application.

Experience of collaboration between a Dutch surgical team in a ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

We describe our experience over a 3-year period of intensive collaboration between specialized teams from .... primary and secondary fracture and orthopedic care. As ... Due to a limited recovery capacity and facilities, regional .... Congenital bone abnormality: this patient had a varus deformity of the left knee, and a valgus.

Physician perspectives on collaborative working relationships with team-based hospital pharmacists in the inpatient medicine setting.

Science.gov (United States)

Makowsky, Mark J; Madill, Helen M; Schindel, Theresa J; Tsuyuki, Ross T

2013-04-01

Collaborative care between physicians and pharmacists has the potential to improve the process of care and patient outcomes. Our objective was to determine whether team-based pharmacist care was associated with higher physician-rated collaborative working relationship scores than usual ward-based pharmacist care at the end of the COLLABORATE study, a 1 year, multicentre, controlled clinical trial, which associated pharmacist intervention with improved medication use and reduced hospital readmission rates. We conducted a cross-sectional survey of all team-based and usual care physicians (attending physicians and medical residents) who worked on the participating clinical teaching unit or primary healthcare teams during the study period. They were invited to complete an online version of the validated Physician-Pharmacist Collaboration Index (PPCI) survey at the end of the study. The main endpoint of interest was the mean total PPCI score. Only three (response rate 2%) of the usual care physicians responded and this prevented us from conducting pre-specified comparisons. A total of 23 team-based physicians completed the survey (36%) and reported a mean total PPCI score of 81.6 ± 8.6 out of a total of 92. Mean domain scores were highest for relationship initiation (14.0 ± 1.4 out of 15), and trustworthiness (38.9 ± 3.7 out of 42), followed by role specification (28.7 ± 4.3 out of 35). Pharmacists who are pursuing collaborative practice in inpatient settings may find the PPCI to be a meaningful tool to gauge the extent of collaborative working relationships with physician team members. © 2012 The Authors. IJPP © 2012 Royal Pharmaceutical Society.

Virtual Teams and E-Collaboration Technology: A Case Study Investigating the Dynamics of Virtual Team Communication

Science.gov (United States)

Mattison, Theresa

2011-01-01

The purpose of this study was to determine to what extent the use of e-collaboration tools when used as a primary channel of communication affected virtual team members' trust and motivation, in a spatially dispersed environment. Structured interviews were conducted with 18 project managers, who were responsible for leading virtual projects…

The Challenges of Collaborative Knowledge Creation in Open Innovation Teams

Science.gov (United States)

Du Chatenier, Elise; Verstegen, Jos A. A. M.; Biemans, Harm J. A.; Mulder, Martin; Omta, Onno

2009-01-01

In open innovation teams, people from different organizations work together to develop new products, services, or markets. This organizational diversity can positively influence collaborative knowledge creation but can frustrate and obstruct the process as well. To increase the success rates of open innovation, it is vital to learn how individuals…

The relationship between team climate and interprofessional collaboration: preliminary results of a mixed methods study

OpenAIRE

Bailey, Christopher; Agreli, Heloise F.; Peduzzi, Marina

2016-01-01

Relational and organisational factors are key elements of interprofessional collaboration (IPC) and team climate. Few studies have explored the relationship between IPC and team climate. This article presents a study that 10 aimed to explore IPC in primary healthcare teams and understand how the assessment of team climate may provide insights into IPC. A mixed methods study design was adopted. In Stage 1 of the study, team climate was assessed using the Team Climate Inventory with 159 profess...

EFFECT OF INTERPROFESSIONAL EDUCATION MODEL TO TEAM WORK AND COLLABORATION ATTITUDES OF NURSING STUDENTS IN THE INTENSIVE CARE UNIT OF HOSPITAL

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eny Kusmiran

2017-02-01

Full Text Available Background: International policy recommends Interprofesional Education (IPE to improve the practice of interprofessional In an effort to improve the practice of professional nurses, the IPE is the strategy of forming professional conduct of nurses in team work and collaboration between other health professionals, especially doctors in critical care. Objective: to identify the effect of IPE model of team work and collaboration of the attitudes of nursing students in an intensive care unit of Hospital. Methods: This study was conducted with The quasi-experimental design. The number of 30 subjects (15 intervention and 15 control group by random sampling. The intervention consisted of 1 pretest 2 the provision of material interprofessional education modules on subjects of critical nursing for 2 weeks, 2 posttest. Paired t tests were used to determine the effects of interprofessional Education. Independence t-test were used to determine the difference effect of interprofessional Education. The instrument used was The Attitudes towards interprofessional Health Care Teams Scales to measure the attitude of teamwork and Interprofesional Collaboration Scales to measure the attitude of collaboration. Results: There were differences rates of team work and collaboration attitudes of nurses before and after on intervention group. There werenot differences rates of team work and collaboration attitudes of nurses before and after on control group. There were differences scores of the attitude of team work and collaboration between the intervention and control groups. Conclusions and Recommendations: Giving IPE modules for nurses are commonly regarded to be an essential strategy for improving team work and collaboration attitudes on nurses student at intensive care unit of hospital. Keyword: Interprofessional Education, team work, collaboration, nurses student.

Interprofessional Teamwork and Collaboration Between Community Health Workers and Healthcare Teams: An Integrative Review.

Science.gov (United States)

Franklin, Catherine M; Bernhardt, Jean M; Lopez, Ruth Palan; Long-Middleton, Ellen R; Davis, Sheila

2015-01-01

Community Health Workers (CHWs) serve as a means of improving outcomes for underserved populations. However, their relationship within health care teams is not well studied. The purpose of this integrative review was to examine published research reports that demonstrated positive health outcomes as a result of CHW intervention to identify interprofessional teamwork and collaboration between CHWs and health care teams. A total of 47 studies spanning 33 years were reviewed using an integrative literature review methodology for evidence to support the following assumptions of effective interprofessional teamwork between CHWs and health care teams: (1) shared understanding of roles, norms, values, and goals of the team; (2) egalitarianism; (3) cooperation; (4) interdependence; and(5) synergy. Of the 47 studies, 12 reported at least one assumption of effective interprofessional teamwork. Four studies demonstrated all 5 assumptions of interprofessional teamwork. Four studies identified in this integrative review serve as exemplars for effective interprofessional teamwork between CHWs and health care teams. Further study is needed to describe the nature of interprofessional teamwork and collaboration in relation to patient health outcomes.

Perfecting Scientists' Collaboration and Problem-Solving Skills in the Virtual Team Environment

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Jabro, A.; Jabro, J.

2012-04-01

PPerfecting Scientists' Collaboration and Problem-Solving Skills in the Virtual Team Environment Numerous factors have contributed to the proliferation of conducting work in virtual teams at the domestic, national, and global levels: innovations in technology, critical developments in software, co-located research partners and diverse funding sources, dynamic economic and political environments, and a changing workforce. Today's scientists must be prepared to not only perform work in the virtual team environment, but to work effectively and efficiently despite physical and cultural barriers. Research supports that students who have been exposed to virtual team experiences are desirable in the professional and academic arenas. Research supports establishing and maintaining established protocols for communication behavior prior to task discussion provides for successful team outcomes. Research conducted on graduate and undergraduate virtual teams' behaviors led to the development of successful pedagogic practices and assessment strategies.

[Surgical learning curve for creation of vascular accesses for haemodialysis: value of medico-radio-surgical collaboration].

Science.gov (United States)

Van Glabeke, Emmanuel; Belenfant, Xavier; Barrou, Benoît; Adhemar, Jean-Pierre; Laedrich, Joëlle; Mavel, Marie-Christine; Challier, Emmanuel

2005-04-01

Creation of a vascular access (VA) for haemodialysis is a surgical procedure which comprises a failure rate related to the quality of the vessels and the operator's experience. The authors report the first 2 years of a young urologist's experience with this procedure in a local hospital in collaboration with the nephrology team. Patients undergoing creation of VA were divided into 2 chronological groups. The patient's age and gender, the cause of renal failure, the presence of diabetes, clinical examination of the upper limb, preoperative assessment of upper limb vessels, the type of anaesthesia, the operating time and the start of dialysis after the operation, as well as the functional results of the VA at 6 months were studied. Results concerning the patients of the first period were discussed by the operator and the nephrology team. During the first 9 months, 28 patients were operated, corresponding to 36 operations including 32 direct fistulas. Over the following 15 months, 61 patients were operated, with the creation of 63 VAs, including 55 direct fistulas. The failure rate (thrombosis or non-functioning VA) decreased from 32.1% to 11.1% (p=0.07), while the 2 groups were globally comparable. Evaluation of a new surgical procedure shows a number of failures, as for all learning curves. However, it helps to improve the results. Collaboration with nephrologists must comprise a discussion allowing the acceptance of certain failures, as they reflect compliance with a strategy of preservation of the vascular capital and a rational attempt to avoid a non-essential proximal access or bypass graft. The support of a motivated radiology team (preoperative assessment and management of complications) and the assistance of a more experienced operator are essential.

Optimizing Team Dynamics: An Assessment of Physician Trainees and Advanced Practice Providers Collaborative Practice.

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Foster, Cortney B; Simone, Shari; Bagdure, Dayanand; Garber, Nan A; Bhutta, Adnan

2016-09-01

The presence of advanced practice providers has become increasingly common in many ICUs. The ideal staffing model for units that contain both advanced practice providers and physician trainees has not been described. The objectives of this study were to evaluate ICU staffing models that include physician trainees and advanced practice providers and their effects on patient outcomes, resident and fellow education, and training experience. A second aim was to assess strategies to promote collaboration between team members. PubMed, CINAHL, OVID MEDLINE, and Cochrane Review from 2002 to 2015. Experimental study designs conducted in an ICU setting. Two reviewers screened articles for eligibility and independently abstracted data using the identified search terms. We found 21 articles describing ICU team structure and outcomes. Four articles were found describing the impact of advanced practice providers on resident or fellow education. Two articles were found discussing strategies to promote collaboration between advanced practice providers and critical care fellows or residents. Several articles were identified describing the utilization of advanced practice providers in the ICU and the impact of models of care on patient outcomes. Limited data exist describing the impact of advanced practice providers on resident and fellow education and training experience. In addition, there are minimal data describing methods to enhance collaboration between providers. Future research should focus on determining the optimal ICU team structure to improve patient outcomes, education of trainees, and job satisfaction of team members and methods to promote collaboration between advanced practice providers and physicians in training.

A team approach to improving colorectal cancer services using administrative health data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Porter Geoffrey

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Colorectal cancer (CRC is the third most commonly diagnosed cancer in Canada and accounts for 11.9% of all cancer-related mortality. Fortunately, previous studies have provided evidence of improved outcomes from access to timely and appropriate health services along the disease trajectory in CRC. As a result, the CIHR/CCNS Team in Access to Colorectal Cancer Services in Nova Scotia (Team ACCESS was created to build colorectal cancer (CRC research capacity in Nova Scotia (NS and to study access to and quality of CRC services along the entire continuum of cancer care. Objectives The objectives of this paper are to: 1 provide a detailed description of the methodologies employed across the various studies being conducted by Team ACCESS; 2 demonstrate how administrative health data can be used to evaluate access and quality in CRC services; and 3 provide an example of an interdisciplinary team approach to addressing health service delivery issues. Methods All patients diagnosed with CRC in NS between 2001 and 2005 were identified through the Nova Scotia Cancer Registry (NSCR and staged using the Collaborative Stage Data Collection System. Using administrative databases that were linked at the patient level, Team ACCESS created a retrospective longitudinal cohort with comprehensive demographic, clinical, and healthcare utilization data. These data were used to examine access to and quality of CRC services in NS, as well as factors affecting access to and quality of care, at various transition points along the continuum of care. Team ACCESS has also implemented integrated knowledge translation strategies targeting policy- and decision- makers. Discussion The development of Team ACCESS represents a unique approach to CRC research. We anticipate that the skills, tools, and knowledge generated from our work will also advance the study of other cancer disease sites in NS. Given the increasing prevalence of cancer, and with national and

A team approach to improving colorectal cancer services using administrative health data.

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Porter, Geoffrey; Urquhart, Robin; Bu, Jingyu; Kendell, Cynthia; Macintyre, Maureen; Dewar, Ron; Kephart, George; Asada, Yukiko; Grunfeld, Eva

2012-01-31

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most commonly diagnosed cancer in Canada and accounts for 11.9% of all cancer-related mortality. Fortunately, previous studies have provided evidence of improved outcomes from access to timely and appropriate health services along the disease trajectory in CRC. As a result, the CIHR/CCNS Team in Access to Colorectal Cancer Services in Nova Scotia (Team ACCESS) was created to build colorectal cancer (CRC) research capacity in Nova Scotia (NS) and to study access to and quality of CRC services along the entire continuum of cancer care. The objectives of this paper are to: 1) provide a detailed description of the methodologies employed across the various studies being conducted by Team ACCESS; 2) demonstrate how administrative health data can be used to evaluate access and quality in CRC services; and 3) provide an example of an interdisciplinary team approach to addressing health service delivery issues. All patients diagnosed with CRC in NS between 2001 and 2005 were identified through the Nova Scotia Cancer Registry (NSCR) and staged using the Collaborative Stage Data Collection System. Using administrative databases that were linked at the patient level, Team ACCESS created a retrospective longitudinal cohort with comprehensive demographic, clinical, and healthcare utilization data. These data were used to examine access to and quality of CRC services in NS, as well as factors affecting access to and quality of care, at various transition points along the continuum of care. Team ACCESS has also implemented integrated knowledge translation strategies targeting policy- and decision- makers. The development of Team ACCESS represents a unique approach to CRC research. We anticipate that the skills, tools, and knowledge generated from our work will also advance the study of other cancer disease sites in NS. Given the increasing prevalence of cancer, and with national and provincial funding agencies promoting collaborative research

Improving Access to NASA Earth Science Data through Collaborative Metadata Curation

Science.gov (United States)

Sisco, A. W.; Bugbee, K.; Shum, D.; Baynes, K.; Dixon, V.; Ramachandran, R.

2017-12-01

The NASA-developed Common Metadata Repository (CMR) is a high-performance metadata system that currently catalogs over 375 million Earth science metadata records. It serves as the authoritative metadata management system of NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS), enabling NASA Earth science data to be discovered and accessed by a worldwide user community. The size of the EOSDIS data archive is steadily increasing, and the ability to manage and query this archive depends on the input of high quality metadata to the CMR. Metadata that does not provide adequate descriptive information diminishes the CMR's ability to effectively find and serve data to users. To address this issue, an innovative and collaborative review process is underway to systematically improve the completeness, consistency, and accuracy of metadata for approximately 7,000 data sets archived by NASA's twelve EOSDIS data centers, or Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs). The process involves automated and manual metadata assessment of both collection and granule records by a team of Earth science data specialists at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. The team communicates results to DAAC personnel, who then make revisions and reingest improved metadata into the CMR. Implementation of this process relies on a network of interdisciplinary collaborators leveraging a variety of communication platforms and long-range planning strategies. Curating metadata at this scale and resolving metadata issues through community consensus improves the CMR's ability to serve current and future users and also introduces best practices for stewarding the next generation of Earth Observing System data. This presentation will detail the metadata curation process, its outcomes thus far, and also share the status of ongoing curation activities.

Interdisciplinary collaboration in gerontology and geriatrics in Latin America: conceptual approaches and health care teams.

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Gomez, Fernando; Curcio, Carmen Lucia

2013-01-01

The underlying rationale to support interdisciplinary collaboration in geriatrics and gerontology is based on the complexity of elderly care. The most important characteristic about interdisciplinary health care teams for older people in Latin America is their subjective-basis framework. In other regions, teams are organized according to a theoretical knowledge basis with well-justified priorities, functions, and long-term goals, in Latin America teams are arranged according to subjective interests on solving their problems. Three distinct approaches of interdisciplinary collaboration in gerontology are proposed. The first approach is grounded in the scientific rationalism of European origin. Denominated "logical-rational approach," its core is to identify the significance of knowledge. The second approach is grounded in pragmatism and is more associated with a North American tradition. The core of this approach consists in enhancing the skills and competences of each participant; denominated "logical-instrumental approach." The third approach denominated "logical-subjective approach" has a Latin America origin. Its core consists in taking into account the internal and emotional dimensions of the team. These conceptual frameworks based in geographical contexts will permit establishing the differences and shared characteristics of interdisciplinary collaboration in geriatrics and gerontology to look for operational answers to solve the "complex problems" of older adults.

Collaborative Access Control For Critical Infrastructures

Science.gov (United States)

Baina, Amine; El Kalam, Anas Abou; Deswarte, Yves; Kaaniche, Mohamed

A critical infrastructure (CI) can fail with various degrees of severity due to physical and logical vulnerabilities. Since many interdependencies exist between CIs, failures can have dramatic consequences on the entire infrastructure. This paper focuses on threats that affect information and communication systems that constitute the critical information infrastructure (CII). A new collaborative access control framework called PolyOrBAC is proposed to address security problems that are specific to CIIs. The framework offers each organization participating in a CII the ability to collaborate with other organizations while maintaining control of its resources and internal security policy. The approach is demonstrated on a practical scenario involving the electrical power grid.

Is Team-Based Primary Care Associated with Less Access Problems and Self-Reported Unmet Need in Canada?

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Zygmunt, Austin; Asada, Yukiko; Burge, Frederick

2017-10-01

As in many jurisdictions, the delivery of primary care in Canada is being transformed from solo practice to team-based care. In Canada, team-based primary care involves general practitioners working with nurses or other health care providers, and it is expected to improve equity in access to care. This study examined whether team-based care is associated with fewer access problems and less unmet need and whether socioeconomic gradients in access problems and unmet need are smaller in team-based care than in non-team-based care. Data came from the 2008 Canadian Survey of Experiences with Primary Health Care (sample size: 10,858). We measured primary care type as team-based or non-team-based and socioeconomic status by income and education. We created four access problem variables and four unmet need variables (overall and three specific components). For each, we ran separate logistic regression models to examine their associations with primary care type. We examined socioeconomic gradients in access problems and unmet need stratified by primary care type. Primary care type had no statistically significant, independent associations with access problems or unmet need. Among those with non-team-based care, a statistically significant education gradient for overall access problems existed, whereas among those with team-based care, no statistically significant socioeconomic gradients existed.

The link class project : Collaborative virtual teams between Peru and The Netherlands

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Olivos Rossini, L.M.; Rincon, Sandra; Rutkowski, Anne-Francoise

2015-01-01

The Link Class Project presented in this article provides an example of established collaborative group activities to negotiate and build a report together in virtual teams composed of students at Universidad ESAN, Lima (Peru) and Tilburg University, Tilburg (Netherlands). It further analyzes the

Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Gerontology and Geriatrics in Latin America: Conceptual Approaches and Health Care Teams

Science.gov (United States)

Gomez, Fernando; Curcio, Carmen Lucia

2013-01-01

The underlying rationale to support interdisciplinary collaboration in geriatrics and gerontology is based on the complexity of elderly care. The most important characteristic about interdisciplinary health care teams for older people in Latin America is their subjective-basis framework. In other regions, teams are organized according to a…

Policy reconciliation for access control in dynamic cross-enterprise collaborations

Science.gov (United States)

Preuveneers, D.; Joosen, W.; Ilie-Zudor, E.

2018-03-01

In dynamic cross-enterprise collaborations, different enterprises form a - possibly temporary - business relationship. To integrate their business processes, enterprises may need to grant each other limited access to their information systems. Authentication and authorization are key to secure information handling. However, access control policies often rely on non-standardized attributes to describe the roles and permissions of their employees which convolutes cross-organizational authorization when business relationships evolve quickly. Our framework addresses the managerial overhead of continuous updates to access control policies for enterprise information systems to accommodate disparate attribute usage. By inferring attribute relationships, our framework facilitates attribute and policy reconciliation, and automatically aligns dynamic entitlements during the evaluation of authorization decisions. We validate our framework with a Industry 4.0 motivating scenario on networked production where such dynamic cross-enterprise collaborations are quintessential. The evaluation reveals the capabilities and performance of our framework, and illustrates the feasibility of liberating the security administrator from manually provisioning and aligning attributes, and verifying the consistency of access control policies for cross-enterprise collaborations.

Collaboration with Sport Psychologists as Viewed by Female Volleyball Junior Teams

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Otrebski, Wojciech; Rutkowska, Katarzyna

2008-01-01

Study aim: To determine the need of female junior volleyball players to collaborate with a psychologist, considering previous sport career of those players. Material and methods: A group of 78 female volleyball players aged 14-17 years from 7 top Polish junior teams participated in the study. They were requested to fill questionnaires on their…

Analysis of team types based on collaborative relationships among doctors, home-visiting nurses and care managers for effective support of patients in end-of-life home care.

Science.gov (United States)

Fujita, Junko; Fukui, Sakiko; Ikezaki, Sumie; Otoguro, Chizuru; Tsujimura, Mayuko

2017-11-01

To define the team types consisting of doctors, home-visiting nurses and care managers for end-of-life care by measuring the collaboration relationship, and to identify the factors related to the team types. A questionnaire survey of 43 teams including doctors, home-visiting nurses and care managers was carried out. The team types were classified based on mutual evaluations of the collaborative relationships among the professionals. To clarify the factors between team types with the patient characteristics, team characteristics and collaboration competency, univariate analysis was carried out with the Fisher's exact test or one-way analysis and multiple comparison analysis. Three team types were classified: the team where the collaborative relationships among all healthcare professionals were good; the team where the collaborative relationships between the doctors and care managers were poor; and the team where the collaborative relationships among all of the professionals were poor. There was a statistically significant association between the team types and the following variables: patient's dementia level, communication tool, professionals' experience of working with other team members, home-visiting nurses' experience of caring for dying patients, care managers' background qualifications, doctor's face-to-face cooperation with other members and home-visiting nurses' collaborative practice. It is suggested that a collaborative relationship would be fostered by more experience of working together, using communication tools and enhancing each professional's collaboration competency. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2017; 17: 1943-1950. © 2017 Japan Geriatrics Society.

Adopting Continuous Delivery and Deployment: Impacts on Team Structures, Collaboration and Responsibilities

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Shahin, Mojtaba; Zahedi, Mansooreh; Babar, Muhammad Ali

2017-01-01

Context: Continuous Delivery and Deployment (CD) practices aim to deliver software features more frequently and reliably. While some efforts have been made to study different aspects of CD practices, a little empirical work has been reported on the impact of CD on team structures, collaboration a...

Towards a team-based, collaborative approach to embedding e-learning within undergraduate nursing programmes.

Science.gov (United States)

Kiteley, Robin J; Ormrod, Graham

2009-08-01

E-learning approaches are incorporated in many undergraduate nursing programmes but there is evidence to suggest that these are often piecemeal and have little impact on the wider, nurse education curriculum. This is consistent with a broader view of e-learning within the higher education (HE) sector, which suggests that higher education institutions (HEIs) are struggling to make e-learning a part of their mainstream delivery [HEFCE, 2005. HEFCE Strategy for E-Learning 2005/12. Bristol, UK, Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). [online] Available at: Accessed: 30 May 07]. This article discusses some of the challenges that face contemporary nurse education and seeks to account for reasons as to why e-learning may not be fully embedded within the undergraduate curriculum. These issues are considered within a wider debate about the need to align e-learning approaches with a shift towards a more student focused learning and teaching paradigm. The article goes on to consider broader issues in the literature on the adoption, embedding and diffusion of innovations, particularly in relation to the value of collaboration. A collaborative, team-based approach to e-learning development is considered as a way of facilitating sustainable, responsive and multidisciplinary developments within a field which is constantly changing and evolving.

Sustainable interprofessional teamwork needs a team-friendly healthcare system: Experiences from a collaborative Dutch programme.

Science.gov (United States)

van Dijk-de Vries, Anneke; van Dongen, Jerôme Jean Jacques; van Bokhoven, Marloes Amantia

2017-03-01

The significance of effective interprofessional teamwork to improve the quality of care has been widely recognised. Effective interprofessional teamwork calls on good collaboration between professionals and patients, coordination between professionals, and the development of teamwork over time. Effective development of teams also requires support from the wider organisational context. In a Dutch village, healthcare professionals work closely together, and mutual consultations as well as interprofessional meetings take place on a regular basis. The network was created as a precondition for sustainable interprofessional teamwork in elderly care. However, several external barriers were experienced regarding the supportive structure and cooperative attitude of the healthcare insurer and municipality. The aim of the article is to examine these experience-based issues regarding internal organisation, perspective, and definition of effective teamwork. Complicating factors refer to finding the right key figures, and the different perspectives on team development and team effectiveness. Our conclusion is that the organisation of healthcare insurance companies needs to implement fundamental changes to facilitate an interprofessional care approach. Furthermore, municipalities should work on their vision of the needs and benefits of a fruitful collaboration with interprofessional healthcare teams. The challenge for healthcare teams is to learn to speak the language of external partners. To support the development of interprofessional teams, external parties need to recognise and trust in a shared aim to provide quality of care in an efficient and effective way.

Healthcare teams over the Internet: programming a certificate-based approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Georgiadis, Christos K; Mavridis, Ioannis K; Pangalos, George I

2003-07-01

Healthcare environments are a representative case of collaborative environments since individuals (e.g. doctors) in many cases collaborate in order to provide care to patients in a more proficient way. At the same time modern healthcare institutions are increasingly interested in sharing access of their information resources in the networked environment. Healthcare applications over the Internet offer an attractive communication infrastructure at worldwide level but with a noticeably great factor of risk. Security has, therefore, become a major concern. However, although an adequate level of security can be relied upon digital certificates, if an appropriate security model is used, additional security considerations are needed in order to deal efficiently with the above team-work concerns. The already known Hybrid Access Control (HAC) security model supports and handles efficiently healthcare teams with active security capabilities and is capable to exploit the benefits of certificate technology. In this paper we present the way for encoding the appropriate authoritative information in various types of certificates, as well as the overall operational architecture of the implemented access control system for healthcare collaborative environments over the Internet. A pilot implementation of the proposed methodology in a major Greek hospital has shown the applicability of the proposals and the flexibility of the access control provided.

Healthcare teams over the Internet: towards a certificate-based approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Georgiadis, Christos K; Mavridis, Ioannis K; Pangalos, George I

2002-01-01

Healthcare environments are a representative case of collaborative environments since individuals (e.g. doctors) in many cases collaborate in order to provide care to patients in a more proficient way. At the same time modem healthcare institutions are increasingly interested in sharing access of their information resources in the networked environment. Healthcare applications over the Internet offer an attractive communication infrastructure at worldwide level but with a noticeably great factor of risk. Security has therefore become a major concern for healthcare applications over the Internet. However, although an adequate level of security can be relied upon digital certificates, if an appropriate security policy is used, additional security considerations are needed in order to deal efficiently with the above team-work concerns. The already known Hybrid Access Control security model supports and handles efficiently healthcare teams with active security capabilities and is capable to exploit the benefits of certificate technology. In this paper we present the way for encoding the appropriate authoritative information in various types of certificates, as well as the overall operational architecture of the implemented access control system for healthcare collaborative environments over the Internet. A pilot implementation of the proposed methodology in a major Greek hospital has shown the applicability of the proposals and the flexibility of the access control provided.

Team-Based Development of Medical Devices: An Engineering–Business Collaborative

Science.gov (United States)

Eberhardt, Alan W.; Johnson, Ophelia L.; Kirkland, William B.; Dobbs, Joel H.; Moradi, Lee G.

2016-01-01

There is a global shift in the teaching methodology of science and engineering toward multidisciplinary, team-based processes. To meet the demands of an evolving technical industry and lead the way in engineering education, innovative curricula are essential. This paper describes the development of multidisciplinary, team-based learning environments in undergraduate and graduate engineering curricula focused on medical device design. In these programs, students actively collaborate with clinicians, professional engineers, business professionals, and their peers to develop innovative solutions to real-world problems. In the undergraduate senior capstone courses, teams of biomedical engineering (BME) and business students have produced and delivered numerous functional prototypes to satisfied clients. Pursuit of commercialization of devices has led to intellectual property (IP) disclosures and patents. Assessments have indicated high levels of success in attainment of student learning outcomes and student satisfaction with their undergraduate design experience. To advance these projects toward commercialization and further promote innovative team-based learning, a Master of Engineering (MEng) in Design and Commercialization was recently launched. The MEng facilitates teams of graduate students in engineering, life sciences, and business who engage in innovation-commercialization (IC) projects and coursework that take innovative ideas through research and development (R&D) to create marketable devices. The activities are structured with students working together as a “virtual company,” with targeted outcomes of commercialization (license agreements and new start-ups), competitive job placement, and/or career advancement. PMID:26902869

Team-Based Development of Medical Devices: An Engineering-Business Collaborative.

Science.gov (United States)

Eberhardt, Alan W; Johnson, Ophelia L; Kirkland, William B; Dobbs, Joel H; Moradi, Lee G

2016-07-01

There is a global shift in the teaching methodology of science and engineering toward multidisciplinary, team-based processes. To meet the demands of an evolving technical industry and lead the way in engineering education, innovative curricula are essential. This paper describes the development of multidisciplinary, team-based learning environments in undergraduate and graduate engineering curricula focused on medical device design. In these programs, students actively collaborate with clinicians, professional engineers, business professionals, and their peers to develop innovative solutions to real-world problems. In the undergraduate senior capstone courses, teams of biomedical engineering (BME) and business students have produced and delivered numerous functional prototypes to satisfied clients. Pursuit of commercialization of devices has led to intellectual property (IP) disclosures and patents. Assessments have indicated high levels of success in attainment of student learning outcomes and student satisfaction with their undergraduate design experience. To advance these projects toward commercialization and further promote innovative team-based learning, a Master of Engineering (MEng) in Design and Commercialization was recently launched. The MEng facilitates teams of graduate students in engineering, life sciences, and business who engage in innovation-commercialization (IC) projects and coursework that take innovative ideas through research and development (R&D) to create marketable devices. The activities are structured with students working together as a "virtual company," with targeted outcomes of commercialization (license agreements and new start-ups), competitive job placement, and/or career advancement.

Team Effectiveness and Team Development in CSCL

Science.gov (United States)

Fransen, Jos; Weinberger, Armin; Kirschner, Paul A.

2013-01-01

There is a wealth of research on computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) that is neglected in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) research. CSCW research is concerned with contextual factors, however, that may strongly influence collaborative learning processes as well, such as task characteristics, team formation, team members'…

Transforming Virtual Teams

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bjørn, Pernille

2005-01-01

Investigating virtual team collaboration in industry using grounded theory this paper presents the in-dept analysis of empirical work conducted in a global organization of 100.000 employees where a global virtual team with participants from Sweden, United Kingdom, Canada, and North America were...... studied. The research question investigated is how collaboration is negotiated within virtual teams? This paper presents findings concerning how collaboration is negotiated within a virtual team and elaborate the difficulties due to invisible articulation work and managing multiple communities...... in transforming the virtual team into a community. It is argued that translucence in communication structures within the virtual team and between team and management is essential for engaging in a positive transformation process of trustworthiness supporting the team becoming a community, managing the immanent...

White Paper on the Use of Team Calendars with the JIRA Issue Tracking System and Confluence Collaboration Tools for the xLPR Project

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Klasky, Hilda B. [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Williams, Paul T. [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Bass, Bennett Richard [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

2012-09-01

ORNL was tasked by xLPR project management to propose a team calendar for use within the xLPR consortium. Among various options that were considered, the approach judged by ORNL to best fit the needs of the xLPR project is presented in this document. The Atlassian Team Calendars plug-in used with the Confluence collaboration tool was recommended for several reasons, including the advantage that it provides for a tight integration between Confluence (found at https://xlpr.ornl.gov/wiki ) and xLPR s JIRA issue tracking system (found at https://xlpr.ornl.gov/jira ). This document is divided into two parts. The first part (Sections 1-6) consists of the white paper, which highlights some of the ways that Team Calendars can improve com mun ication between xLPR project managers, group leads, and team members when JIRA is applied for both issue tracking and change-management activities. Specific points emphasized herein are as follows: The Team Calendar application greatly enhances the added value that the JIRA and Confluence tools bring to the xLPR Project. The Team Calendar can improve com mun ication between xLPR project managers, group leads, and team members when JIRA is applied for both issue tracking and change-management activities. The Team Calendar works across different email tools such as Outlook 2011, Outlook 2010, Outlook 2007, Google Calendars and Mac s iCalendar to name a few. xLPR users can now access the wiki Confluence (with embedded Team Calendars) directly from JIRA without having to re-validate their login. The second part consists of an Annex (Section 7), which describes how users can subscribe to Team Calendars from different calendar applications. Specific instructions are given in the Annex that describe how to Import xLPR Team Calendar to Outlook Version Office 2010 Import xLPR Team Calendar to Outlook Version Office 2007 Subscribe to Team Calendar from Google Calendar The reader is directed to Section 4 for instructions on adding events to the

A Path to Successful Energy Retrofits: Early Collaboration through Integrated Project Delivery Teams

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Parrish, Kristen [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

2012-10-01

This document guides you through a process for the early design phases of retrofit projects to help you mitigate frustrations commonly experienced by building owners and designers. It outlines the value of forming an integrated project delivery team and developing a communication and information-sharing infrastructure that fosters collaboration. This guide does not present a complete process for designing an energy retrofit for a building. Instead, it focuses on the early design phase tasks related to developing and selecting energy efficiency measures (EEMs) that benefit from collaboration, and highlights the resulting advantages.

Promoting Collaboration in Health Care Teams through Interprofessional Education: A Simulation Case Study

Science.gov (United States)

Ekmekci, Ozgur

2013-01-01

This simulation study explores how the integration of interprofessional components into health care curriculum may impact professional stereotyping and collaborative behavior in care delivery teams comprised of a physician, a registered nurse, a physician's assistant, a physical therapist, and a radiation therapist. As part of the agent-based…

Collaboration and Perspectives on Identity Management and Access from two Geoscience Cyberinfrastructure Programs

Science.gov (United States)

Ramamurthy, M. K.

2016-12-01

Increasingly, the conduct of science requires close international collaborations to share data, information, knowledge, expertise, and other resources. This is particularly true in the geosciences where the highly connected nature of the Earth system and the need to understand global environmental processes have heightened the importance of scientific partnerships. As geoscience studies become a team effort involving networked scientists and data providers, it is crucial that there is open and reliable access to earth system data of all types, software, tools, models, and other assets. That environment demands close attention to security-related matters, including the creation of trustworthy cyberinfrastructure to facilitate the efficient use of available resources and support the conduct of science. Unidata and EarthCube, both of which are NSF-funded and community-driven programs, recognize the importance of collaborations and the value of networked communities. Unidata, a cornerstone cyberinfrastructure facility for the geosciences, includes users in nearly 180 countries. The EarthCube initiative is aimed at transforming the conduct of geosciences research by creating a well-connected and facile environment for sharing data and in an open, transparent, and inclusive manner and to accelerate our ability to understand and predict the Earth system. We will present the Unidata and EarthCube community perspectives on the approaches to balancing an environment that promotes open and collaborative eScience with the needs for security and communication, including what works, what is needed, the challenges, and opportunities to advance science.

Collaborative Indoor Access Point Localization Using Autonomous Mobile Robot Swarm.

Science.gov (United States)

Awad, Fahed; Naserllah, Muhammad; Omar, Ammar; Abu-Hantash, Alaa; Al-Taj, Abrar

2018-01-31

Localization of access points has become an important research problem due to the wide range of applications it addresses such as dismantling critical security threats caused by rogue access points or optimizing wireless coverage of access points within a service area. Existing proposed solutions have mostly relied on theoretical hypotheses or computer simulation to demonstrate the efficiency of their methods. The techniques that rely on estimating the distance using samples of the received signal strength usually assume prior knowledge of the signal propagation characteristics of the indoor environment in hand and tend to take a relatively large number of uniformly distributed random samples. This paper presents an efficient and practical collaborative approach to detect the location of an access point in an indoor environment without any prior knowledge of the environment. The proposed approach comprises a swarm of wirelessly connected mobile robots that collaboratively and autonomously collect a relatively small number of non-uniformly distributed random samples of the access point's received signal strength. These samples are used to efficiently and accurately estimate the location of the access point. The experimental testing verified that the proposed approach can identify the location of the access point in an accurate and efficient manner.

Collaborative Indoor Access Point Localization Using Autonomous Mobile Robot Swarm

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fahed Awad

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Localization of access points has become an important research problem due to the wide range of applications it addresses such as dismantling critical security threats caused by rogue access points or optimizing wireless coverage of access points within a service area. Existing proposed solutions have mostly relied on theoretical hypotheses or computer simulation to demonstrate the efficiency of their methods. The techniques that rely on estimating the distance using samples of the received signal strength usually assume prior knowledge of the signal propagation characteristics of the indoor environment in hand and tend to take a relatively large number of uniformly distributed random samples. This paper presents an efficient and practical collaborative approach to detect the location of an access point in an indoor environment without any prior knowledge of the environment. The proposed approach comprises a swarm of wirelessly connected mobile robots that collaboratively and autonomously collect a relatively small number of non-uniformly distributed random samples of the access point’s received signal strength. These samples are used to efficiently and accurately estimate the location of the access point. The experimental testing verified that the proposed approach can identify the location of the access point in an accurate and efficient manner.

Obstacle of Team Teaching and Collaborative Learning in Information Security

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marn-Ling Shing

2007-10-01

Full Text Available The field of information security includes diverse contents such as network security and computer forensics which are highly technical-oriented topics. In addition, information forensic requires the background of criminology. The information security also includes non-technical content such as information ethics and security laws. Because the diverse nature of information security, Shing et al. has proposed the use of team teaching and collaborative learning for the information security classes. Although team teaching seems to be efficient in information security, practically it needs a few challenges. The Purdue's case mentioned in Shing's paper has funding support of National Security Agency (NSA. However, a vast amount of resources may not be available for an instructor in a normal university. In addition, many obstacles are related to the administration problems. For example, how are the teaching evaluations computed if there are multiple instructors for a single course? How will instructors in a computer forensics class prepare students (criminal justice majors and information technology majors before taking the same class with diverse background? The paper surveyed approximately 25 students in a university in Virginia concerning the satisfaction of team-teaching. Finally, this paper describes ways to meet those challenges.

The Influence of Learning Styles on Student Perception and Satisfaction in a Highly Collaborative Team Taught Course

Science.gov (United States)

Sullivan, Daniel; Colburn, Michael; Fox, Daniel E.

2013-01-01

Team teaching an undergraduate business capstone course has the potential of providing students with an enhanced learning experience in a number of ways. This study examines the relationship between faculty and student learning styles and their impact on student perception and satisfaction in a highly collaborative team taught undergraduate…

Individual motivation and threat indicators of collaboration readiness in scientific knowledge producing teams: a scoping review and domain analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gaetano R. Lotrecchiano

2016-05-01

Full Text Available This paper identifies a gap in the team science literature that considers intrapersonal indicators of collaboration as motivations and threats to participating in collaborative knowledge producing teams (KPTs. Through a scoping review process, over 150 resources were consulted to organize 6 domains of motivation and threat to collaboration in KPTs: Resource Acquisition, Advancing Science, Building Relationships, Knowledge Transfer, Recognition and Reward, and Maintenance of Beliefs. Findings show how domains vary in their presentation of depth and diversity of motivation and threat indicators as well as their relationship with each other within and across domains. The findings of 51 indicators resulting from the review provide a psychosocial framework for which to establish a hierarchy of collaborative reasoning for individual engagement in KPTs thus allowing for further research into the mechanism of collaborative engagement. The indicators serve as a preliminary step in establishing a protocol for testing of the psychometric properties of intrapersonal measures of collaboration readiness.

Virtual Teaming and Collaboration Technology: A Study of Influences on Virtual Project Outcomes

Science.gov (United States)

Broils, Gary C.

2014-01-01

The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to explore the relationships between the independent variables, contextual factors for virtual teams and collaboration technology, and the dependent variable, virtual project outcomes. The problem leading to the need for the study is a lower success rate for virtual projects compared to…

International funding opportunities for ideas of collaboration projects in OOHP

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ilin, Corina

2012-04-01

Full Text Available The present paper is presenting the exploratory workshop organized by the OOHP Master team in December 2011, which opened paths for theoretical knowledge and for collaboration with researchers having international prestige. Also, the paper presents funding opportunities available in national grants, and the strategy chosen by the team to prepare a two-step access to funds.

Collaboration in teacher teams

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Brouwer, P.

2011-01-01

In order to deal with innovations and the associated complexity of work, ongoing collaboration between teachers has become more important in secondary education. Teacher collaboration is one of the factors that contribute to the successful implementation of innovations in secondary schools. However,

The effects of team expert choice on group decision-making in collaborative new product development; a pilot study

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hummel, J. Marjan; van Rossum, Wouter; Verkerke, Gijsbertus Jacob; Rakhorst, G.

2000-01-01

This study analyses the effects of Team Expert Choice on group decision-making in collaborative new product development. We applied Team Expert Choice to support a product evaluation conducted by a new product development group composed of professionally diverse members. The evaluation resulted in

Cyberinfrastructure and Scientific Collaboration: Application of a Virtual Team Performance Framework with Potential Relevance to Education. WCER Working Paper No. 2010-12

Science.gov (United States)

Kraemer, Sara; Thorn, Christopher A.

2010-01-01

The purpose of this exploratory study was to identify and describe some of the dimensions of scientific collaborations using high throughput computing (HTC) through the lens of a virtual team performance framework. A secondary purpose was to assess the viability of using a virtual team performance framework to study scientific collaborations using…

The learning teacher in a collaborative lesson study team within the context of mathematics

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Goei, Sui Lin; Verhoef, Neeltje Cornelia

2015-01-01

This paper summarises results of two studies on teachers’ learning when participating in a collaborative Lesson Study team within the context of mathematics teaching. In study one, Lesson Study was used in the classic way of preparing, designing, executing and reflecting on the research lesson.

Collaboration in teams with nurse practitioners and general practitioners during out-of-hours and implications for patient care; a qualitative study.

Science.gov (United States)

van der Biezen, Mieke; Wensing, Michel; Poghosyan, Lusine; van der Burgt, Regi; Laurant, Miranda

2017-08-23

Increasingly, nurse practitioners (NPs) are deployed in teams along with general practitioners (GPs) to help meet the demand for out-of-hours care. The purpose of this study was to explore factors influencing collaboration between GPs and NPs in teams working out-of-hours. A descriptive qualitative study was done using a total of 27 semi-structured interviews and two focus group discussions. Data was collected between June, 2014 and October, 2015 at an out-of-hours primary care organisation in the Netherlands. Overall, 38 health professionals (GPs, NPs, and support staff) participated in the study. The interviews were audio-taped and transcribed verbatim. Two researchers conducted an inductive content analysis, involving the identification of relevant items in a first phase and clustering into themes in a second phase. The following four themes emerged from the data: clarity of NP role and regulation, shared caseload and use of skills, communication concerning professional roles, trust and support in NP practice. Main factors influencing collaboration between GPs and NPs included a lack of knowledge regarding the NPs' scope of practice and regulations governing NP role; differences in teams in sharing caseload and using each other's skills effectively; varying support of GPs for the NP role; and limited communication between GPs and NPs regarding professional roles during the shift. Lack of collaboration was perceived to result in an increased risk of delay for patients who needed treatment from a GP, especially in teams with more NPs. Collaboration was not perceived to improve over time as teams varied across shifts. In out-of-hours primary care teams constantly change and team members are often unfamiliar with each other or other's competences. In this environment, knowledge and communication about team members' roles is continuously at stake. Especially in teams with more NPs, team members need to use each other's skills to deliver care to all patients on time.

The relationship between team climate and interprofessional collaboration: Preliminary results of a mixed methods study.

Science.gov (United States)

Agreli, Heloise F; Peduzzi, Marina; Bailey, Christopher

2017-03-01

Relational and organisational factors are key elements of interprofessional collaboration (IPC) and team climate. Few studies have explored the relationship between IPC and team climate. This article presents a study that aimed to explore IPC in primary healthcare teams and understand how the assessment of team climate may provide insights into IPC. A mixed methods study design was adopted. In Stage 1 of the study, team climate was assessed using the Team Climate Inventory with 159 professionals in 18 interprofessional teams based in São Paulo, Brazil. In Stage 2, data were collected through in-depth interviews with a sample of team members who participated in the first stage of the study. Results from Stage 1 provided an overview of factors relevant to teamwork, which in turn informed our exploration of the relationship between team climate and IPC. Preliminary findings from Stage 2 indicated that teams with a more positive team climate (in particular, greater participative safety) also reported more effective communication and mutual support. In conclusion, team climate provided insights into IPC, especially regarding aspects of communication and interaction in teams. Further research will provide a better understanding of differences and areas of overlap between team climate and IPC. It will potentially contribute for an innovative theoretical approach to explore interprofessional work in primary care settings.

Virtual team collaboration

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bjørn, Pernille; Ngwenyama, Ojelanki

2009-01-01

Managing international teams with geographically distributed participants is a complex task. The risk of communication breakdowns increases due to cultural and organizational differences grounded in the geographical distribution of the participants. Such breakdowns indicate general misunderstandi...

Building it together: collaboration in university-based open access book publishing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dr Andrea Hacker

2014-04-01

Full Text Available Open access (OA book publishing in the humanities and social sciences is becoming technically more feasible and financially more desirable. After securing funding for the development of a business model based on a pilot book series, the University of Heidelberg is joining this development and building an infrastructure to publish OA books on campus. The challenges facing such new publishing outlets are considerable. This article argues that the best strategy to build the prestige, affordability and competitiveness necessary to succeed is collaboration. Accomplishing this within the OA community will prove less difficult than extending collaboration beyond it because many agencies and individuals still lack information about, and are often unconvinced of, the merits of open access. The key lies in offering excellence in manuscript development to revitalize the most important collaboration of all: that between publisher and author.

The Link Class Project: Collaborative virtual teams between Peru and The Netherlands

OpenAIRE

Mariella Olivos Rossini; Sandra Rincón; Anne-Francoise Rutkowski

2015-01-01

The Link Class Project presented in this article provides an example of established collaborative group activities to negotiate and build a report together in virtual teams composed of students at Universidad ESAN, Lima (Peru) and Tilburg University, Tilburg (Netherlands). It further analyzes the effects of a campus based internationalization strategy supported by the use of technology. Based on previous experiences with virtual classrooms, the authors adhere to the ancient Chinese philosophe...

User Collaboration for Improving Access to Historical Texts

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Clemens Neudecker

2010-08-01

Full Text Available The paper will describe how web-based collaboration tools can engage users in the building of historical printed text resources created by mass digitisation projects. The drivers for developing such tools will be presented, identifying the benefits that can be derived for both the user community and cultural heritage institutions. The perceived risks, such as new errors introduced by the users, and the limitations of engaging with users in this way will be set out with the lessons that can be learned from existing activities, such as the National Library of Australia's newspaper website which supports collaborative correction of Optical Character Recognition (OCR output. The paper will present the work of the IMPACT (Improving Access to Text project, a large-scale integrating project funded by the European Commission as part of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7. One of the aims of the project is to develop tools that help improve OCR results for historical printed texts, specifically those works published before the industrial production of books from the middle of the 19th century. Technological improvements to image processing and OCR engine technology are vital to improving access to historic text, but engaging the user community also has an important role to play. Utilising the intended user can help achieve the levels of accuracy currently found in born-digital materials. Improving OCR results will allow for better resource discovery and enhance performance by text mining and accessibility tools. The IMPACT project will specifically develop a tool that supports collaborative correction and validation of OCR results and a tool to allow user involvement in building historical dictionaries which can be used to validate word recognition. The technologies use the characteristics of human perception as a basis for error detection.

The laser micro-machining system for diamond anvil cell experiments and general precision machining applications at the High Pressure Collaborative Access Team.

Science.gov (United States)

Hrubiak, Rostislav; Sinogeikin, Stanislav; Rod, Eric; Shen, Guoyin

2015-07-01

We have designed and constructed a new system for micro-machining parts and sample assemblies used for diamond anvil cells and general user operations at the High Pressure Collaborative Access Team, sector 16 of the Advanced Photon Source. The new micro-machining system uses a pulsed laser of 400 ps pulse duration, ablating various materials without thermal melting, thus leaving a clean edge. With optics designed for a tight focus, the system can machine holes any size larger than 3 μm in diameter. Unlike a standard electrical discharge machining drill, the new laser system allows micro-machining of non-conductive materials such as: amorphous boron and silicon carbide gaskets, diamond, oxides, and other materials including organic materials such as polyimide films (i.e., Kapton). An important feature of the new system is the use of gas-tight or gas-flow environmental chambers which allow the laser micro-machining to be done in a controlled (e.g., inert gas) atmosphere to prevent oxidation and other chemical reactions in air sensitive materials. The gas-tight workpiece enclosure is also useful for machining materials with known health risks (e.g., beryllium). Specialized control software with a graphical interface enables micro-machining of custom 2D and 3D shapes. The laser-machining system was designed in a Class 1 laser enclosure, i.e., it includes laser safety interlocks and computer controls and allows for routine operation. Though initially designed mainly for machining of the diamond anvil cell gaskets, the laser-machining system has since found many other micro-machining applications, several of which are presented here.

The laser micro-machining system for diamond anvil cell experiments and general precision machining applications at the High Pressure Collaborative Access Team

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hrubiak, Rostislav; Sinogeikin, Stanislav; Rod, Eric; Shen, Guoyin

2015-01-01

We have designed and constructed a new system for micro-machining parts and sample assemblies used for diamond anvil cells and general user operations at the High Pressure Collaborative Access Team, sector 16 of the Advanced Photon Source. The new micro-machining system uses a pulsed laser of 400 ps pulse duration, ablating various materials without thermal melting, thus leaving a clean edge. With optics designed for a tight focus, the system can machine holes any size larger than 3 μm in diameter. Unlike a standard electrical discharge machining drill, the new laser system allows micro-machining of non-conductive materials such as: amorphous boron and silicon carbide gaskets, diamond, oxides, and other materials including organic materials such as polyimide films (i.e., Kapton). An important feature of the new system is the use of gas-tight or gas-flow environmental chambers which allow the laser micro-machining to be done in a controlled (e.g., inert gas) atmosphere to prevent oxidation and other chemical reactions in air sensitive materials. The gas-tight workpiece enclosure is also useful for machining materials with known health risks (e.g., beryllium). Specialized control software with a graphical interface enables micro-machining of custom 2D and 3D shapes. The laser-machining system was designed in a Class 1 laser enclosure, i.e., it includes laser safety interlocks and computer controls and allows for routine operation. Though initially designed mainly for machining of the diamond anvil cell gaskets, the laser-machining system has since found many other micro-machining applications, several of which are presented here

Creating a culture to support patient safety. The contribution of a multidisciplinary team development programme to collaborative working.

Science.gov (United States)

Benson, Anne

2010-01-01

Effective teamwork is crucial for ensuring the provision of safe high quality care. Teams whose members collaborate through questioning, reflecting on and reviewing their work, offering each other feedback and where reporting is encouraged are more likely to promote a safe environment of care. This paper describes a multidisciplinary development programme intended to increase team effectiveness. The teams that took part developed their ability to work collaboratively together with levels of open dialogue, critical reflection and direct feedback increasing. The paper goes on to discuss aspects of the programme which were helpful in enabling these positive changes and concludes with a number of recommendations for those commissioning and facilitating team development initiatives. These include: the need for people from different disciplines and different levels within the hierarchy to spend time reviewing their work together, the need to explicitly address issues of power and authority, the usefulness taking an action orientated approach and requiring participants to work on real issues together, the importance of providing sufficient time and resource to support people to work with the challenges associated with implementing change and addressing team dynamics, The importance of skilled facilitation.

The EGS Data Collaboration Platform: Enabling Scientific Discovery

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Weers, Jonathan D [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Johnston, Henry [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Huggins, Jay V [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

2018-02-14

Collaboration in the digital age has been stifled in recent years. Reasonable responses to legitimate security concerns have created a virtual landscape of silos and fortified castles incapable of sharing information efficiently. This trend is unfortunately opposed to the geothermal scientific community's migration toward larger, more collaborative projects. To facilitate efficient sharing of information between team members from multiple national labs, universities, and private organizations, the 'EGS Collab' team has developed a universally accessible, secure data collaboration platform and has fully integrated it with the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Geothermal Data Repository (GDR) and the National Geothermal Data System (NGDS). This paper will explore some of the challenges of collaboration in the modern digital age, highlight strategies for active data management, and discuss the integration of the EGS Collab data management platform with the GDR to enable scientific discovery through the timely dissemination of information.

Building the team for team science

Science.gov (United States)

Read, Emily K.; O'Rourke, M.; Hong, G. S.; Hanson, P. C.; Winslow, Luke A.; Crowley, S.; Brewer, C. A.; Weathers, K. C.

2016-01-01

The ability to effectively exchange information and develop trusting, collaborative relationships across disciplinary boundaries is essential for 21st century scientists charged with solving complex and large-scale societal and environmental challenges, yet these communication skills are rarely taught. Here, we describe an adaptable training program designed to increase the capacity of scientists to engage in information exchange and relationship development in team science settings. A pilot of the program, developed by a leader in ecological network science, the Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network (GLEON), indicates that the training program resulted in improvement in early career scientists’ confidence in team-based network science collaborations within and outside of the program. Fellows in the program navigated human-network challenges, expanded communication skills, and improved their ability to build professional relationships, all in the context of producing collaborative scientific outcomes. Here, we describe the rationale for key communication training elements and provide evidence that such training is effective in building essential team science skills.

Educational impact of an assessment of medical students' collaboration in health care teams.

Science.gov (United States)

Olupeliyawa, Asela; Balasooriya, Chinthaka; Hughes, Chris; O'Sullivan, Anthony

2014-02-01

This paper explores how structured feedback and other features of workplace-based assessment (WBA) impact on medical students' learning in the context of an evaluation of a workplace-based performance assessment: the teamwork mini-clinical evaluation exercise (T-MEX). The T-MEX enables observation-based measurement of and feedback on the behaviours required to collaborate effectively as a junior doctor within the health care team. The instrument is based on the mini-clinical evaluation exercise (mini-CEX) format and focuses on clinical encounters such as consultations with medical and allied health professionals, discharge plan preparation, handovers and team meetings. The assessment was implemented during a 6-week period in 2010 with 25 medical students during their final clinical rotation. Content analysis was conducted on the written feedback provided by 23 assessors and the written reflections and action plans proposed by the 25 student participants (in 88 T-MEX forms). Semi-structured interviews with seven assessors and three focus groups with 14 student participants were conducted and the educational impact was explored through thematic analysis. The study enabled the identification of features of WBA that promote the development of collaborative competencies. The focus of the assessment on clinical encounters and behaviours important for collaboration provided opportunities for students to engage with the health care team and highlighted the role of teamwork in these encounters. The focus on specific behaviours and a stage-appropriate response scale helped students identify learning goals and facilitated the provision of focused feedback. Incorporating these features within an established format helped students and supervisors to engage with the instrument. Extending the format to include structured reflection enabled students to self-evaluate and develop plans for improvement. The findings illuminate the mechanisms by which WBA facilitates learning. The

[Investigation of team processes that enhance team performance in business organization].

Science.gov (United States)

Nawata, Kengo; Yamaguchi, Hiroyuki; Hatano, Toru; Aoshima, Mika

2015-02-01

Many researchers have suggested team processes that enhance team performance. However, past team process models were based on crew team, whose all team members perform an indivisible temporary task. These models may be inapplicable business teams, whose individual members perform middle- and long-term tasks assigned to individual members. This study modified the teamwork model of Dickinson and McIntyre (1997) and aimed to demonstrate a whole team process that enhances the performance of business teams. We surveyed five companies (member N = 1,400, team N = 161) and investigated team-level-processes. Results showed that there were two sides of team processes: "communication" and "collaboration to achieve a goal." Team processes in which communication enhanced collaboration improved team performance with regard to all aspects of the quantitative objective index (e.g., current income and number of sales), supervisor rating, and self-rating measurements. On the basis of these results, we discuss the entire process by which teamwork enhances team performance in business organizations.

Global engineering teams - a programme promoting teamwork in engineering design and manufacturing

Science.gov (United States)

Oladiran, M. T.; Uziak, J.; Eisenberg, M.; Scheffer, C.

2011-05-01

Engineering graduates are expected to possess various competencies categorised into hard and soft skills. The hard skills are acquired through specific coursework, but the soft skills are often treated perfunctorily. Global Engineering Teams (GET) is a programme that promotes project-oriented tasks in virtual student teams working in collaboration with industry partners. Teamwork is a major success factor for GET as students always work in groups of varying sizes. A questionnaire-based survey of the 2008 cohort of GET students was conducted to assess teamwork, communication and conflict resolution among group members. The results confirmed that deliverables are readily achieved in teams and communication was open. A challenge of using virtual teams is the availability of high-speed Internet access. The GET programme shows that it is possible to deliver engineering design and manufacturing via industry/university collaboration. The programme also facilitates multidisciplinary teamwork at an international level.

Putting the "Team" in the Fine Arts Team: An Application of Business Management Team Concepts

Science.gov (United States)

Fisher, Ryan

2007-01-01

In this article, the author discusses current challenges to the idea of teamwork in fine arts teams, redefines the terms team and collaboration using a business management perspective, discusses the success of effective teams in the business world and the characteristics of those teams, and proposes the implementation of the business model of…

Aerospace Systems Design in NASA's Collaborative Engineering Environment

Science.gov (United States)

Monell, Donald W.; Piland, William M.

1999-01-01

Past designs of complex aerospace systems involved an environment consisting of collocated design teams with project managers, technical discipline experts, and other experts (e.g. manufacturing and systems operations). These experts were generally qualified only on the basis of past design experience and typically had access to a limited set of integrated analysis tools. These environments provided less than desirable design fidelity, often lead to the inability of assessing critical programmatic and technical issues (e.g., cost risk, technical impacts), and generally derived a design that was not necessarily optimized across the entire system. The continually changing, modern aerospace industry demands systems design processes that involve the best talent available (no matter where it resides) and access to the best design and analysis tools. A solution to these demands involves a design environment referred to as collaborative engineering. The collaborative engineering environment evolving within the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is a capability that enables the Agency's engineering infrastructure to interact and use the best state-of-the-art tools and data across organizational boundaries. Using collaborative engineering, the collocated team is replaced with an interactive team structure where the team members are geographically distributed and the best engineering talent can be applied to the design effort regardless of physical location. In addition, a more efficient, higher quality design product is delivered by bringing together the best engineering talent with more up-to-date design and analysis tools. These tools are focused on interactive, multidisciplinary design and analysis with emphasis on the complete life cycle of the system, and they include nontraditional, integrated tools for life cycle cost estimation and risk assessment. NASA has made substantial progress during the last two years in developing a collaborative

Aerospace Systems Design in NASA's Collaborative Engineering Environment

Science.gov (United States)

Monell, Donald W.; Piland, William M.

2000-07-01

Past designs of complex aerospace systems involved an environment consisting of collocated design teams with project managers, technical discipline experts, and other experts (e.g., manufacturing and systems operations). These experts were generally qualified only on the basis of past design experience and typically had access to a limited set of integrated analysis tools. These environments provided less than desirable design fidelity, often led to the inability of assessing critical programmatic and technical issues (e.g., cost, risk, technical impacts), and generally derived a design that was not necessarily optimized across the entire system. The continually changing, modern aerospace industry demands systems design processes that involve the best talent available (no matter where it resides) and access to the best design and analysis tools. A solution to these demands involves a design environment referred to as collaborative engineering. The collaborative engineering environment evolving within the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is a capability that enables the Agency's engineering infrastructure to interact and use the best state-of-the-art tools and data across organizational boundaries. Using collaborative engineering, the collocated team is replaced with an interactive team structure where the team members are geographically distributed and the best engineering talent can be applied to the design effort regardless of physical location. In addition, a more efficient, higher quality design product is delivered by bringing together the best engineering talent with more up-to-date design and analysis tools. These tools are focused on interactive, multidisciplinary design and analysis with emphasis on the complete life cycle of the system, and they include nontraditional, integrated tools for life cycle cost estimation and risk assessment. NASA has made substantial progress during the last two years in developing a collaborative

Closing service system gaps for homeless clients with a dual diagnosis: integrated teams and interagency cooperation.

Science.gov (United States)

Rosenheck, Robert A; Resnick, Sandra G; Morrissey, Joseph P

2003-06-01

There is great concern about fragmentation of mental health service delivery, especially for dually diagnosed homeless people, and apprehension that such fragmentation adversely affects service access and outcomes. This study first seeks to articulate two alternative approaches to the integration of psychiatric and substance abuse services, one involving an integrated team model and the other a collaborative relationship between agencies. It then applies this conceptualization to a sample of dually diagnosed homeless people who participated in the ACCESS demonstration. Longitudinal outcome data were obtained through interviews at baseline, 3 months, and 12 months with homeless clients with a dual diagnosis (N = 1074) who received ACT-like case management services through the ACCESS demonstration. A survey of ACCESS case managers was conducted to obtain information on: (i) the proportion of clients who received substance abuse services directly from ACCESS case management teams, and the proportion who received services from other agencies; and (ii) the perceived quality of the relationship (i.e. communication, cooperation and trust) between providers--both within the same teams and between agencies. Hierarchical linear modeling was then used to examine the relationship of these two factors to service use and outcome with mixed-model regression analysis. Significant (pintegrated team care is more effective than interagency collaborations. This study broadens the conceptual framework for addressing service system fragmentation by considering both single team integration and interagency coordination, and by considering both program structure and the quality of relationships between providers. Data from a multi-site outcome study demonstrated suggestive associations between perceptions of communication, cooperation and measures of clinical service use. However, the proportion of clients treated entirely within a single team was associated with poorer housing and

Collaborative Virtual 3D Environment for Internet-Accessible Physics Experiments

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bettina Scheucher

2009-08-01

Full Text Available Abstract—Immersive 3D worlds have increasingly raised the interest of researchers and practitioners for various learning and training settings over the last decade. These virtual worlds can provide multiple communication channels between users and improve presence and awareness in the learning process. Consequently virtual 3D environments facilitate collaborative learning and training scenarios. In this paper we focus on the integration of internet-accessible physics experiments (iLabs combined with the TEALsim 3D simulation toolkit in Project Wonderland, Sun's toolkit for creating collaborative 3D virtual worlds. Within such a collaborative environment these tools provide the opportunity for teachers and students to work together as avatars as they control actual equipment, visualize physical phenomenon generated by the experiment, and discuss the results. In particular we will outline the steps of integration, future goals, as well as the value of a collaboration space in Wonderland's virtual world.

Open innovation competence : towards a competence profile for inter-organizational collaboration innovation teams

OpenAIRE

Chatenier, du, E.

2009-01-01

Global competition and specialisation have resulted in an innovation trend called ‘open innovation’, in which companies develop new products, services or markets collaboratively, by using each others’ know-how, technology, licenses, brands or market channels. A complex form of open innovation is pooled R&D or co-development in strategic partnerships, i.e., open innovation teams. These partnerships embody mutual working relationships between two or more parties aimed at creating and delive...

Awareness of the Care Team in Electronic Health Records

Science.gov (United States)

Vawdrey, D.K.; Wilcox, L.G.; Collins, S.; Feiner, S.; Mamykina, O.; Stein, D.M.; Bakken, S.; Fred, M.R.; Stetson, P.D.

2011-01-01

Objective To support collaboration and clinician-targeted decision support, electronic health records (EHRs) must contain accurate information about patients’ care providers. The objective of this study was to evaluate two approaches for care provider identification employed within a commercial EHR at a large academic medical center. Methods We performed a retrospective review of EHR data for 121 patients in two cardiology wards during a four-week period. System audit logs of chart accesses were analyzed to identify the clinicians who were likely participating in the patients’ hospital care. The audit log data were compared with two functions in the EHR for documenting care team membership: 1) a vendor-supplied module called “Care Providers”, and 2) a custom “Designate Provider” order that was created primarily to improve accuracy of the attending physician of record documentation. Results For patients with a 3–5 day hospital stay, an average of 30.8 clinicians accessed the electronic chart, including 10.2 nurses, 1.4 attending physicians, 2.3 residents, and 5.4 physician assistants. The Care Providers module identified 2.7 clinicians/patient (1.8 attending physicians and 0.9 nurses). The Designate Provider order identified 2.1 clinicians/patient (1.1 attending physicians, 0.2 resident physicians, and 0.8 physician assistants). Information about other members of patients’ care teams (social workers, dietitians, pharmacists, etc.) was absent. Conclusions The two methods for specifying care team information failed to identify numerous individuals involved in patients’ care, suggesting that commercial EHRs may not provide adequate tools for care team designation. Improvements to EHR tools could foster greater collaboration among care teams and reduce communication-related risks to patient safety. PMID:22574103

Collaborative and Bidirectional Feedback Between Students and Clinical Preceptors: Promoting Effective Communication Skills on Health Care Teams.

Science.gov (United States)

Myers, Kara; Chou, Calvin L

2016-11-01

Current literature on feedback suggests that clinical preceptors lead feedback conversations that are primarily unidirectional, from preceptor to student. While this approach may promote clinical competency, it does not actively develop students' competency in facilitating feedback discussions and providing feedback across power differentials (ie, from student to preceptor). This latter competency warrants particular attention given its fundamental role in effective health care team communication and its related influence on patient safety. Reframing the feedback process as collaborative and bidirectional, where both preceptors and students provide and receive feedback, maximizes opportunities for role modeling and skills practice in the context of a supportive relationship, thereby enhancing team preparedness. We describe an initiative to introduce these fundamental skills of collaborative, bidirectional feedback in the nurse-midwifery education program at the University of California, San Francisco. © 2016 by the American College of Nurse-Midwives.

Improving collaboration between primary care research networks using Access Grid technology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zsolt Nagykaldi

2008-05-01

Full Text Available Access Grid (AG is an Internet2-driven, high performance audio_visual conferencing technology used worldwide by academic and government organisations to enhance communication, human interaction and group collaboration. AG technology is particularly promising for improving academic multi-centre research collaborations. This manuscript describes how the AG technology was utilised by the electronic Primary Care Research Network (ePCRN that is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH Roadmap initiative to improve primary care research and collaboration among practice- based research networks (PBRNs in the USA. It discusses the design, installation and use of AG implementations, potential future applications, barriers to adoption, and suggested solutions.

Trust in Diverse Teams

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Clausen, Lisbeth

, maintaining team cohesiveness in multicultural teams to collaborate effectively presents a number of challenges. The present study employs the concept of trust to explore influences on team collaboration in high performing teams. The study is based on observation of teams in seven multinational corporations...... and interviews with managers from the US, Europe, China and Japan. The study presents a conceptual framework - a ‘trust buffer’ – which enables analysis and exemplification of the dynamics and challenges of teams as drivers of change. Each team has strategically important tasks, unique capacities and deal...... with change in particular ways: Each team is analyzed in relation to its global (HQ) mandate, local (national) stakeholders and organizational context. It is found that communication energy, resources and team mandate underscore the sense of trust in high performing teams. Diversity is understood...

The importance of moral emotions for effective collaboration in culturally diverse healthcare teams.

Science.gov (United States)

Cook, Catherine; Brunton, Margaret

2018-04-01

Moral emotions shape the effectiveness of culturally diverse teams. However, these emotions, which are integral to determining ethically responsive patient care and team relationships, typically go unrecognised. The contribution of emotions to moral deliberation is subjugated within the technorational environment of healthcare decision-making. Contemporary healthcare organisations rely on a multicultural workforce charged with the ethical care of vulnerable people. Limited extant literature examines the role of moral emotions in ethical decision-making among culturally diverse healthcare teams. Moral emotions are evident in ethnocentric moral perspectives that construct some colleagues' practices as 'other'. This article examines how moral emotions are evoked when cultural dissonance influences nurses' moral perceptions. We use a qualitative investigation of teamwork within culturally diverse healthcare organisations. We use Haidt's () account of moral emotions to examine practice-based accounts of 36 internationally educated and 17 New Zealand educated nurses practising in New Zealand. The study provides evidence that moral emotions are frequently elicited by communication and care practices considered 'foreign'. The main implication is that although safe practice in healthcare organisations is reliant on highly functioning teams, collaboration is challenged by interprofessional power relations of contested culturally shaped values. We address practice-based strategies that enable engagement with moral emotions to enhance effective teamwork. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Scientific retreats with 'speed dating': networking to stimulate new interdisciplinary translational research collaborations and team science.

Science.gov (United States)

Ranwala, Damayanthi; Alberg, Anthony J; Brady, Kathleen T; Obeid, Jihad S; Davis, Randal; Halushka, Perry V

2017-02-01

To stimulate the formation of new interdisciplinary translational research teams and innovative pilot projects, the South Carolina Clinical and Translational Research (SCTR) Institute (South Carolina Clinical and Translational Science Award, CTSA) initiated biannual scientific retreats with 'speed dating' networking sessions. Retreat themes were prioritized based on the following criteria; cross-cutting topic, unmet medical need, generation of novel technologies and methodologies. Each retreat begins with an external keynote speaker followed by a series of brief research presentations by local researchers focused on the retreat theme, articulating potential areas for new collaborations. After each session of presentations, there is a 30 min scientific 'speed dating' period during which the presenters meet with interested attendees to exchange ideas and discuss collaborations. Retreat attendees are eligible to compete for pilot project funds on the topic of the retreat theme. The 10 retreats held have had a total of 1004 participants, resulted in 61 pilot projects with new interdisciplinary teams, and 14 funded projects. The retreat format has been a successful mechanism to stimulate novel interdisciplinary research teams and innovative translational research projects. Future retreats will continue to target topics of cross-cutting importance to biomedical and public health research. Copyright © 2016 American Federation for Medical Research.

Scientific Retreats with ‘Speed Dating’: Networking to Stimulate New Interdisciplinary Translational Research Collaborations and Team Science

Science.gov (United States)

Alberg, Anthony J.; Brady, Kathleen T.; Obeid, Jihad S.; Davis, Randal; Halushka, Perry V.

2016-01-01

To stimulate the formation of new interdisciplinary translational research teams and innovative pilot projects, the South Carolina Clinical & Translational Research (SCTR) Institute (South Carolina Clinical and Translational Science Award, CTSA) initiated biannual scientific retreats with “speed dating” networking sessions. Retreat themes were prioritized based on the following criteria; cross-cutting topic, unmet medical need, generation of novel technologies and methodologies. Each retreat commences with an external keynote speaker followed by a series of brief research presentations by local researchers focused on the retreat theme, articulating potential areas for new collaborations. After each session of presentations, there is a 30 minute scientific “speed dating” period during which the presenters meet with interested attendees to exchange ideas and discuss collaborations. Retreat attendees are eligible to compete for pilot project funds on the topic of the retreat theme. The 10 retreats held have had a total of 1004 participants, resulted in 61 pilot projects with new interdisciplinary teams, and 14 funded projects. The retreat format has been a successful mechanism to stimulate novel interdisciplinary research teams and innovative translational research projects. Future retreats will continue to target topics of cross-cutting importance to biomedical and public health research. PMID:27807146

Exploring the Benefits of a Collaborative Inquiry Team in Education (CITE) Initiative to Develop a Research Community and Enhance Student Engagement

Science.gov (United States)

Cantalini-Williams, Maria; Curtis, Debra; Eden-DeGasperis, Kimberley; Esposto, Lauren; Guibert, Jenny; Papp, Heather; Roque, Carlos

2015-01-01

This study examined a collaborative inquiry process, facilitated by university faculty in an elementary school, intended to develop a research community, foster knowledge mobilization, and enhance student engagement. The Collaborative Inquiry Team in Education (CITE) initiative consisted of five school-based sessions that included videos,…

Online collaboration environments in telemedicine applications of speech therapy.

Science.gov (United States)

Pierrakeas, C; Georgopoulos, V; Malandraki, G

2005-01-01

The use of telemedicine in speech and language pathology provides patients in rural and remote areas with access to quality rehabilitation services that are sufficient, accessible, and user-friendly leading to new possibilities in comprehensive and long-term, cost-effective diagnosis and therapy. This paper discusses the use of online collaboration environments for various telemedicine applications of speech therapy which include online group speech therapy scenarios, multidisciplinary clinical consulting team, and online mentoring and continuing education.

Collaborative Visualization Project: shared-technology learning environments for science learning

Science.gov (United States)

Pea, Roy D.; Gomez, Louis M.

1993-01-01

Project-enhanced science learning (PESL) provides students with opportunities for `cognitive apprenticeships' in authentic scientific inquiry using computers for data-collection and analysis. Student teams work on projects with teacher guidance to develop and apply their understanding of science concepts and skills. We are applying advanced computing and communications technologies to augment and transform PESL at-a-distance (beyond the boundaries of the individual school), which is limited today to asynchronous, text-only networking and unsuitable for collaborative science learning involving shared access to multimedia resources such as data, graphs, tables, pictures, and audio-video communication. Our work creates user technology (a Collaborative Science Workbench providing PESL design support and shared synchronous document views, program, and data access; a Science Learning Resource Directory for easy access to resources including two-way video links to collaborators, mentors, museum exhibits, media-rich resources such as scientific visualization graphics), and refine enabling technologies (audiovisual and shared-data telephony, networking) for this PESL niche. We characterize participation scenarios for using these resources and we discuss national networked access to science education expertise.

Collaboration between physicians and a hospital-based palliative care team in a general acute-care hospital in Japan

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nishikitani Mariko

2010-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Continual collaboration between physicians and hospital-based palliative care teams represents a very important contributor to focusing on patients' symptoms and maintaining their quality of life during all stages of their illness. However, the traditionally late introduction of palliative care has caused misconceptions about hospital-based palliative care teams (PCTs among patients and general physicians in Japan. The objective of this study is to identify the factors related to physicians' attitudes toward continual collaboration with hospital-based PCTs. Methods This cross-sectional anonymous questionnaire-based survey was conducted to clarify physicians' attitudes toward continual collaboration with PCTs and to describe the factors that contribute to such attitudes. We surveyed 339 full-time physicians, including interns, employed in a general acute-care hospital in an urban area in Japan; the response rate was 53% (N = 155. We assessed the basic characteristics, experience, knowledge, and education of respondents. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to determine the main factors affecting the physicians' attitudes toward PCTs. Results We found that the physicians who were aware of the World Health Organization (WHO analgesic ladder were 6.7 times (OR = 6.7, 95% CI = 1.98-25.79 more likely to want to treat and care for their patients in collaboration with the hospital-based PCTs than were those physicians without such awareness. Conclusion Basic knowledge of palliative care is important in promoting physicians' positive attitudes toward collaboration with hospital-based PCTs.

SharePoint 2007 Collaboration For Dummies

CERN Document Server

Harvey, Greg

2009-01-01

If you're looking for a way to help your teams access what they need to know, work together, and get the job done, SharePoint can do just that. SharePoint 2007 Collaboration For Dummies shows you the easiest way to set up and customize SharePoint, manage your data, interact using SharePoint blogs and wikis, integrate Office programs, and make your office more productive. You'll learn what SharePoint can do and how to make it work for your business, understand the technical terms, and enable your people to collaborate on documents and spreadsheets. You'll even discover how to get SharePoint hel

Group, Team, or Something in Between? Conceptualising and Measuring Team Entitativity

Science.gov (United States)

Vangrieken, Katrien; Boon, Anne; Dochy, Filip; Kyndt, Eva

2017-01-01

The current gap between traditional team research and research focusing on non-strict teams or groups such as teacher teams hampers boundary-crossing investigations of and theorising on teamwork and collaboration. The main aim of this study includes bridging this gap by proposing a continuum-based team concept, describing the distinction between…

High Optical Access Trap 2.0.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Maunz, Peter Lukas Wilhelm [Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)

2016-01-26

The High Optical Access (HOA) trap was designed in collaboration with the Modular Universal Scalable Ion-trap Quantum Computer (MUSIQC) team, funded along with Sandia National Laboratories through IARPA's Multi Qubit Coherent Operations (MQCO) program. The design of version 1 of the HOA trap was completed in September 2012 and initial devices were completed and packaged in February 2013. The second version of the High Optical Access Trap (HOA-2) was completed in September 2014 and is available at IARPA's disposal.

Designing and evaluating an effective theory-based continuing interprofessional education program to improve sepsis care by enhancing healthcare team collaboration.

Science.gov (United States)

Owen, John A; Brashers, Valentina L; Littlewood, Keith E; Wright, Elisabeth; Childress, Reba Moyer; Thomas, Shannon

2014-05-01

Continuing interprofessional education (CIPE) differs from traditional continuing education (CE) in both the learning process and content, especially when it occurs in the workplace. Applying theories to underpin the development, implementation, and evaluation of CIPE activities informs educational design, encourages reflection, and enhances our understanding of CIPE and collaborative practice. The purpose of this article is to describe a process of design, implementation, and evaluation of CIPE through the application of explicit theories related to CIPE and workplace learning. A description of an effective theory-based program delivered to faculty and clinicians to enhance healthcare team collaboration is provided. Results demonstrated that positive changes in provider perceptions of and commitment to team-based care were achieved using this theory-based approach. Following this program, participants demonstrated a greater appreciation for the roles of other team members by indicating that more responsibility for implementing the Surviving Sepsis guideline should be given to nurses and respiratory therapists and less to physicians. Furthermore, a majority (86%) of the participants made commitments to demonstrate specific collaborative behaviors in their own practice. The article concludes with a discussion of our enhanced understanding of CIPE and a reinterpretation of the learning process which has implications for future CIPE workplace learning activities.

Collaboration to Unlock Access : Presentations at the LIBER Conference in ST Petersburg

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Frederick J. Friend

2004-09-01

Full Text Available The opportunities provided by open access to journal literature have generated much interest and discussion. LIBER's approach to this important topic at the St Petersburg Conference was through the theme of collaboration. Each group of stakeholders in scholarly communication, from author through to reader, has an interest in open access. If open access is to be achieved it has to be through collaboration between authors, funding agencies, publishers and librarians working together in the best interests of readers of academic literature. The benefits to individuals and to human society to be gained from open access are described in this quotation from the Budapest Open Access Initiative: "An old tradition and a new technology have converged to make possible an unprecedented public good. The old tradition is the willingness of scientists and scholars to publish the fruits of their research in scholarly journals without payment, for the sake of inquiry and knowledge. The new technology is the internet. The public good they make possible is the world-wide electronic distribution of the peer-reviewed journal literature and completely free and unrestricted access to it by all scientists, scholars, teachers, students, and other curious minds. Removing access barriers to this literature will accelerate research, enrich education, share the learning of the rich with the poor and the poor with the rich, make this literature as useful as it can be, and lay the foundation for uniting humanity in a common intellectual conversation and quest for knowledge." Since calling the meeting which developed the Budapest Open Access Initiative, the Open Society Institute has continued to support discussion and action to implement the two strategies leading to open access identified in Budapest, and the open access session at the LIBER Conference was supported by a grant from OSI.

Interprofessional care collaboration for patients with heart failure.

Science.gov (United States)

Boykin, Amanda; Wright, Danielle; Stevens, Lydia; Gardner, Lauren

2018-01-01

An innovative collaborative care model to improve transitions of care (TOC) for patients with heart failure (HF) is described. As part of a broad effort by New Hanover Regional Medical Center (NHRMC) to reduce avoidable 30-day hospital readmissions and decrease associated healthcare costs through a team-centered, value-based approach to patient care, an interprofessional team was formed to help reduce hospital readmissions among discharged patients with HF. The team consists of 5 TOC pharmacists, 4 community paramedics, and 4 advanced care practitioners (ACPs) who collaborate to coordinate care and prevent 30-day readmissions among patients with HF transitioning from the hospital to the community setting. Each team member plays an integral role in providing high-quality postdischarge care. The TOC pharmacist ensures that patients have access to all needed medications, provides in-home medication reconciliation services, makes medication recommendations, and alerts the team of potential medication-related issues. Community paramedics conduct home visits consisting of physical and mental health assessments, diet and disease state education, reviews of medication bottles and education on proper medication use, and administration of i.v. diuretics to correct volume status under provider orders. The ACPs offer close clinic follow-up (typically initiated within 7 days of discharge) as well as long-term HF management and education. At NHRMC, collaboration among healthcare professionals, including a TOC pharmacist, community paramedics, and ACPs, has assisted in the growth and expansion of services provided to patients with HF. Copyright © 2018 by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, Inc. All rights reserved.

Job satisfaction among mental healthcare professionals: The respective contributions of professional characteristics, team attributes, team processes, and team emergent states

Science.gov (United States)

Fleury, Marie-Josée; Grenier, Guy; Bamvita, Jean-Marie

2017-01-01

Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine the respective contribution of professional characteristics, team attributes, team processes, and team emergent states on the job satisfaction of 315 mental health professionals from Quebec (Canada). Methods: Job satisfaction was measured with the Job Satisfaction Survey. Independent variables were organized into four categories according to a conceptual framework inspired from the Input-Mediator-Outcomes-Input Model. The contribution of each category of variables was assessed using hierarchical regression analysis. Results: Variations in job satisfaction were mostly explained by team processes, with minimal contribution from the other three categories. Among the six variables significantly associated with job satisfaction in the final model, four were team processes: stronger team support, less team conflict, deeper involvement in the decision-making process, and more team collaboration. Job satisfaction was also associated with nursing and, marginally, male gender (professional characteristics) as well as with a stronger affective commitment toward the team (team emergent states). Discussion and Conclusion: Results confirm the importance for health managers of offering adequate support to mental health professionals, and creating an environment favorable to collaboration and decision-sharing, and likely to reduce conflicts between team members. PMID:29276591

Job satisfaction among mental healthcare professionals: The respective contributions of professional characteristics, team attributes, team processes, and team emergent states.

Science.gov (United States)

Fleury, Marie-Josée; Grenier, Guy; Bamvita, Jean-Marie

2017-01-01

The aim of this study was to determine the respective contribution of professional characteristics, team attributes, team processes, and team emergent states on the job satisfaction of 315 mental health professionals from Quebec (Canada). Job satisfaction was measured with the Job Satisfaction Survey. Independent variables were organized into four categories according to a conceptual framework inspired from the Input-Mediator-Outcomes-Input Model. The contribution of each category of variables was assessed using hierarchical regression analysis. Variations in job satisfaction were mostly explained by team processes, with minimal contribution from the other three categories. Among the six variables significantly associated with job satisfaction in the final model, four were team processes: stronger team support, less team conflict, deeper involvement in the decision-making process, and more team collaboration. Job satisfaction was also associated with nursing and, marginally, male gender (professional characteristics) as well as with a stronger affective commitment toward the team (team emergent states). Results confirm the importance for health managers of offering adequate support to mental health professionals, and creating an environment favorable to collaboration and decision-sharing, and likely to reduce conflicts between team members.

Stimulating teachers’ team performance through team-oriented HR practices

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bouwmans, Machiel; Runhaar, Piety; Wesselink, Renate; Mulder, Martin

2017-01-01

Teams of teachers are increasingly held accountable for the quality of education and educational reforms in vocational education and training institutions. However, historically teachers have not been required to engage in deep-level collaboration, thus team-oriented HR practices are being used

Team collaboration in Dutch paediatric rehabilitation. Cooperation between parents, rehabilitation professionals and special education professionals in the care for children with cerebral palsy

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nijhuis, Bianca Gertruda Johanna

2007-01-01

This thesis describes the collaborative processes in Dutch paediatric teams engaged in the care for children with cerebral palsy (CP). The three main stakeholder groups in these teams are the parents and the professionals in child rehabilitation and special education. Although the need for close

Conceptualizing Interprofessional Teams as Multi-Team Systems-Implications for Assessment and Training.

Science.gov (United States)

West, Courtney; Landry, Karen; Graham, Anna; Graham, Lori; Cianciolo, Anna T; Kalet, Adina; Rosen, Michael; Sherman, Deborah Witt

2015-01-01

SGEA 2015 CONFERENCE ABSTRACT (EDITED). Evaluating Interprofessional Teamwork During a Large-Scale Simulation. Courtney West, Karen Landry, Anna Graham, and Lori Graham. CONSTRUCT: This study investigated the multidimensional measurement of interprofessional (IPE) teamwork as part of large-scale simulation training. Healthcare team function has a direct impact on patient safety and quality of care. However, IPE team training has not been the norm. Recognizing the importance of developing team-based collaborative care, our College of Nursing implemented an IPE simulation activity called Disaster Day and invited other professions to participate. The exercise consists of two sessions: one in the morning and another in the afternoon. The disaster scenario is announced just prior to each session, which consists of team building, a 90-minute simulation, and debriefing. Approximately 300 Nursing, Medicine, Pharmacy, Emergency Medical Technicians, and Radiology students and over 500 standardized and volunteer patients participated in the Disaster Day event. To improve student learning outcomes, we created 3 competency-based instruments to evaluate collaborative practice in multidimensional fashion during this exercise. A 20-item IPE Team Observation Instrument designed to assess interprofessional team's attainment of Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) competencies was completed by 20 faculty and staff observing the Disaster Day simulation. One hundred sixty-six standardized patients completed a 10-item Standardized Patient IPE Team Evaluation Instrument developed from the IPEC competencies and adapted items from the 2014 Henry et al. PIVOT Questionnaire. This instrument assessed the standardized or volunteer patient's perception of the team's collaborative performance. A 29-item IPE Team's Perception of Collaborative Care Questionnaire, also created from the IPEC competencies and divided into 5 categories of Values/Ethics, Roles and Responsibilities

Towards Modern Collaborative Knowledge Sharing Systems

CERN Document Server

Świrski, Konrad

2012-01-01

The development of new technologies still accelerates. As a result the requirement of easy access to high quality information is essential in modern scientific society. We believe that new cloud-based online system will replace the old system of books and magazines in the future. This is mainly because contemporary system of journal and conference publications appears to be outdated, especially in such domains as computer science, because process of publishing of an article takes too much time. In this book a new approach of sharing knowledge is proposed. The main idea behind this new approach is to take advantage of collaboration techniques used in industry to share the knowledge and build teams which work on the same subject at different locations. This will allow to accelerate the exchange of information between scientists and allow to build global teams of researchers who deal with the same scientific subjects. Furthermore, an easy access to structured knowledge will facilitate cross domain cooperation. T...

Detecting Inappropriate Access to Electronic Health Records Using Collaborative Filtering.

Science.gov (United States)

Menon, Aditya Krishna; Jiang, Xiaoqian; Kim, Jihoon; Vaidya, Jaideep; Ohno-Machado, Lucila

2014-04-01

Many healthcare facilities enforce security on their electronic health records (EHRs) through a corrective mechanism: some staff nominally have almost unrestricted access to the records, but there is a strict ex post facto audit process for inappropriate accesses, i.e., accesses that violate the facility's security and privacy policies. This process is inefficient, as each suspicious access has to be reviewed by a security expert, and is purely retrospective, as it occurs after damage may have been incurred. This motivates automated approaches based on machine learning using historical data. Previous attempts at such a system have successfully applied supervised learning models to this end, such as SVMs and logistic regression. While providing benefits over manual auditing, these approaches ignore the identity of the users and patients involved in a record access. Therefore, they cannot exploit the fact that a patient whose record was previously involved in a violation has an increased risk of being involved in a future violation. Motivated by this, in this paper, we propose a collaborative filtering inspired approach to predicting inappropriate accesses. Our solution integrates both explicit and latent features for staff and patients, the latter acting as a personalized "finger-print" based on historical access patterns. The proposed method, when applied to real EHR access data from two tertiary hospitals and a file-access dataset from Amazon, shows not only significantly improved performance compared to existing methods, but also provides insights as to what indicates an inappropriate access.

Pharmacy students' attitudes towards physician-pharmacist collaboration: Intervention effect of integrating cooperative learning into an interprofessional team-based community service.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Jun; Hu, Xiamin; Liu, Juan; Li, Lei

2016-09-01

The aim of this study was to evaluate the attitudes towards physician-pharmacist collaboration among pharmacy students in order to develop an interprofessional education (IPE) opportunity through integrating cooperative learning (CL) into a team-based student-supported community service event. The study also aimed to assess the change in students' attitudes towards interprofessional collaboration after participation in the event. A bilingual version of the Scale of Attitudes Toward Physician-Pharmacist Collaboration (SATP(2)C) in English and Chinese was completed by pharmacy students enrolled in Wuhan University of Science and Technology, China. Sixty-four students (32 pharmacy students and 32 medical students) in the third year of their degree volunteered to participate in the IPE opportunity for community-based diabetes and hypertension self-management education. We found the mean score of SATP(2)C among 235 Chinese pharmacy students was 51.44. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.90. Our key finding was a significant increase in positive attitudes towards interprofessional collaboration after participation in the IPE activity. These data suggest that there is an opportunity to deliver IPE in Chinese pharmacy education. It appears that the integration of CL into an interprofessional team-based community service offers a useful approach for IPE.

Effects of presentation modality on team awareness and choice accuracy in a simulated police team task

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Streefkerk, J.W.; Wiering, C.; Esch van-Bussemakers, M.; Neerincx, M.

2008-01-01

Team awareness is important when asking team members for assistance, for example in the police domain. This paper investigates how presentation modality (visual or auditory) of relevant team information and communication influences team awareness and choice accuracy in a collaborative team task. An

2015 ACC Health Policy Statement on Cardiovascular Team-Based Care and the Role of Advanced Practice Providers.

Science.gov (United States)

Brush, John E; Handberg, Eileen M; Biga, Cathleen; Birtcher, Kim K; Bove, Alfred A; Casale, Paul N; Clark, Michael G; Garson, Arthur; Hines, Jerome L; Linderbaum, Jane A; Rodgers, George P; Shor, Robert A; Thourani, Vinod H; Wyman, Janet F

2015-05-19

The mission of the American College of Cardiology is "to transform cardiovascular care and improve heart health." Cardiovascular team-based care is a paradigm for practice that can transform care, improve heart health, and help meet the demands of the future. One strategic goal of the College is to help members successfully transition their clinical practices to the future, with all its complexity, challenges, and opportunities. The ACC's strategic plan is aligned with the triple aim of improved care, improved population health, and lower costs per capita. The traditional understanding of quality, access, and cost is that you cannot improve one component without diminishing the others. With cardiovascular team-based care, it is possible to achieve the triple aim of improving quality, access, and cost simultaneously to also improve cardiovascular health. Striving to serve the best interests of patients is the true north of our guiding principles. Cardiovascular team-based care is a model that can improve care coordination and communication and allow each team member to focus more on the quality of care. In addition, the cardiovascular team-based care model increases access to cardiovascular care and allows expansion of services to populations and geographic areas that are currently underserved. This document will increase awareness of the important components of cardiovascular team-based care and create an opportunity for more discussion about the most creative and effective means of implementing it. We hope that this document will stimulate further discussions and activities within the ACC and beyond about team-based care. We have identified areas that need improvement, specifically in APP education and state regulation. The document encourages the exploration of collaborative care models that should enable team members to optimize their education, training, experience, and talent. Improved team leadership, coordination, collaboration, engagement, and efficiency

Teaming up for learning

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Fransen, Jos

2012-01-01

Fransen, J. (2012). Teaming up for learning: Team effectiveness in collaborative learning in higher education (Doctoral dissertation). November, 16, 2012, Open University in the Netherlands (CELSTEC), Heerlen, The Netherlands.

How do Analogizing and Mental Simulation Influence Team Dynamics in Innovative Product Design?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Casakin, Hernan; Ball, Linden J.; Christensen, Bo T.

2015-01-01

association with team cohesion, whereas solution generation and function finding had a stronger association with team collaboration. We propose that analogizing and mental simulations are strategies that serve valuable functions in engendering enhanced cohesion and collaboration, which might be expected...... and team collaboration. Analogies were coded for “analogical distance” (i.e., within domain or between domain) and “analogical purpose” (i.e., problem identification, function finding, solution generation, and explanation). The results indicated that the presence of either analogizing or mental simulation...... was related to team cohesion and team collaboration, with mental simulation having an especially marked association with team collaboration. Within-domain analogizing was found to enhance team collaboration, but it did not influence team cohesion. Furthermore, all types of analogical purpose showed a similar...

Virtual Teams and Knowledge Communication

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lehtonen, Miikka; Kampf, Constance Elizabeth

2014-01-01

How does culture affect virtual teams and the knowledge communication processes in which they engage? As virtual spaces are increasingly used to support teams and establish collaboration in cross-cultural projects, the notion of cross-cultural communication can be understood as shifting from...... contextual perspective to a semiotic perspective. That is to say, although the team members are using the same vocabulary they might attach different meanings to and have different knowledge about them thus highlighting the importance of approaching virtual teams and collaboration from a semiotic perspective....... To look at how knowledge about virtual work is established in a multinational context, we interviewed members of a team that connects Finland and India. Results reveal five objects shared between the team members with varying knowledge about them. By making these differences in knowledge visible through...

Supporting teachers’ collaboration in design teams to develop Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: the case of science teachers in Tanzania

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kafyulilo, Ayoub; Fisser, Petra; Voogt, Joke; McBride, R.; Searson, M.

2013-01-01

This study assessed the effect of support on the teachers’ collaboration in design teams and development of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK). The study was carried out in two secondary schools in Tanzania: Chang’ombe and Jitegemee secondary schools. From each school 10 teachers

Data Rescue in Collaboration with Federal Open Access Efforts

Science.gov (United States)

Avila, R.

2017-12-01

The recent calls to rescue scientific data is a real opportunity to collaborate with federal agencies which have been spending years managing research data and making it secure. The 2013 memos from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and Office of Management and Budget have spurred innovation across federal agencies to make publicly funded data accessible. Now is the time for stakeholders to take advantage of the groundwork laid by federal government, support the work to expand data sharing, thereby encouraging open science.

Knowledge Translation of Interprofessional Collaborative Patient-Centred Practice: The Working Together Project Experience

Science.gov (United States)

MacDonald, Colla J.; Archibald, Douglas; Stodel, Emma; Chambers, Larry W.; Hall, Pippa

2008-01-01

The Working Together (WT) project involved the design and delivery of an online learning resource for healthcare teams in long-term care (LTC) so that knowledge regarding interprofessional collaborative patient-centred practice (ICPCP) could be readily accessed and then transferred to the workplace. The purpose of this paper is to better…

Collaborative engineering experiences

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ir. Peter van Kollenburg; Dr. Ir. P. Mulders; Ir. Dick van Schenk Brill; Dr. Ir. G. Schouten; Dr. J. Ochs

2000-01-01

In the fall of 1999, an international integrated product development pilot project based on collaborative engineering was started with team members in two international teams from the United States, The Netherlands and Germany. Team members interacted using various Internet capabilities, including,

Improving access to surgery in a developing country: experience from a surgical collaboration in Sierra Leone.

Science.gov (United States)

Kushner, Adam L; Kamara, Thaim B; Groen, Reinou S; Fadlu-Deen, Betsy D; Doah, Kisito S; Kingham, T Peter

2010-01-01

Although surgery is increasingly recognized as an essential component of primary health care, there has been little documentation of surgical programs in low- and middle-income countries. Surgeons OverSeas (SOS) is a New York-based organization with a mission to save lives in developing countries by improving surgical care. This article highlights the surgical program in Sierra Leone as a possible model to improve access to surgery. An SOS team conducted a needs assessment of surgical capacity in Sierra Leone in February 2008. Interventions were then developed and programs were implemented. A follow-up assessment was conducted in December 2009, which included interviews of key Sierra Leone hospital personnel and a review of operating room log books. Based on an initial needs assessment, a program was developed that included training, salary support, and the provision of surgical supplies and equipment. Two 3-day workshops were conducted for a total of 44 health workers, salary support given to over 100 staff, and 2 containers of supplies and equipment were donated. Access to surgery, as measured by the number of major operations at Connaught Hospital, increased from 460 cases in 2007 to 768 cases in 2009. The SOS program in Sierra Leone highlights a method for improving access to surgery that incorporates an initial needs assessment with minimal external support and local staff collaboration. The program functions as a catalyst by providing training, salary support, and supplies. The beneficial results of the program can then be used to advocate for additional resources for surgery from policy makers. This model could be beneficial in other resource-poor countries in which improved access to surgery is desired. Copyright 2010 Association of Program Directors in Surgery. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Fluxnet Synthesis Dataset Collaboration Infrastructure

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Agarwal, Deborah A. [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Humphrey, Marty [Univ. of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA (United States); van Ingen, Catharine [Microsoft. San Francisco, CA (United States); Beekwilder, Norm [Univ. of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA (United States); Goode, Monte [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Jackson, Keith [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Rodriguez, Matt [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Weber, Robin [Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)

2008-02-06

The Fluxnet synthesis dataset originally compiled for the La Thuile workshop contained approximately 600 site years. Since the workshop, several additional site years have been added and the dataset now contains over 920 site years from over 240 sites. A data refresh update is expected to increase those numbers in the next few months. The ancillary data describing the sites continues to evolve as well. There are on the order of 120 site contacts and 60proposals have been approved to use thedata. These proposals involve around 120 researchers. The size and complexity of the dataset and collaboration has led to a new approach to providing access to the data and collaboration support and the support team attended the workshop and worked closely with the attendees and the Fluxnet project office to define the requirements for the support infrastructure. As a result of this effort, a new website (http://www.fluxdata.org) has been created to provide access to the Fluxnet synthesis dataset. This new web site is based on a scientific data server which enables browsing of the data on-line, data download, and version tracking. We leverage database and data analysis tools such as OLAP data cubes and web reports to enable browser and Excel pivot table access to the data.

Public Health Investment in Team Care: Increasing Access to Clinical Preventive Services in Los Angeles County

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tony Kuo

2018-02-01

Full Text Available As part of federal and local efforts to increase access to high quality, clinical preventive services (CPS in underserved populations, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (DPH partnered with six local health system and community organization partners to promote the use of team care for CPS delivery. Although these partners were at different stages of organizational capacity, post-program review suggests that each organization advanced team care in their clinical or community environments, potentially affecting >250,000 client visits per year. Despite existing infrastructure and DPH’s funding support of CPS integration, partner efforts faced several challenges. They included lack of sustainable funding for prevention services; limited access to community resources that support disease prevention; and difficulties in changing health-care provider behavior. Although team care can serve as a catalyst or vehicle for delivering CPS, downstream sustainability of this model of practice requires further state and national policy changes that prioritize prevention. Public health is well positioned to facilitate these policy discussions and to assist health system and community organizations in strengthening CPS integration.

An online app platform enhances collaborative medical student group learning and classroom management.

Science.gov (United States)

Peacock, Justin G; Grande, Joseph P

2016-01-01

The authors presented their results in effectively using a free and widely-accessible online app platform to manage and teach a first-year pathology course at Mayo Medical School. The authors utilized the Google "Blogger", "Forms", "Flubaroo", "Sheets", "Docs", and "Slides" apps to effectively build a collaborative classroom teaching and management system. Students were surveyed on the use of the app platform in the classroom, and 44 (94%) students responded. Thirty-two (73%) of the students reported that "Blogger" was an effective place for online discussion of pathology topics and questions. 43 (98%) of the students reported that the "Forms/Flubaroo" grade-reporting system was helpful. 40 (91%) of the students used the remote, collaborative features of "Slides" to create team-based learning presentations, and 39 (89%) of the students found those collaborative features helpful. "Docs" helped teaching assistants to collaboratively create study guides or grading rubrics. Overall, 41 (93%) of the students found that the app platform was helpful in establishing a collaborative, online classroom environment. The online app platform allowed faculty to build an efficient and effective classroom teaching and management system. The ease of accessibility and opportunity for collaboration allowed for collaborative learning, grading, and teaching.

Information-Pooling Bias in Collaborative Security Incident Correlation Analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Rajivan, Prashanth; Cooke, Nancy J

2018-03-01

Incident correlation is a vital step in the cybersecurity threat detection process. This article presents research on the effect of group-level information-pooling bias on collaborative incident correlation analysis in a synthetic task environment. Past research has shown that uneven information distribution biases people to share information that is known to most team members and prevents them from sharing any unique information available with them. The effect of such biases on security team collaborations are largely unknown. Thirty 3-person teams performed two threat detection missions involving information sharing and correlating security incidents. Incidents were predistributed to each person in the team based on the hidden profile paradigm. Participant teams, randomly assigned to three experimental groups, used different collaboration aids during Mission 2. Communication analysis revealed that participant teams were 3 times more likely to discuss security incidents commonly known to the majority. Unaided team collaboration was inefficient in finding associations between security incidents uniquely available to each member of the team. Visualizations that augment perceptual processing and recognition memory were found to mitigate the bias. The data suggest that (a) security analyst teams, when conducting collaborative correlation analysis, could be inefficient in pooling unique information from their peers; (b) employing off-the-shelf collaboration tools in cybersecurity defense environments is inadequate; and (c) collaborative security visualization tools developed considering the human cognitive limitations of security analysts is necessary. Potential applications of this research include development of team training procedures and collaboration tool development for security analysts.

Enhancing Student Collaboration in Global Virtual Teams

Science.gov (United States)

Kohut, Gary F.

2012-01-01

With the growth in the global economy and the rapid development of communication and information technologies, global virtual teams are quickly becoming the norm in the workplace. Research indicates, however, that many students have little or no experience working in such teams. Students who learn through these experiences benefit from higher task…

Characterizing Distributed Concurrent Engineering Teams: A Descriptive Framework for Aerospace Concurrent Engineering Design Teams

Science.gov (United States)

Chattopadhyay, Debarati; Hihn, Jairus; Warfield, Keith

2011-01-01

As aerospace missions grow larger and more technically complex in the face of ever tighter budgets, it will become increasingly important to use concurrent engineering methods in the development of early conceptual designs because of their ability to facilitate rapid assessments and trades in a cost-efficient manner. To successfully accomplish these complex missions with limited funding, it is also essential to effectively leverage the strengths of individuals and teams across government, industry, academia, and international agencies by increased cooperation between organizations. As a result, the existing concurrent engineering teams will need to increasingly engage in distributed collaborative concurrent design. This paper is an extension of a recent white paper written by the Concurrent Engineering Working Group, which details the unique challenges of distributed collaborative concurrent engineering. This paper includes a short history of aerospace concurrent engineering, and defines the terms 'concurrent', 'collaborative' and 'distributed' in the context of aerospace concurrent engineering. In addition, a model for the levels of complexity of concurrent engineering teams is presented to provide a way to conceptualize information and data flow within these types of teams.

Remote collaboration and data access at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schissel, D.P.

1998-09-01

As the number of on-site and remote collaborators has increased, the demands on the DIII-D National Program's computational infrastructure has become more severe. The Director of the DIII-D Program recognized the increased importance of computers in carrying out the DIII-D mission and in late 1997 formed the Data Analysis Programming Group. Utilizing both software and hardware improvements, this new group has been charged with increasing the DIII-D data analysis throughput and data retrieval rate. Understanding the importance of the remote collaborators, this group has developed a long term plan that will allow for fast 24 hour data access (7x24) with complete documentation and a set of data viewing and analysis tools that can be run either on the collaborators' or DIII-D's computer systems. This paper presents the group's long term plan and progress to date

Drawbacks and benefits associated with inter-organizational collaboration along the discovery-development-delivery continuum: a cancer research network case study.

Science.gov (United States)

Harris, Jenine K; Provan, Keith G; Johnson, Kimberly J; Leischow, Scott J

2012-07-25

The scientific process around cancer research begins with scientific discovery, followed by development of interventions, and finally delivery of needed interventions to people with cancer. Numerous studies have identified substantial gaps between discovery and delivery in health research. Team science has been identified as a possible solution for closing the discovery to delivery gap; however, little is known about effective ways of collaborating within teams and across organizations. The purpose of this study was to determine benefits and drawbacks associated with organizational collaboration across the discovery-development-delivery research continuum. Representatives of organizations working on cancer research across a state answered a survey about how they collaborated with other cancer research organizations in the state and what benefits and drawbacks they experienced while collaborating. We used exponential random graph modeling to determine the association between these benefits and drawbacks and the presence of a collaboration tie between any two network members. Different drawbacks and benefits were associated with discovery, development, and delivery collaborations. The only consistent association across all three was with the drawback of difficulty due to geographic differences, which was negatively associated with collaboration, indicating that those organizations that had collaborated were less likely to perceive a barrier related to geography. The benefit, enhanced access to other knowledge, was positive and significant in the development and delivery networks, indicating that collaborating organizations viewed improved knowledge exchange as a benefit of collaboration. 'Acquisition of additional funding or other resources' and 'development of new tools and methods' were negatively significantly related to collaboration in these networks. So, although improved knowledge access was an outcome of collaboration, more tangible outcomes were not being

Project-focused activity and knowledge tracker: a unified data analysis, collaboration, and workflow tool for medicinal chemistry project teams.

Science.gov (United States)

Brodney, Marian D; Brosius, Arthur D; Gregory, Tracy; Heck, Steven D; Klug-McLeod, Jacquelyn L; Poss, Christopher S

2009-12-01

Advances in the field of drug discovery have brought an explosion in the quantity of data available to medicinal chemists and other project team members. New strategies and systems are needed to help these scientists to efficiently gather, organize, analyze, annotate, and share data about potential new drug molecules of interest to their project teams. Herein we describe a suite of integrated services and end-user applications that facilitate these activities throughout the medicinal chemistry design cycle. The Automated Data Presentation (ADP) and Virtual Compound Profiler (VCP) processes automate the gathering, organization, and storage of real and virtual molecules, respectively, and associated data. The Project-Focused Activity and Knowledge Tracker (PFAKT) provides a unified data analysis and collaboration environment, enhancing decision-making, improving team communication, and increasing efficiency.

Psychometric test of the Team Climate Inventory-short version investigated in Dutch quality improvement teams

OpenAIRE

Nieboer Anna P; Strating Mathilde MH

2009-01-01

Abstract Background Although some studies have used the Team Climate Inventory within teams working in health care settings, none of these included quality improvement teams. The aim of our study is to investigate the psychometric properties of the 14-item version of the Team Climate Inventory in healthcare quality improvement teams participating in a Dutch quality collaborative. Methods This study included quality improvement teams participating in the Care for Better improvement program for...

Occupational emerging risks affecting international virtual project Team Results

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dumitraşcu-Băldău Iulia

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The expansion of internet access, high-speed connection services, collaborative work platforms and tools, allowed employees to interact virtually offering companies the possibility to develop projects around the world, reducing operational costs and gain competitive advantage. Realizing the advantages and disadvantages of developing a project team in an international virtual work environment, requires adopting specific strategies to construct an effective team and ensure the project success. One of the most important disadvantages that we identified is that the new work environment brings new risks for both team members and managers. So, it becomes mandatory to identify and analyze the occupational emerging risks and their impact on the productivity of virtual team members, in order to prevent them efficiently and to ensure the safety and health of employees in a virtual working environment. This paper aims to highlight the necessity for project managers and organizations, to include in their specific project strategies, an efficient occupational risks management in the virtual workplace, to obtain a continuously improved virtual working environment, so to achieve a high performance from virtual employees.

Prehospital intraosseus access with the bone injection gun by a helicopter-transported emergency medical team.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Gerritse, B.M.; Scheffer, G.J.; Draaisma, J.M.T.

2009-01-01

BACKGROUND: To evaluate the use of the bone injection gun to obtain vascular access in the prehospital setting by an Helicopter-Transported Emergency Medical Team. METHODS: Prospective descriptive study to assess the frequency and success rate of the use of the bone injection gun in prehospital care

Learning to Collaborate by Collaborating: A Face-to-Face Collaborative Activity for Measuring and Learning Basics about Teamwork

Science.gov (United States)

Cortez, C.; Nussbaum, M.; Woywood, G.; Aravena, R.

2009-01-01

In today's fast-changing business environment, teams have emerged as a requirement for business success. However, in schools and universities, students are usually not taught teamwork skills. In this paper, we introduce learning to collaborate by collaborating, a process that enables collaboration and teamwork skills to be taught and measured…

Difficulties encountered in collaborative care: logistics trumps desire.

Science.gov (United States)

Legault, Frances; Humbert, Jennie; Amos, Stephanie; Hogg, William; Ward, Natalie; Dahrouge, Simone; Ziebell, Laura

2012-01-01

This study examines the development of collaborative relationships between family physicians (FPs) and Anticipatory And Preventative Team Care (APTCare) team members providing care to medically complex patients who have been identified as at-risk for negative health outcomes. We undertook a qualitative study of a primary health care intervention in a family practice. Interviews were held with FPs and ATPCare intervention nurse practitioners (NPs) and pharmacists. Focus groups were conducted and a survey was administered to participating FPs, NPs, and pharmacists. NPs and pharmacists maintained a log recording their tasks and moments of collaboration. Scheduling demands rendered face-to-face collaboration difficult, leaving the team to rely on technological tools to keep in touch. Limited space meant the APTCare team had to work out of a downstairs office, limiting informal interactions with the practitioners on the main level. We demonstrate that the difficulties inherent in collaborative care are independent of the patient population being cared for. Regardless of the patient population and sector of health care, developing collaborative relationships and learning to work collaboratively is difficult and takes time. What many of these teams need is ongoing support and education about how to make these collaborative care practices work.

Interdisciplinary Team Collaboration during Discharge of Depressed Older Persons: A Norwegian Qualitative Implementation Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anne Lise Holm

2013-01-01

Full Text Available In order to deliver effective care, it is necessary to organise interdisciplinary activities for older persons who suffer from depressive disorders. This paper evaluated the interdisciplinary team members’ perceptions of cooperation in the discharge planning of depressed older persons based on the Chronic Care Model (CCM. A qualitative implementation design was used, data were collected by means of multistage focus groups, and a thematic analysis was performed. Three themes emerged: lack of effective team leadership in the community, the need to change the delivery system, and enhancing self-management support for depressed older persons as well as the participation of their families. It was concluded that nurse managers must find ways of supporting the depressed older persons by better structuring the care, increasing cooperation with organisational leadership, and creating an environment characterised by trust and mutual respect. Distrust can have serious implications for discharge planning collaboration. The development of a common vision of transparency in the organization is important as is a policy of change among leadership and in clinical practice.

Peer and Self-Assessment of Teamwork Collaboration Competencies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Maribo, Peder

2015-01-01

The ability to collaborate in teams is a central learning objective in a course for students enrolled in the elective 6th semester Civil Engineering Program. Therefore, methods for project management and team collaboration were facilitated through a designated course. The teamwork collaboration...... competencies of each student are, however, very difficult to assess for external supervisors not being part of the team. As a consequence, a model for peer and self-assessment of this competence was included as a central part of the course assessment. Each team of 4 persons had a facilitated process of making...... an Agreement of Collaboration (AC) for the project, including listing of values, norms and rules defining their mutual understanding of good teamwork behavior. The AC was discussed with the supervisors and finally signed by each member of the team. At the completion of the project period each team member...

Delivering accessible fieldwork: preliminary findings from a collaborative international study

Science.gov (United States)

Stokes, Alison; Atchison, Christopher; Feig, Anthony; Gilley, Brett

2017-04-01

Students with disabilities are commonly excluded from full participation in geoscience programs, and encounter significant barriers when accessing field-learning experiences. In order to increase talent and diversity in the geoscience workforce, more inclusive learning experiences must be developed that will enable all students to complete the requirements of undergraduate degree programs, including fieldwork. We discuss the outcomes of a completely accessible field course developed through the collaborative effort of geoscience education practitioners from the US, Canada and the UK. This unique field workshop has brought together current geoscience academics and students with disabilities to share perspectives on commonly-encountered barriers to learning in the field, and explore methods and techniques for overcoming them. While the student participants had the opportunity to learn about Earth processes while situated in the natural environment, participating geoscience instructors began to identify how to improve the design of field courses, making them fully inclusive of learners with disabilities. The outcomes from this experience will be used to develop guidelines to facilitate future development and delivery of accessible geoscience fieldwork.

En atferdsfortolkning av team-effektivitet: med fagartikkel: Problemløsende strategi for team-atferd

OpenAIRE

Eriksen-Deinoff, Tina E. Svedenborg

2014-01-01

Master i læring i komplekse systemer The concept of team defines a group of people by design or by selection of behaviour in a collaborating working process. Overall, teams are supposed to perform with better outcome than individuals do. Scholars have voiced the need for more scientific research and documentation of how teams perform with higher efficiency and better effectiveness. Mainly, scholars measure team-effectiveness and team-efficiency with surveys, observer ratings or behavi...

A case study on collaboration within multidisciplinary teamwork

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dederichs, Anne; Karlshøj, Jan; Hertz, Kristian Dahl

2010-01-01

Collaboration within the building process has always been difficult. Additionally the new demands on functionality such as energy and cost efficiency change the roles within the teams of engineers and architects, engaged in building design and generate a need of new work methods within the process...... and teamwork at the final stage of the engineering education. The course was held by a multidisciplinary team of teachers for 9 multidisciplinary teams of students. The team of teachers and the student teams had similar working conditions. These teams were subject of investigation on collaboration...... and transprofessionalism. 32 students and 7 teachers answered a questionnaire leading to the following findings. Collaboration was improving during the course. Other than in traditional building teams we could see that the students placed the role as a designer only in a few cases were perceived the team leader...

Conflicting messages: examining the dynamics of leadership on interprofessional teams.

Science.gov (United States)

Lingard, Lorelei; Vanstone, Meredith; Durrant, Michele; Fleming-Carroll, Bonnie; Lowe, Mandy; Rashotte, Judy; Sinclair, Lynne; Tallett, Susan

2012-12-01

Despite the importance of leadership in interprofessional health care teams, little is understood about how it is enacted. The literature emphasizes a collaborative approach of shared leadership, but this may be challenging for clinicians working within the traditionally hierarchical health care system. Using case study methodology, the authors collected observation and interview data from five interprofessional health care teams working at teaching hospitals in urban Ontario, Canada. They interviewed 46 health care providers and conducted 139 hours of observation from January 2008 through June 2009. Although the members of the interprofessional teams agreed about the importance of collaborative leadership and discussed ways in which their teams tried to achieve it, evidence indicated that the actual enactment of collaborative leadership was a challenge. The participating physicians indicated a belief that their teams functioned nonhierarchically, but reports from the nonphysician clinicians and the authors' observation data revealed that hierarchical behaviors persisted, even from those who most vehemently denied the presence of hierarchies on their teams. A collaborative approach to leadership may be challenging for interprofessional teams embedded in traditional health care, education, and medical-legal systems that reinforce the idea that physicians sit at the top of the hierarchy. By openly recognizing and discussing the tensions between traditional and interprofessional discourses of collaborative leadership, it may be possible to help interprofessional teams, physicians and clinicians alike, work together more effectively.

Probing Aircraft Flight Test Hazard Mitigation for the Alternative Fuel Effects on Contrails & Cruise Emissions (ACCESS) Research Team

Science.gov (United States)

Kelly, Michael J.

2013-01-01

The Alternative Fuel Effects on Contrails & Cruise Emissions (ACCESS) Project Integration Manager requested in July 2012 that the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) form a team to independently assess aircraft structural failure hazards associated with the ACCESS experiment and to identify potential flight test hazard mitigations to ensure flight safety. The ACCESS Project Integration Manager subsequently requested that the assessment scope be focused predominantly on structural failure risks to the aircraft empennage raft empennage.

Processes of international collaboration in management research

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jonsen, Karsten; Butler, Christina; Mäkelä, Kristiina

2013-01-01

Scientists and academics increasingly work on collaborative projects and write papers in international research teams. This trend is driven by greater publishing demands in terms of the quality and breadth of data and analysis methods, which tend to be difficult to achieve without collaborating...... across institutional and national boundaries. Yet, our understanding of the collaborative processes in an academic setting and the potential tensions associated with them remains limited. We use a reflexive, autoethnographic approach to explicitly investigate our own experiences of international...... collaborative research. We offer systematic insights into the social and intellectual processes of academic collaborative writing, identifying six lessons and two key tensions that influence the success of international research teams. Our findings may benefit the formation of future coauthor teams...

Intellectual Data Analysis Method for Evaluation of Virtual Teams

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sandra Strigūnaitė

2013-01-01

Full Text Available The purpose of the article is to present a method for virtual team performance evaluation based on intelligent team member collaboration data analysis. The motivation for the research is based on the ability to create an evaluation method that is similar to ambiguous expert evaluations. The concept of the hierarchical fuzzy rule based method aims to evaluate the data from virtual team interaction instances related to implementation of project tasks. The suggested method is designed for project managers or virtual team leaders to help in virtual teamwork evaluation that is based on captured data analysis. The main point of the method is the ability to repeat human thinking and expert valuation process for data analysis by applying fuzzy logic: fuzzy sets, fuzzy signatures and fuzzy rules. The fuzzy set principle used in the method allows evaluation criteria numerical values to transform into linguistic terms and use it in constructing fuzzy rules. Using a fuzzy signature is possible in constructing a hierarchical criteria structure. This structure helps to solve the problem of exponential increase of fuzzy rules including more input variables. The suggested method is aimed to be applied in the virtual collaboration software as a real time teamwork evaluation tool. The research shows that by applying fuzzy logic for team collaboration data analysis it is possible to get evaluations equal to expert insights. The method includes virtual team, project task and team collaboration data analysis. The advantage of the suggested method is the possibility to use variables gained from virtual collaboration systems as fuzzy rules inputs. Information on fuzzy logic based virtual teamwork collaboration evaluation has evidence that can be investigated in the future. Also the method can be seen as the next virtual collaboration software development step.

Facebook as a tool for communication, collaboration, and informal knowledge exchange among members of a multisite family health team.

Science.gov (United States)

Lofters, Aisha K; Slater, Morgan B; Nicholas Angl, Emily; Leung, Fok-Han

2016-01-01

To implement and evaluate a private Facebook group for members of a large Ontario multisite Family Health Team (FHT) to facilitate improved communication and collaboration. Program implementation and subsequent survey of team members. A large multisite FHT in Toronto, Ontario. Health professionals of the FHT. Usage patterns and self-reported perceptions of the Facebook group by team members. At the time of the evaluation survey, the Facebook group had 43 members (37.4% of all FHT members). Activity in the group was never high, and posts by team members who were not among the researchers were infrequent throughout the study period. The content of posts fell into two broad categories: 1) information that might be useful to various team members and 2) questions posed by team members that others might be able to answer. Of the 26 team members (22.6%) who completed the evaluation survey, many reported that they never logged into the Facebook page (16 respondents), and never used it to communicate with team members outside of their own site of practice (19 respondents). Only six respondents reported no concerns with using Facebook as a professional communication tool; the most frequent concerns were regarding personal and patient privacy. The use of social media by health care practitioners is becoming ubiquitous. However, the issues of privacy concerns and determining how to use social media without adding to provider workload must be addressed to make it a useful tool in health care.

Virtual Team Governance: Addressing the Governance Mechanisms and Virtual Team Performance

Science.gov (United States)

Zhan, Yihong; Bai, Yu; Liu, Ziheng

As technology has improved and collaborative software has been developed, virtual teams with geographically dispersed members spread across diverse physical locations have become increasingly prominent. Virtual team is supported by advancing communication technologies, which makes virtual teams able to largely transcend time and space. Virtual teams have changed the corporate landscape, which are more complex and dynamic than traditional teams since the members of virtual teams are spread on diverse geographical locations and their roles in the virtual team are different. Therefore, how to realize good governance of virtual team and arrive at good virtual team performance is becoming critical and challenging. Good virtual team governance is essential for a high-performance virtual team. This paper explores the performance and the governance mechanism of virtual team. It establishes a model to explain the relationship between the performance and the governance mechanisms in virtual teams. This paper is focusing on managing virtual teams. It aims to find the strategies to help business organizations to improve the performance of their virtual teams and arrive at the objectives of good virtual team management.

CILogon: An Integrated Identity and Access Management Platform for Science

Science.gov (United States)

Basney, J.

2016-12-01

When scientists work together, they use web sites and other software to share their ideas and data. To ensure the integrity of their work, these systems require the scientists to log in and verify that they are part of the team working on a particular science problem. Too often, the identity and access verification process is a stumbling block for the scientists. Scientific research projects are forced to invest time and effort into developing and supporting Identity and Access Management (IAM) services, distracting them from the core goals of their research collaboration. CILogon provides an IAM platform that enables scientists to work together to meet their IAM needs more effectively so they can allocate more time and effort to their core mission of scientific research. The CILogon platform enables federated identity management and collaborative organization management. Federated identity management enables researchers to use their home organization identities to access cyberinfrastructure, rather than requiring yet another username and password to log on. Collaborative organization management enables research projects to define user groups for authorization to collaboration platforms (e.g., wikis, mailing lists, and domain applications). CILogon's IAM platform serves the unique needs of research collaborations, namely the need to dynamically form collaboration groups across organizations and countries, sharing access to data, instruments, compute clusters, and other resources to enable scientific discovery. CILogon provides a software-as-a-service platform to ease integration with cyberinfrastructure, while making all software components publicly available under open source licenses to enable re-use. Figure 1 illustrates the components and interfaces of this platform. CILogon has been operational since 2010 and has been used by over 7,000 researchers from more than 170 identity providers to access cyberinfrastructure including Globus, LIGO, Open Science Grid

Research teams as complex systems: implications for knowledge management

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vasileiadou, E.

2012-01-01

The recent increase in research collaboration creates the need to better understand the interaction between individual researchers and the collaborative team. The paper elaborates the conceptualisation of research teams as complex systems which emerge out of the local interactions of individual

Computer-mediated interdisciplinary teams: theory and reality.

Science.gov (United States)

Vroman, Kerryellen; Kovacich, Joann

2002-05-01

The benefit of experience, tempered with the wisdom of hindsight and 5 years of text-based, asynchronous, computer-mediated, interdisciplinary team communications, provides the energy, insights and data shared in this article. Through the theoretical lens of group dynamics and the epistemology of interdisciplinary teaming, we analyze the interactions of a virtual interdisciplinary team to provide an understanding and appreciation of collaborative interdisciplinary communication in the context of interactive technologies. Whilst interactive technologies may require new patterns of language similar to that of learning a foreign language, what is communicated in the interdisciplinary team process does not change. Most important is the recognition that virtual teams, similar to their face-to-face counterparts, undergo the same challenges of interdisciplinary teaming and group developmental processes of formation: forming, storming, norming, performing, and transforming. After examining these dynamics of communication and collaboration in the context of the virtual team, the article concludes with guidelines facilitating interdisciplinary team computer-mediated communication.

An academic-VA partnership: Student interprofessional teams integrated with VA PACT teams.

Science.gov (United States)

Swenty, Constance L; Schaar, Gina L; Butler, Ryan M

2016-12-01

Veterans are challenged with multiple unique healthcare issues related to their military service environment. Likewise, health care providers must understand the special concerns associated with military conflict and recognize how the veteran's care can be optimized by interprofessional care delivery. Little is taught didactically or clinically that supports nursing students in addressing the unique issues of the veteran or the student's need to work collaboratively with allied health team members to enhance the veteran's care. Because of limited exposure to the veteran's special conditions, nursing students who may seek a career with the veteran population often face challenges in rendering appropriate care. The VA offers an invaluable opportunity for health profession students to collaborate with VA interprofessional Patient Aligned Care Teams (PACT) ultimately optimizing veteran health outcomes. This academic partnership, that implements an interprofessional model, will prepare students to better embrace the veteran population. This article describes the immersion of health profession students in interprofessional collaborative practice (IPCP) using PACT team principles which ultimately promotes the students' ability to link theory content to patient care delivery. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

SPEAKING IN TEAMS: MOTIVATING A PATTERN LANGUAGE FOR COLLABORATION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Darrin Hicks

2004-12-01

Full Text Available Collaborative work is increasing in frequency and importance in business, academia, and communities. The knowledge behind what makes for a successful collaboration is also increasing but is normally focused on only one aspect of collaboration theory. The understanding of how successful collaborations are built is greatly improved by the creation of a unified framework that organises and transfers knowledge and practices. The framework proposed in this paper is the concept of a pattern language for collaboration. The notion of a pattern language was first detailed in 1979 by Christopher Alexander in his book, A Timeless Way of Building [1]. A pattern language consists of a hierarchy of individual patterns that are used to solve problems associated with the parts in the pattern. When developed, researchers can use a pattern language for collaboration as a tool set to evaluate existing collaborations, repair unhealthy collaborations, and build future collaborations. The core concept is that the structure of an environment guides the pattern of events that occurs. A healthy collaboration is more likely to be responsive to the needs of its community and robust enough to overcome unanticipated challenges. The development and evolution of the pattern language is similar to a genetic process in that quality of the overall language emerges from the interaction of individual and complex patterns. The article applies the pattern language to the real world example of twenty eight different collaborations that are part of the Colorado Healthy Communities Initiative to illustrate the application of the pattern language in context. The article closes with recommendations for future development of the language.

Open Access Research via Collaborative Educational Blogging: A Case Study from Library & Information Science

Science.gov (United States)

Rebmann, Kristen Radsliff; Clark, Camden Bernard

2017-01-01

This article charts the development of activities for online graduate students in library and information science. Project goals include helping students develop competencies in understanding open access publishing, synthesizing research in the field, and engaging in scholarly communication via collaborative educational blogging. Using a design…

Collaborative exams: Cheating? Or learning?

Science.gov (United States)

Jang, Hyewon; Lasry, Nathaniel; Miller, Kelly; Mazur, Eric

2017-03-01

Virtually all human activity involves collaboration, and yet, collaboration during an examination is typically considered cheating. Collaborative assessments have not been widely adopted because of the perceived lack of individual accountability and the notion that collaboration during assessments simply causes propagation of correct answers. Hence, collaboration could help weaker students without providing much benefit to stronger students. In this paper, we examine student performance in open-ended, two-stage collaborative assessments comprised of an individually accountable round followed by an automatically scored, collaborative round. We show that collaboration entails more than just propagation of correct answers. We find greater rates of correct answers after collaboration for all students, including the strongest members of a team. We also find that half of teams that begin without a correct answer to propagate still obtain the correct answer in the collaborative round. Our findings, combined with the convenience of automatic feedback and grading of open-ended questions, provide a strong argument for adopting collaborative assessments as an integral part of education.

Applying organizational science to health care: a framework for collaborative practice.

Science.gov (United States)

Dow, Alan W; DiazGranados, Deborah; Mazmanian, Paul E; Retchin, Sheldon M

2013-07-01

Developing interprofessional education (IPE) curricula that improve collaborative practice across professions has proven challenging. A theoretical basis for understanding collaborative practice in health care settings is needed to guide the education and evaluation of health professions trainees and practitioners and support the team-based delivery of care. IPE should incorporate theory-driven, evidence-based methods and build competency toward effective collaboration.In this article, the authors review several concepts from the organizational science literature and propose using these as a framework for understanding how health care teams function. Specifically, they outline the team process model of action and planning phases in collaborative work; discuss leadership and followership, including how locus (a leader's integration into a team's usual work) and formality (a leader's responsibility conferred by the traditional hierarchy) affect team functions; and describe dynamic delegation, an approach to conceptualizing escalation and delegation within health care teams. For each concept, they identify competencies for knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors to aid in the development of innovative curricula to improve collaborative practice. They suggest that gaining an understanding of these principles will prepare health care trainees, whether team leaders or members, to analyze team performance, adapt behaviors that improve collaboration, and create team-based health care delivery processes that lead to improved clinical outcomes.

Entrepreneurial Thinking in Interdisciplinary Student Teams

Science.gov (United States)

Neumeyer, Xaver; McKenna, Ann

2016-01-01

Our work investigates students' perception of collaborative expertise and the role of inquiry-based learning in the context of team-based entrepreneurship education. Specifically, we examine students' perception of communication, division of work, shared goals, team conflicts and leadership in their respective teams. In addition, we look at the…

uCollaborator: Framework for STEM Project Collaboration among Geographically-Dispersed Student/Faculty Teams

Science.gov (United States)

Fiore, Stephen M.; Rodriguez, Walter E.; Carstens, Deborah S.

2012-01-01

This paper presents a framework for facilitating communication among STEM project teams that are geographically dispersed in synchronous or asynchronous online courses. The framework has been developed to: (a) improve how engineering and technology students and faculty work with collocated and geographically-dispersed teams; and (b) to connect the…

Diversity Management in Global Teams

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Clausen, Lisbeth

2016-01-01

implemented in the local organization? How are organizational culture, vision and images aligned with the team processes to accomplish the task? Does professional (functional) expertise influence team collaboration and finally how do individual experiences and coping strategies matter? The US and Japan...

Collaborative Planetary GIS with JMARS

Science.gov (United States)

Dickenshied, S.; Christensen, P. R.; Edwards, C. S.; Prashad, L. C.; Anwar, S.; Engle, E.; Noss, D.; Jmars Development Team

2010-12-01

Traditional GIS tools have allowed users to work locally with their own datasets in their own computing environment. More recently, data providers have started offering online repositories of preprocessed data which helps minimize the learning curve required to access new datasets. The ideal collaborative GIS tool provides the functionality of a traditional GIS and easy access to preprocessed data repositories while also enabling users to contribute data, analysis, and ideas back into the very tools they're using. JMARS (Java Mission-planning and Analysis for Remote Sensing) is a suite of geospatial applications developed by the Mars Space Flight Facility at Arizona State University. This software is used for mission planning and scientific data analysis by several NASA missions, including Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. It is used by scientists, researchers and students of all ages from more than 40 countries around the world. In addition to offering a rich set of global and regional maps and publicly released orbiter images, the JMARS software development team has been working on ways to encourage the creation of collaborative datasets. Bringing together users from diverse teams and backgrounds allows new features to be developed with an interest in making the application useful and accessible to as wide a potential audience as possible. Actively engaging the scientific community in development strategy and hands on tasks allows the creation of user driven data content that would not otherwise be possible. The first community generated dataset to result from this effort is a tool mapping peer-reviewed papers to the locations they relate to on Mars with links to ancillary data. This allows users of JMARS to browse to an area of interest and then quickly locate papers corresponding to that area. Alternately, users can search for published papers over a specified time interval and visually see what areas of Mars have

Exploring Students' Acceptance of Team Messaging Services: The Roles of Social Presence and Motivation

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Yong-Ming

2017-01-01

Team messaging services represent a type of cloud computing applications that support not only the messaging among users but also the collaboration in a team. Accordingly, team messaging services have great potential to facilitate students' collaboration. However, only few studies utilized such services to support students' collaboration and…

Collaboration in the provision of mental health care services

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jaruseviciene, L.; Valius, L.; Lazarus, J.V.

2012-01-01

collaboration with mental health teams were a lack of GPs'confidence in their communication skills and ability to diagnose the most frequent mental disorders, prompt referral to mental health team specialists, low estimation of the prevalence of non-managed mental disorders, and location of mental health team......Background. General practitioners (GPs) often become the first point of care for mental health issues. Improved collaboration between GPs and mental health teams can make a GP's mental health services more efficient. Objective. The aim of this study was to assess the collaboration between GPs...... and mental health team members and determine predictors for better collaboration. Methods. In this cross-sectional study, a 41- item questionnaire was distributed to a random sample of 797 Lithuanian GPs. The purpose of this questionnaire was to obtain knowledge about current practices of GPs in providing...

Exploring team working in dentistry using a process model of team effectiveness

OpenAIRE

Willcocks, Stephen George

2018-01-01

This article explores team working in the context of dentistry in the UK. It uses an input-process-output model of team effectiveness as a framework to analyse the key issues and determine a possible way forward. The article outlines possible barriers to effective team working revealed by the application of this model. It is argued that collaborative working is important and may be facilitated by shared leadership. It discusses the implications of this and how this may be developed.

Productive international collaboration in the large coil task

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Haubenreich, P.N.; Komarek, P.; Shimamoto, S.; Vecsey, G.

1987-01-01

The Large Coil Task (LCT), initiated in 1977, has been very productive of useful technical information about superconducting toroidal field (TF) coil design and manufacture. Moreover, it has demonstrated close international collaboration in fusion technology development, including integration of large components built in four different countries. Each of six 40-t test coils was designed and produced by a major industrial team, with government laboratory guidance, to a common set of specifications. The six were assembled into a toroidal array for testing in the International Fusion Superconducting Magnet Test Facility (IFSMTF) at Oak Ridge. Testing was done by a team of representatives of EURATOM, Japan, Switzerland, and the United States, with each participant having full access to all data. Coils were thoroughly instrumented, enabling penetrating analysis of behavior

Creating and supporting a mixed methods health services research team.

Science.gov (United States)

Bowers, Barbara; Cohen, Lauren W; Elliot, Amy E; Grabowski, David C; Fishman, Nancy W; Sharkey, Siobhan S; Zimmerman, Sheryl; Horn, Susan D; Kemper, Peter

2013-12-01

To use the experience from a health services research evaluation to provide guidance in team development for mixed methods research. The Research Initiative Valuing Eldercare (THRIVE) team was organized by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to evaluate The Green House nursing home culture change program. This article describes the development of the research team and provides insights into how funders might engage with mixed methods research teams to maximize the value of the team. Like many mixed methods collaborations, the THRIVE team consisted of researchers from diverse disciplines, embracing diverse methodologies, and operating under a framework of nonhierarchical, shared leadership that required new collaborations, engagement, and commitment in the context of finite resources. Strategies to overcome these potential obstacles and achieve success included implementation of a Coordinating Center, dedicated time for planning and collaborating across researchers and methodologies, funded support for in-person meetings, and creative optimization of resources. Challenges are inevitably present in the formation and operation of effective mixed methods research teams. However, funders and research teams can implement strategies to promote success. © Health Research and Educational Trust.

Professional Team Foundation Server 2010

CERN Document Server

Blankenship, Ed; Holliday, Grant; Keller, Brian

2011-01-01

Authoritative guide to TFS 2010 from a dream team of Microsoft insiders and MVPs!Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server (TFS) has evolved until it is now an essential tool for Microsoft?s Application Lifestyle Management suite of productivity tools, enabling collaboration within and among software development teams. By 2011, TFS will replace Microsoft?s leading source control system, VisualSourceSafe, resulting in an even greater demand for information about it. Professional Team Foundation Server 2010, written by an accomplished team of Microsoft insiders and Microsoft MVPs, provides

Team flow - The Magic of Collaboration

NARCIS (Netherlands)

M. Makowski; Dr. Paul Breman

2008-01-01

This paper is about the conceptual framework of team flow and the action research project at the Hogeschool Utrecht (University of Applied Sciences) which has been launched recently. Have you ever linked the performance of The Rolling Stones - as a long - standing successful music business - to

Share (And Not) Share Alike: Improving Virtual Team Climate and Decision Performance

Science.gov (United States)

Cordes, Sean

2017-01-01

Virtual teams face unique communication and collaboration challenges that impact climate development and performance. First, virtual teams rely on technology mediated communication which can constrain communication. Second, team members lack skill for adapting process to the virtual setting. A collaboration process structure was designed to…

Occupational Therapy and assistive technology: thoughts about the experience with collaborative school consulting

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Luciana Ramos Baleotti

2017-06-01

Full Text Available This study presents thoughts and ideas based on the experience developed in the project entitled Assistive Technology for Inclusion of Students with Physical Disorders: Resources and Procedures, in development since 2009. This project aims to help in the process of school inclusion of students with physical disorder in Early Childhood Education in the city of Marilia, Brazil, through the collaboration between Health and Education departments. Health professionals contribute through the implementation of the Assistive Technology by means of school consulting. The project has been developed in six different stages, namely: Gaining access and establishing goals for the team; Identifying the problem; Interventions/Recommendations; Implementation; Evaluation and further actions. This working model, seeks to insert occupational therapy in the school environment. This project showed the importance of occupational therapists as team members in school settings, and the importance of a collaborative work between Education and Health departments.

Team-based learning for midwifery education.

Science.gov (United States)

Moore-Davis, Tonia L; Schorn, Mavis N; Collins, Michelle R; Phillippi, Julia; Holley, Sharon

2015-01-01

Many US health care and education stakeholder groups, recognizing the need to prepare learners for collaborative practice in complex care environments, have called for innovative approaches in health care education. Team-based learning is an educational method that relies on in-depth student preparation prior to class, individual and team knowledge assessment, and use of small-group learning to apply knowledge to complex scenarios. Although team-based learning has been studied as an approach to health care education, its application to midwifery education is not well described. A master's-level, nurse-midwifery, didactic antepartum course was revised to a team-based learning format. Student grades, course evaluations, and aggregate American Midwifery Certification Board examination pass rates for 3 student cohorts participating in the team-based course were compared with 3 student cohorts receiving traditional, lecture-based instruction. Students had mixed responses to the team-based learning format. Student evaluations improved when faculty added recorded lectures as part of student preclass preparation. Statistical comparisons were limited by variations across cohorts; however, student grades and certification examination pass rates did not change substantially after the course revision. Although initial course revision was time-consuming for faculty, subsequent iterations of the course required less effort. Team-based learning provides students with more opportunity to interact during on-site classes and may spur application of knowledge into practice. However, it is difficult to assess the effect of the team-based learning approach with current measures. Further research is needed to determine the effects of team-based learning on communication and collaboration skills, as well as long-term performance in clinical practice. This article is part of a special series of articles that address midwifery innovations in clinical practice, education, interprofessional

Student-Led Project Teams: Significance of Regulation Strategies in High- and Low-Performing Teams

Science.gov (United States)

Ainsworth, Judith

2016-01-01

We studied group and individual co-regulatory and self-regulatory strategies of self-managed student project teams using data from intragroup peer evaluations and a postproject survey. We found that high team performers shared their research and knowledge with others, collaborated to advise and give constructive criticism, and demonstrated moral…

Team Collaboration for Command and Control: A Critical Thinking Model

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Freeman, Jared T; Serfaty, Daniel

2002-01-01

...: team critical thinking. The framework will be used to understand how team members critique and refine team performance, develop measures of performance, and eventually to create training and decision aids that support...

Facebook as a tool for communication, collaboration, and informal knowledge exchange among members of a multisite family health team

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lofters AK

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Aisha K Lofters,1,2 Morgan B Slater,1 Emily Nicholas Angl,1 Fok-Han Leung1 1Department of Family and Community Medicine, 2Centre for Research on Inner City Health, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, St Michael's Hospital, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada Objective: To implement and evaluate a private Facebook group for members of a large Ontario multisite Family Health Team (FHT to facilitate improved communication and collaboration. Design: Program implementation and subsequent survey of team members. Setting: A large multisite FHT in Toronto, Ontario. Participants: Health professionals of the FHT. Main outcome measures: Usage patterns and self-reported perceptions of the Facebook group by team members. Results: At the time of the evaluation survey, the Facebook group had 43 members (37.4% of all FHT members. Activity in the group was never high, and posts by team members who were not among the researchers were infrequent throughout the study period. The content of posts fell into two broad categories: 1 information that might be useful to various team members and 2 questions posed by team members that others might be able to answer. Of the 26 team members (22.6% who completed the evaluation survey, many reported that they never logged into the Facebook page (16 respondents, and never used it to communicate with team members outside of their own site of practice (19 respondents. Only six respondents reported no concerns with using Facebook as a professional communication tool; the most frequent concerns were regarding personal and patient privacy. Conclusion: The use of social media by health care practitioners is becoming ubiquitous. However, the issues of privacy concerns and determining how to use social media without adding to provider workload must be addressed to make it a useful tool in health care. Keywords: social media, team-based care, communication, interprofessionalism, social network

Exploring the Benefits of a Collaborative Inquiry Team in Education (CITE Initiative to Develop a Research Community and Enhance Student Engagement

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maria Teresa Cantalini-Williams

2016-06-01

Full Text Available This study examined a collaborative inquiry process, facilitated by university faculty in an elementary school, intended to develop a research community, foster knowledge mobilization, and enhance student engagement. The Collaborative Inquiry Team in Education (CITE initiative consisted of five school-based sessions that included videos, discussions, and the completion of a research action plan. Data collection and analysis involved sessions’ transcripts, feedback from participants, documents such as brainstorming charts, and student artifacts. Findings indicate that the collaborative inquiry process with enablers of time, flexibility, and support from university faculty increased educators’ research acumen and student engagement in classrooms. The CITE initiative is an effective example of applied education research and knowledge mobilization with the inclusion of faculty and technological support, innovative resources, and the co-construction of new understandings.

In the Loop: The Organization of Team-Based Communication in a Patient-Centered Clinical Collaboration System.

Science.gov (United States)

Kurahashi, Allison M; Weinstein, Peter B; Jamieson, Trevor; Stinson, Jennifer N; Cafazzo, Joseph A; Lokuge, Bhadra; Morita, Plinio P; Cohen, Eyal; Rapoport, Adam; Bezjak, Andrea; Husain, Amna

2016-03-24

We describe the development and evaluation of a secure Web-based system for the purpose of collaborative care called Loop. Loop assembles the team of care with the patient as an integral member of the team in a secure space. The objectives of this paper are to present the iterative design of the separate views for health care providers (HCPs) within each patient's secure space and examine patients', caregivers', and HCPs' perspectives on this separate view for HCP-only communication. The overall research program includes cycles of ethnography, prototyping, usability testing, and pilot testing. This paper describes the usability testing phase that directly informed development. A descriptive qualitative approach was used to analyze participant perspectives that emerged during usability testing. During usability testing, we sampled 89 participants from three user groups: 23 patients, 19 caregivers, and 47 HCPs. Almost all perspectives from the three user groups supported the need for an HCP-only communication view. In an earlier prototype, the visual presentation caused confusion among HCPs when reading and composing messages about whether a message was visible to the patient. Usability testing guided us to design a more deliberate distinction between posting in the Patient and Team view and the Health Care Provider Only view at the time of composing a message, which once posted is distinguished by an icon. The team made a decision to incorporate an HCP-only communication view based on findings during earlier phases of work. During usability testing we tested the separate communication views, and all groups supported this partition. We spent considerable effort designing the partition; however, preliminary findings from the next phase of evaluation, pilot testing, show that the Patient and Team communication is predominantly being used. This demonstrates the importance of a subsequent phase of the clinical trial of Loop to validate the concept and design.

The iPlant Collaborative: Cyberinfrastructure for Enabling Data to Discovery for the Life Sciences.

Science.gov (United States)

Merchant, Nirav; Lyons, Eric; Goff, Stephen; Vaughn, Matthew; Ware, Doreen; Micklos, David; Antin, Parker

2016-01-01

The iPlant Collaborative provides life science research communities access to comprehensive, scalable, and cohesive computational infrastructure for data management; identity management; collaboration tools; and cloud, high-performance, high-throughput computing. iPlant provides training, learning material, and best practice resources to help all researchers make the best use of their data, expand their computational skill set, and effectively manage their data and computation when working as distributed teams. iPlant's platform permits researchers to easily deposit and share their data and deploy new computational tools and analysis workflows, allowing the broader community to easily use and reuse those data and computational analyses.

Global Access Programs: A Collaborative Approach for Effective Implementation and Management.

Science.gov (United States)

Ainge, Debra; Aitken, Suzanne; Corbett, Mark; De-Keyzer, David

Global access programs (GAPs) provide access to medicinal products for patients with serious medical conditions and no commercially available treatment options. Providing early access to medicines can be challenging for a pharmaceutical company. The demand for a GAP often occurs at a time when other activities are the prime focus, such as delivery of pivotal clinical trials or gaining of marketing authorization. Furthermore, the skills, experience, and infrastructure necessary to implement and manage a successful GAP vary significantly from those required for regular clinical trial execution, and the regulatory environment presents its own challenges, with regulations often poorly defined and with considerable inter-country variation. This article considers the triggers for early access requests and examines the need for companies to develop a global strategy for GAPs in order to respond appropriately to requests for early access. It also provides a comprehensive overview of the processes for GAP set-up, implementation, management, and closure, along with the considerations affecting the type and scope of GAP, such as demand, regulatory feasibility, license status of the product, drug pricing structure, company strategy, costs, and product supply. Also discussed is the need for appropriate personnel to implement and manage the GAP, and when to consider collaboration with an external GAP provider. In summary, GAPs require careful and efficient planning and management, from set-up to closure. Well-run GAPs provide an ethical and regulatory-compliant pathway for access of new treatments to patients with serious conditions and an unmet medical need.

Accessing HEP Collaboration documents using WWW and WAIS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nguyen, T.D.; Buckley-Geer, E.; Ritchie, D.J.

1995-09-01

WAIS stands for Wide Area Information Server. It is a distributed information retrieval system. A WAIS system has a client-server architecture which consists of clients talking to a server via a TCP/IP network using the ANSI standard Z39-50 VI protocol. A freely available version (FreeWAIS) is supported by the Clearinghouse for Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval, also known as CNIDR. FreeWAIS-sf, which is the software the authors are using at Fermilab, is an extension of FreeWAIS. FreeWAIS-sf supports all the functionalities which FreeWAIS offers as well as additional indexing and searching capabilities for structured fields. World Wide Web (WWW) was originally developed by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN and is now the backbone for serving information on Internet. Here, the authors describe a system for accessing HEP collaboration documents using WWW and WAIS

Accessing HEP Collaboration documents using WWW and WAIS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Nguyen, T.D.; Buckley-Geer, E.; Ritchie, D.J.

1995-09-01

WAIS stands for Wide Area Information Server. It is a distributed information retrieval system. A WAIS system has a client-server architecture which consists of clients talking to a server via a TCP/IP network using the ANSI standard Z39-50 VI protocol. A freely available version (FreeWAIS) is supported by the Clearinghouse for Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval, also known as CNIDR. FreeWAIS-sf, which is the software the authors are using at Fermilab, is an extension of FreeWAIS. FreeWAIS-sf supports all the functionalities which FreeWAIS offers as well as additional indexing and searching capabilities for structured fields. World Wide Web (WWW) was originally developed by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN and is now the backbone for serving information on Internet. Here, the authors describe a system for accessing HEP collaboration documents using WWW and WAIS.

COLLABORATIVE POLICY-MAKING, LAW STUDENTS, AND ACCESS TO JUSTICE: THE REWARDS OF DESTABILIZING INSTITUTIONAL PATTERNS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Brea Lowenberger

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Heightened concerns and dialogue about access to justice have infused the law school setting in Saskatchewan and, to varying degrees, across the country. If there ever were a time to approach social justice reform differently – to upset traditional parameters around decision making and step around older hierarchies for input and design – it would be now. This article describes the Dean’s Forum on Dispute Resolution and Access to Justice (colloquially known as the Dean’s Forum as a platform for genuine student engagement in the development of public policy in this important area. We offer our combined reflections, gathered inside our “teaching team,” about the unique pedagogical features of our experiment and its challenges. As we continue to grow with the project, we offer this Saskatchewan story as one example of institutional collaboration in a quickly evolving educational and social policy landscape.   L’accès à la justice est une préoccupation croissante et un thème de plus en plus récurrent dans les facultés de droit de la Saskatchewan et, à différents degrés, de l’ensemble du pays. Le temps est venu, semble-t-il, d’aborder la réforme de la justice sociale différemment, de bouleverser les paramètres traditionnels gravitant autour de la prise de décisions et de contourner les hiérarchies plus anciennes en ce qui concerne les données et les concepts. Cet article porte sur le forum du doyen concernant le règlement des conflits et l’accès à la justice (familièrement appelé le Dean’s Forum (forum du doyen comme plateforme pour la participation des étudiants à l’élaboration des politiques publiques dans cet important domaine. Nous présentons l’ensemble des réflexions de notre équipe d’enseignants au sujet des éléments pédagogiques uniques de notre expérience et des difficultés connexes. Nous continuons à grandir avec notre projet, mais nous souhaitions décrire dès maintenant cette

INVESTIGATING FACTORS INFLUENCING STUDENTS’ LEARNING IN A TEAM TEACHING SETTING

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Brenda

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Team teaching factors, including mission clarity, affiliation, innovativeness, and fairness, are examined to determine how they influence student learning in a team-taught course. The study involved 184 college students enrolled in an Introduction to Computers course delivered in a team-taught format in a large university located in the United States. The collaborative teaching design followed a traditional team teaching approach with an instructor team teaching the same course collaboratively. Students enrolled in the team-taught course filled out an online survey targeted at identifying key factors that influence student-based outcomes (satisfaction and competency in the course. Results showed that instructor team mission clarity, affiliation, and fairness are significantly related to students’ satisfaction while instructor team mission clarity and fairness are significantly related to students’ competency.

Team Work in International Programs: Why is it so difficult?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lauridsen, Karen M.; Madsen, Henning

intercultural collaboration. The issues that arise seem to be grounded in linguistic, cultural and educational factors. This paper reports on and discusses a study of student responses to intercultural collaboration (in English) in two programmes at Aarhus University, Denmark. One conclusion...... is that the international students are more prepared to work in multicultural teams than their Danish peers. Another one tells us that once students have experience with the diversity of these teams, at least some of them become more open towards working in such teams in the future. It is interesting to discuss......Team Work in International Programs: Why is it so difficult? And what can we do about it? It is common knowledge that students often find it difficult to collaborate on assignments, projects, etc., but we require that they do so for a number of reasons, e.g. to learn how to work in teams or take...

Online Project Management for Dynamic e-Collaboration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lucia RUSU

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Today's collaborative projects demand efficient and productive software application tools for the workplace that will bring remote teams together to get the work done. Dynamic e-collaboration is a necessity for virtual relations and business agreements. It depends on two distinct factors: trust and need. This paper presents a way to manage remote teams using a web application developed with ColMap model of project management in an IT company. The information exposed and shared applications with partners in collaborative projects are based on RBAC. Group collaboration and management software has been proven to successfully manage and coordinate projects.

The company you keep: Effects of leader and teams network position on performance

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vernet, A; Deichmann, D.; Moser, C.

2016-01-01

In this paper we argue that leaders positively influence team performance through their positions in a collaboration network. We propose also that the leader’s effect on team performance is moderated by the position of the team in the larger collaboration network. We distinguish between brokerage

Teaming up

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Warhuus, Jan; Günzel-Jensen, Franziska; Robinson, Sarah

2016-01-01

types of team formation: random teacher pre-assigned, student selection, and teacher directed diversity. In each of these modules, ethnographic methods (interviews and observations) were employed. Additionally, we had access to students learning logs, formative and summative assessments, and final exams...... functioning entrepreneurial student teams as most teams lack personal chemistry which makes them anchor their work too much in a pre-defined project. In contrast, we find that students that can form their own teams aim for less diverse teams than what is achieved by random assignment. However, the homophily......Questions we care about (Objectives): When students have to work on challenging tasks, as it is often the case in entrepreneurship classrooms that leverage experiential learning, team success becomes central to the students learning. Yet, the formation of teams is often left up to the students...

Strength in unity: the power of redesign to align the hospital team.

Science.gov (United States)

Bell, Anthony; Cochrane, Alastair; Courtice, Sally; Flanigan, Kathy; Mathur, Mandeep; Wilckens, Daniel

2014-06-01

The aim of Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Hospital (QEII) redesign project (QEII United) was to enhance timely access to an inpatient bed and maximise opportunities to value add during the inpatient episode of care. A tripartite relationship between the hospital team, system manager and external consultants. The team, QEII United, was formed to 'diagnose, solve and implement' change under the unifying metaphorical banner of a football team. A marketing strategy and communication plan targeted the key 'players' and outlined the 'game plan'. Baseline data were collected, analysed and reported in keeping with key aims. Strategies for systems improvement implementation were attached to key performance indicators (KPIs). Thematic KPIs were developed to embed internal process change to reflect the contributions made towards the National Emergency Access Target (NEAT) at each stage of the patient journey. As such, access block of under 20%, morning discharge rates of 50% before midday, reduced length of stay for selected elective orthopaedic and general medical diagnostic related groupings (DRGs; i.e. relative stay index ≤1) and hospital in the home (HITH) utilisation rates 1.5% of all admissions were all met. Key to sustainability was the transfer of clinical redesign skills to hospital staff and the fostering of emergent ground up leadership. QEII United's success has been underpinned by the development of themed solution areas developed by the hospital staff themselves. Robust baseline data analysis used in combination with nationally available benchmarking data provided a quantitative starting point for the work. The collaborative elements of the program re-energised the hospital team, who were kept informed by targeted communications, to establish quick wins and build trust and momentum for the more challenging areas.

Building the occupational health team: keys to successful interdisciplinary collaboration.

Science.gov (United States)

Wachs, Joy E

2005-04-01

Teamwork among occupational health and safety professionals, management, and employees is vital to solving today's complex problems cost-effectively. No single discipline can meet all the needs of workers and the workplace. However, teamwork can be time-consuming and difficult if attention is not given to the role of the team leader, the necessary skills of team members, and the importance of a supportive environment. Bringing team members together regularly to foster positive relationships and infuse them with the philosophy of strength in diversity is essential for teams to be sustained and work to be accomplished. By working in tandem, occupational health and safety professionals can become the model team in business and industry delivering on their promise of a safe and healthy workplace for America's work force.

Gender and tenure diversity in GitHub teams

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vasilescu, B.N.; Posnett, D.; Ray, B.; Brand, van den M.G.J.; Serebrenik, A.; Devanbu, P.; Filkov, V.

2015-01-01

Software development is usually a collaborative venture. Open Source Software (OSS) projects are no exception; indeed, by design, the OSS approach can accommodate teams that are more open, geographically distributed, and dynamic than commercial teams. This, we find, leads to OSS teams that are quite

NETL's Energy Data Exchange (EDX) - a coordination, collaboration, and data resource discovery platform for energy science

Science.gov (United States)

Rose, K.; Rowan, C.; Rager, D.; Dehlin, M.; Baker, D. V.; McIntyre, D.

2015-12-01

Multi-organizational research teams working jointly on projects often encounter problems with discovery, access to relevant existing resources, and data sharing due to large file sizes, inappropriate file formats, or other inefficient options that make collaboration difficult. The Energy Data eXchange (EDX) from Department of Energy's (DOE) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) is an evolving online research environment designed to overcome these challenges in support of DOE's fossil energy goals while offering improved access to data driven products of fossil energy R&D such as datasets, tools, and web applications. In 2011, development of NETL's Energy Data eXchange (EDX) was initiated and offers i) a means for better preserving of NETL's research and development products for future access and re-use, ii) efficient, discoverable access to authoritative, relevant, external resources, and iii) an improved approach and tools to support secure, private collaboration and coordination between multi-organizational teams to meet DOE mission and goals. EDX presently supports fossil energy and SubTER Crosscut research activities, with an ever-growing user base. EDX is built on a heavily customized instance of the open source platform, Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network (CKAN). EDX connects users to externally relevant data and tools through connecting to external data repositories built on different platforms and other CKAN platforms (e.g. Data.gov). EDX does not download and repost data or tools that already have an online presence. This leads to redundancy and even error. If a relevant resource already has an online instance, is hosted by another online entity, EDX will point users to that external host either using web services, inventorying URLs and other methods. EDX offers users the ability to leverage private-secure capabilities custom built into the system. The team is presently working on version 3 of EDX which will incorporate big data analytical

Collaborative interactive visualization: exploratory concept

Science.gov (United States)

Mokhtari, Marielle; Lavigne, Valérie; Drolet, Frédéric

2015-05-01

Dealing with an ever increasing amount of data is a challenge that military intelligence analysts or team of analysts face day to day. Increased individual and collective comprehension goes through collaboration between people. Better is the collaboration, better will be the comprehension. Nowadays, various technologies support and enhance collaboration by allowing people to connect and collaborate in settings as varied as across mobile devices, over networked computers, display walls, tabletop surfaces, to name just a few. A powerful collaboration system includes traditional and multimodal visualization features to achieve effective human communication. Interactive visualization strengthens collaboration because this approach is conducive to incrementally building a mental assessment of the data meaning. The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the envisioned collaboration architecture and the interactive visualization concepts underlying the Sensemaking Support System prototype developed to support analysts in the context of the Joint Intelligence Collection and Analysis Capability project at DRDC Valcartier. It presents the current version of the architecture, discusses future capabilities to help analyst(s) in the accomplishment of their tasks and finally recommends collaboration and visualization technologies allowing to go a step further both as individual and as a team.

Managing Inclusiveness and Diversity in Teams: How Leader Inclusiveness Affects Performance through Status and Team Identity

OpenAIRE

Mitchell, Rebecca; Boyle, Brendan; Parker, Vicki; Giles, Michelle; Chiang, Vico; Joyce, Pauline

2015-01-01

While there is increasing pressure to work collaboratively in interprofessional teams, health professionals often continue to operate in uni-professional silos. Leader inclusiveness is directed toward encouraging and valuing the different viewpoints of diverse members within team interactions, and has significant potential to overcome barriers to interprofessional team performance. In order to better understand the influence of leader inclusiveness, we develop and investigate a model of its e...

Every team needs a coach: Training for interprofessional clinical placements.

Science.gov (United States)

Grymonpre, Ruby; Bowman, Susan; Rippin-Sisler, Cathy; Klaasen, Kathleen; Bapuji, Sunita B; Norrie, Ola; Metge, Colleen

2016-09-01

Despite growing awareness of the benefits of interprofessional education and interprofessional collaboration (IPC), understanding how teams successfully transition to IPC is limited. Student exposure to interprofessional teams fosters the learners' integration and application of classroom-based interprofessional theory to practice. A further benefit might be reinforcing the value of IPC to members of the mentoring team and strengthening their IPC. The research question for this study was: Does training in IPC and clinical team facilitation and mentorship of pre-licensure learners during interprofessional clinical placements improve the mentoring teams' collaborative working relationships compared to control teams? Statistical analyses included repeated time analysis multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). Teams on four clinical units participated in the project. Impact on intervention teams pre- versus post-interprofessional clinical placement was modest with only the Cost of Team score of the Attitudes Towards Healthcare Team Scale improving relative to controls (p = 0.059) although reflective evaluations by intervention team members noted many perceived benefits of interprofessional clinical placements. The significantly higher group scores for control teams (geriatric and palliative care) on three of four subscales of the Assessment of Interprofessional Team Collaboration Scale underscore our need to better understand the unique features within geriatric and palliative care settings that foster superior IPC and to recognise that the transition to IPC likely requires a more diverse intervention than the interprofessional clinical placement experience implemented in this study. More recently, it is encouraging to see the development of innovative tools that use an evidence-based, multi-dimensional approach to support teams in their transition to IPC.

Collaborative Visualization for Large-Scale Accelerator Electromagnetic Modeling (Final Report)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schroeder, William J.

2011-01-01

This report contains the comprehensive summary of the work performed on the SBIR Phase II, Collaborative Visualization for Large-Scale Accelerator Electromagnetic Modeling at Kitware Inc. in collaboration with Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). The goal of the work was to develop collaborative visualization tools for large-scale data as illustrated in the figure below. The solutions we proposed address the typical problems faced by geographicallyand organizationally-separated research and engineering teams, who produce large data (either through simulation or experimental measurement) and wish to work together to analyze and understand their data. Because the data is large, we expect that it cannot be easily transported to each team member's work site, and that the visualization server must reside near the data. Further, we also expect that each work site has heterogeneous resources: some with large computing clients, tiled (or large) displays and high bandwidth; others sites as simple as a team member on a laptop computer. Our solution is based on the open-source, widely used ParaView large-data visualization application. We extended this tool to support multiple collaborative clients who may locally visualize data, and then periodically rejoin and synchronize with the group to discuss their findings. Options for managing session control, adding annotation, and defining the visualization pipeline, among others, were incorporated. We also developed and deployed a Web visualization framework based on ParaView that enables the Web browser to act as a participating client in a collaborative session. The ParaView Web Visualization framework leverages various Web technologies including WebGL, JavaScript, Java and Flash to enable interactive 3D visualization over the web using ParaView as the visualization server. We steered the development of this technology by teaming with the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. SLAC has a computationally-intensive problem

Collaborative Visualization for Large-Scale Accelerator Electromagnetic Modeling (Final Report)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

William J. Schroeder

2011-11-13

This report contains the comprehensive summary of the work performed on the SBIR Phase II, Collaborative Visualization for Large-Scale Accelerator Electromagnetic Modeling at Kitware Inc. in collaboration with Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). The goal of the work was to develop collaborative visualization tools for large-scale data as illustrated in the figure below. The solutions we proposed address the typical problems faced by geographicallyand organizationally-separated research and engineering teams, who produce large data (either through simulation or experimental measurement) and wish to work together to analyze and understand their data. Because the data is large, we expect that it cannot be easily transported to each team member's work site, and that the visualization server must reside near the data. Further, we also expect that each work site has heterogeneous resources: some with large computing clients, tiled (or large) displays and high bandwidth; others sites as simple as a team member on a laptop computer. Our solution is based on the open-source, widely used ParaView large-data visualization application. We extended this tool to support multiple collaborative clients who may locally visualize data, and then periodically rejoin and synchronize with the group to discuss their findings. Options for managing session control, adding annotation, and defining the visualization pipeline, among others, were incorporated. We also developed and deployed a Web visualization framework based on ParaView that enables the Web browser to act as a participating client in a collaborative session. The ParaView Web Visualization framework leverages various Web technologies including WebGL, JavaScript, Java and Flash to enable interactive 3D visualization over the web using ParaView as the visualization server. We steered the development of this technology by teaming with the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. SLAC has a computationally

FORMING ADAPTED TEAMS ORIENTED TO COLLABORATION: DETAILED DESIGN AND CASE STUDY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

MARÍA PAULA ARIAS-BÁEZ

2013-01-01

Full Text Available El trabajo colaborativo es cada vez más importante debido al creciente tamaño y complejidad de los problemas. Para realizar trabajo colaborativo existen en el mercado diversas herramientas que potencian la compartición de información, la colaboración en las actividades de los compañeros de equipo y el seguimiento del progreso durante el desarrollo y el cierre del trabajo colaborativo. Una etapa previa al proceso colaborativo consiste en elegir los miembros del equipo que cooperarán con el objetivo de alcanzar las metas establecidas. Trabajos previos presentaron MATEO (acrónimo de Making Adapted TEams Oriented to collaboration, sistema genérico cuyo principal objetivo consiste en adaptar la conformación de equipos de trabajo, teniendo en cuenta características de los candidatos, del contexto (tanto individual como del trabajo colaborativo y otros criterios. El presente trabajo complementa el trabajo anterior, detallando el diseño de MATEO y su validación a través de un caso de estudio en el que se integra a una plataforma de trabajo colaborativo llamada AYLLU.

Killer Apps: Developing Novel Applications That Enhance Team Coordination, Communication, and Effectiveness.

Science.gov (United States)

Buengeler, Claudia; Klonek, Florian; Lehmann-Willenbrock, Nale; Morency, Louis-Philippe; Poppe, Ronald

2017-10-01

As part of the Lorentz workshop, "Interdisciplinary Insights into Group and Team Dynamics," held in Leiden, Netherlands, this article describes how Geeks and Groupies (computer and social scientists) may benefit from interdisciplinary collaboration toward the development of killer apps in team contexts that are meaningful and challenging for both. First, we discuss interaction processes during team meetings as a research topic for both Groupies and Geeks. Second, we highlight teamwork in health care settings as an interdisciplinary research challenge. Third, we discuss how an automated solution for optimal team design could benefit team effectiveness and feed into team-based interventions. Fourth, we discuss team collaboration in massive open online courses as a challenge for both Geeks and Groupies. We argue for the necessary integration of social and computational research insights and approaches. In the hope of inspiring future interdisciplinary collaborations, we develop criteria for evaluating killer apps-including the four proposed here-and discuss future research challenges and opportunities that potentially derive from these developments.

Your Dialysis Care Team

Science.gov (United States)

... A to Z Health Guide Your Dialysis Care Team Tweet Share Print Email Good health care is ... dialyzers (artificial kidneys) for reuse. Vascular Access Care Team If you are a hemodialysis patient, another group ...

Teams That Work: Preparing Student Teams for the Workplace

Science.gov (United States)

Galbraith, Diane D.; Webb, Fred L.

2013-01-01

Organizations today often require collaboration in the form of work teams. Many tasks completed within organizations, whether in the workplace or in academia, however, can be beyond the capabilities of individuals alone. Productive teamwork and cooperative activities in business are expected and can begin very early in a person's career. The…

The iPlant Collaborative: Cyberinfrastructure for Enabling Data to Discovery for the Life Sciences.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nirav Merchant

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The iPlant Collaborative provides life science research communities access to comprehensive, scalable, and cohesive computational infrastructure for data management; identity management; collaboration tools; and cloud, high-performance, high-throughput computing. iPlant provides training, learning material, and best practice resources to help all researchers make the best use of their data, expand their computational skill set, and effectively manage their data and computation when working as distributed teams. iPlant's platform permits researchers to easily deposit and share their data and deploy new computational tools and analysis workflows, allowing the broader community to easily use and reuse those data and computational analyses.

Geo-collaboration under stress

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Looije, R.; Brake, G.M. te; Neerincx, M.A.

2007-01-01

“Most of the science and decision making involved in geo-information is the product of collaborative teams. Current geospatial technologies are a limiting factor because they do not provide any direct support for group efforts. In this paper we present a method to enhance geo-collaboration by

Collaborations in Open Learning Environments

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Spoelstra, Howard

2015-01-01

This thesis researches automated services for professionals aiming at starting collaborative learning projects in open learning environments, such as MOOCs. It investigates the theoretical backgrounds of team formation for collaborative learning. Based on the outcomes, a model is developed

School Libraries Are Essential: Meeting the Virtual Access and Collaboration Needs of the 21st-Century Learner and Teacher

Science.gov (United States)

Darrow, Rob

2009-01-01

School librarians have excelled in providing a physical library space that is welcoming, making sure students have an inviting space to access print and digital materials, and developing collections that provide access for all ages of students. In the physical library space services such as collaborating with teachers and consulting with students…

Building Virtual Teams: Experiential Learning Using Emerging Technologies

Science.gov (United States)

Hu, Haihong

2015-01-01

Currently, virtual teams are being used exponentially in higher education and business because of the development of technologies and globalization. These teams have become an essential approach for collaborative learning as well as task completion. Team learning, especially in an online format, can be challenging due to lack of effective…

CO2 Measurements from Space: Lessons Learned from the Collaboration between the ACOS/OCO-2 and GOSAT Teams

Science.gov (United States)

Crisp, D.; Eldering, A.; Gunson, M. R.

2012-12-01

The NASA Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) and the Japanese Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite (GOSAT) were the first two missions designed to collect space-based observations of the column-averaged CO2 dry air mole fraction, XCO2, with the sensitivity, coverage, and resolution needed to quantify CO2 fluxes on regional scales over the globe. The OCO and GOSAT teams formed a close collaboration during the development phases of these missions. After the loss of OCO, the GOSAT project team invited the OCO team to contribute to the analysis of measurements collected by the GOSAT Thermal And Near infrared Sensor for carbon Observations-Fourier Transform Spectrometer (TANSO-FTS). NASA responded by reformulating the OCO science team under the Atmospheric CO2 Observations from Space (ACOS) task to exploit this opportunity. This collaboration is providing an independent GOSAT XCO2 product, and valuable insights into the retrieval algorithms, calibration methods, and validation techniques that are being developed to analyze data anticipated the NASA Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2). The ACOS/OCO-2 and GOSAT teams have conducted four, joint, vicarious calibration campaigns at Railroad Valley, Nevada to track the long-term radiometric performance of the TANSO-FTS instrument. The methods used in these campaigns evolved from those used to characterize the radiometric performance of high spatial resolution, imaging spectroradiometers. For TANSO-FTS, the conventional, surface based radiometric measurements have been augmented with surface and aircraft measurements of atmospheric temperature and trace gas profiles, as well as surface observations from MODIS and ASTER to characterize spatial variations of the surface reflectance within the (relatively large) sounding footprints. Similar methods will be needed for OCO-2. The ACOS/OCO-2 retrieval algorithm and associated data screening methods have been modified to estimate XCO2 from TANSO-FTS observations. Comparisons of TANSO

Collaborating To Teach Prosocial Skills.

Science.gov (United States)

Allsopp, David H.; Santos, Karen E.; Linn, Reid

2000-01-01

This article describes a collaborative prosocial skills program. Steps of the intervention include forming teams of educators, targeting necessary prosocial skills, developing an instructional plan, determining the setting and collaborative roles, delivery instruction, and providing opportunities for student practice, reinforcement, and…

Trust in agile teams in distributed software development

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tjørnehøj, Gitte; Fransgård, Mette; Skalkam, Signe

2012-01-01

Distributed software development (DSD) is becoming everyday practice in the software market. Difficult challenges and difficulty reaching the expected benefits are well documented. Recently agile software development has become common in DSD, even though important incompatibilities between...... that leads to team success. This article reports from a study of two agile DSD teams with very different organization and collaboration patterns. It addresses the role of trust and distrust in DSD by analyzing how the team members’ trust developed and erode through the lifetime of the two collaborations...... and how management actions influenced this. We find that some agile practice can empower teams to take over responsibility for managing their own trust building and sustaining and that management neglect of trust-building in other situations can hinder the development of beneficial balanced agile DSD...

Action-Centered Team Leadership Influences More than Performance

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Braun, Frank C.; Avital, Michel; Martz, Ben

2012-01-01

Purpose – Building on a social-technical approach to project management, the authors aim to examine the effect of action-centered leadership attributes on team member's learning, knowledge collaboration and job satisfaction during IT-related projects. Design/methodology/approach – Structural...... collaboration along with individual performance and job satisfaction, and ultimately project success. Research limitations/implications – The action-centered leadership practices construct, developed in this study, can be a good surrogate measure of what is required to be an effective leader in an IT project...... equation modeling was utilized to assess the work environment of team members as well as the leadership practices of their respective project team leaders. Data were collected with a survey questionnaire from 327 team members in a variety of organizations in 15 industry sectors including financial services...

Improving communication for interdisciplinary teams working on storage of digital information in DNA.

Science.gov (United States)

Hesketh, Emily E; Sayir, Jossy; Goldman, Nick

2018-01-01

Close collaboration between specialists from diverse backgrounds and working in different scientific domains is an effective strategy to overcome challenges in areas that interface between biology, chemistry, physics and engineering. Communication in such collaborations can itself be challenging.  Even when projects are successfully concluded, resulting publications - necessarily multi-authored - have the potential to be disjointed. Few, both in the field and outside, may be able to fully understand the work as a whole. This needs to be addressed to facilitate efficient working, peer review, accessibility and impact to larger audiences. We are an interdisciplinary team working in a nascent scientific area, the repurposing of DNA as a storage medium for digital information. In this note, we highlight some of the difficulties that arise from such collaborations and outline our efforts to improve communication through a glossary and a controlled vocabulary and accessibility via short plain-language summaries. We hope to stimulate early discussion within this emerging field of how our community might improve the description and presentation of our work to facilitate clear communication within and between research groups and increase accessibility to those not familiar with our respective fields - be it molecular biology, computer science, information theory or others that might become relevant in future. To enable an open and inclusive discussion we have created a glossary and controlled vocabulary as a cloud-based shared document and we invite other scientists to critique our suggestions and contribute their own ideas.

Foundations for a Team Oriented Curriculum

Science.gov (United States)

Neal, Brandi; Martz, Ben

2016-01-01

The business world today values collaboration and team work skills such as those found in the area of project management, business process reengineering, quality circles, etc. In response, the use of group projects permeates many curricula today with varying consequences and levels of success. Technology claims to enhance collaboration in…

Information delivery in team communication of MCR operators for an emergency task

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jeong, Kwang Sub; Park, Jin Kyun; Jung, Won Dae

2005-01-01

Team performance is a major measure to evaluate the ability of team when a lot of people perform a task of common purpose such as the main control room operators in the nuclear power plant. A team performance is affected the collaboration and communication among operators under dynamic situation as well as by the cognitive process of each team member. Specially, under the emergency situation, more clear and apparent communication in a team is a critical key for the appropriate response to emergency situation. As a general human factor analysis accesses the operator's behavior, it leads to a resulting action of planning, decision, problem-solving. In order to access the internal information and background information of his/her behavior, the verbal protocol analysis is applied. The impact factors on the team performance are derived from the state of the art for team performance, and it is found that the communication is a common key for all impact factors. And, in turn, the impact factors for the communication are accesses and the more detailed analysis is performed. The recorded data for the operator training for emergency situation of nuclear power plant training center are analyzed according to the verbal protocol analysis that are being generally utilized in cognitive psychology, educational psychology, and cognitive science. Two aspects, external (syntax) and internal (symantic) aspects of communication are reviewed. From the syntax analysis, it is found that the task of each step in EOP is separated according to each corresponding operator and the ordinary training is important, and the weak-points for a sentence presentation can be found team-by-team. And, from the symantic analysis for the diagnostic procedure of EOP is performed and the communication errors due to different situation awareness by operators could be found, and it lead to a diagnosis failure. The factors for different symantic cognition for a situation are analyzed and the affecting

Can formalizing links among community health workers, accredited drug dispensing outlet dispensers, and health facility staff increase their collaboration to improve prompt access to maternal and child care? A qualitative study in Tanzania.

Science.gov (United States)

Dillip, Angel; Kimatta, Suleiman; Embrey, Martha; Chalker, John C; Valimba, Richard; Malliwah, Mariam; Meena, John; Lieber, Rachel; Johnson, Keith

2017-06-19

In Tanzania, progress toward achieving the 2015 Millennium Development Goals for maternal and newborn health was slow. An intervention brought together community health workers, health facility staff, and accredited drug dispensing outlet (ADDO) dispensers to improve maternal and newborn health through a mechanism of collaboration and referral. This study explored barriers, successes, and promising approaches to increasing timely access to care by linking the three levels of health care provision. The study was conducted in the Kibaha district, where we applied qualitative approaches with in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. In-depth interview participants included retail drug shop dispensers (36), community health workers (45), and health facility staff members (15). We conducted one focus group discussion with district officials and four with mothers of newborns and children under 5 years old. Relationships among the three levels of care improved after the linkage intervention, especially for ADDO dispensers and health facility staff who previously had no formal communication pathway. The study participants perceptions of success included improved knowledge of case management and relationships among the three levels of care, more timely access to care, increased numbers of patients/customers, more meetings between community health workers and health facility staff, and a decrease in child and maternal mortality. Reported challenges included stock-outs of medicines at the health facility, participating ADDO dispensers who left to work in other regions, documentation of referrals, and lack of treatment available at health facilities on the weekend. The primary issue that threatens the sustainability of the intervention is that local council health management team members, who are responsible for facilitating the linkage, had not made any supervision visits and were therefore unaware of how the program was running. The study highlights the benefits of

Globus Platform-as-a-Service for Collaborative Science Applications.

Science.gov (United States)

Ananthakrishnan, Rachana; Chard, Kyle; Foster, Ian; Tuecke, Steven

2015-02-01

Globus, developed as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) for research data management, also provides APIs that constitute a flexible and powerful Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) to which developers can outsource data management activities such as transfer and sharing, as well as identity, profile and group management. By providing these frequently important but always challenging capabilities as a service, accessible over the network, Globus PaaS streamlines web application development and makes it easy for individuals, teams, and institutions to create collaborative applications such as science gateways for science communities. We introduce the capabilities of this platform and review representative applications.

A Cross-Disciplinary Literature Review: Examining Trust on Virtual Teams

Science.gov (United States)

Berry, Gregory R.

2011-01-01

Effective and efficient teams communicate, collaborate, and perform, even if these teams are not co-located. Although much is known about enabling effectiveness on face-to-face teams, considerably less is known about similarly enabling effectiveness on virtual teams. Yet the use of virtual teams is common and will likely become more commonplace as…

Interactive and collaborative learning in the classroom at the medical school Automated response systems and team-based learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Nasr, Rihab; Antoun, Jumana; Sabra, Ramzi; Zgheib, Nathalie K

2016-01-01

There has been a pedagogic shift in higher education from the traditional teacher centered to the student centered approach in teaching, necessitating a change in the role of the teacher from a supplier of information to passive receptive students into a more facilitative role. Active learning activities are based on various learning theories such as self-directed learning, cooperative learning and adult learning. There exist many instructional activities that enhance active and collaborative learning. The aim of this manuscript is to describe two methods of interactive and collaborative learning in the classroom, automated response systems (ARS) and team-based learning (TBL), and to list some of their applications and advantages. The success of these innovative teaching and learning methods at a large scale depends on few elements, probably the most important of which is the support of the higher administration and leadership in addition to the availability of “champions” who are committed to lead the change.

Developing Instructional Leadership through Collaborative Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Abbott, Claire Johnson; McKnight, Katherine

2010-01-01

Collaborative learning teams have emerged as an effective tool for teachers to steadily and continuously improve their instruction. Evidence also suggests that a learning teams model can affect school leadership as well. We explored the impact of learning teams on leadership roles of principals and teachers in secondary schools and found that…

A Pilot Quality Improvement Collaborative to Improve Safety Net Dental Access for Pregnant Women and Young Children.

Science.gov (United States)

Vander Schaaf, Emily B; Quinonez, Rocio B; Cornett, Amanda C; Randolph, Greg D; Boggess, Kim; Flower, Kori B

2018-02-01

Objectives To determine acceptability and feasibility of a quality improvement (QI) collaborative in safety net dental practices, and evaluate its effects on financial stability, access, efficiency, and care for pregnant women and young children. Methods Five safety net dental practices participated in a 15-month learning collaborative utilizing business assessments, QI training, early childhood oral health training, and prenatal oral health training. Practices collected monthly data on: net revenue, no-show rates, total encounters, and number of encounters for young children and pregnant women. We analyzed quantitative data using paired t-tests before and after the collaborative and collected supplemental qualitative feedback from clinic staff through focus groups and directed email. Results All mean measures improved, including: higher monthly revenue ($28,380-$33,102, p = 0.37), decreased no-show rate (17.7-14.3%, p = 0.11), higher monthly dental health encounters (283-328, p = 0.08), and higher monthly encounters for young children (8.8-10.5, p = 0.65), and pregnant women (2.8-9.7, p = 0.29). Results varied by practice, with some demonstrating largest increases in encounters for young children and others pregnant women. Focus group participants reported that the collaborative improved access for pregnant women and young children, and that QI methods were often new and difficult. Conclusion for practice Participation by safety net dental practices in a QI collaborative is feasible and acceptable. Individual sites saw greater improvements in different outcomes areas, based on their own structures and needs. Future efforts should focus on specific needs of each dental practice and should offer additional QI training.

A Model to Evaluate the Effectiveness of Collaborative Online Learning Teams – Self-Disclosure and Social Exchange Theory Perspective

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ying-Chieh Liu

2010-12-01

Full Text Available Collaborative online learning teams (COLTs are teams that are comprised of groups of online students. Accompanying the popularity of online learning, both on campuses and as professional development within many industries, learning in groups has been attracting much attention. However, there is little research constructing intact frameworks to evaluate the effectiveness of COLTs. This study built a framework by incorporating six constructs: self-disclosure, social exchange, trust, cohesion, performance and satisfaction, and validated it by analyzing data from a five-week experiment. The results showed that social exchange had a significant impact on trust, but self-disclosure did not. Trust was significantly related to cohesion and cohesion was significantly related to performance and satisfaction. This study suggests that instructors should incorporate the number of students’ posts into parts of evaluation to facilitate self-disclosure, and to stop “social loafing” behaviors while encouraging social exchange activities.

Creating collaborative learning environments for transforming primary care practices now.

Science.gov (United States)

Miller, William L; Cohen-Katz, Joanne

2010-12-01

The renewal of primary care waits just ahead. The patient-centered medical home (PCMH) movement and a refreshing breeze of collaboration signal its arrival with demonstration projects and pilots appearing across the country. An early message from this work suggests that the development of collaborative, cross-disciplinary teams may be essential for the success of the PCMH. Our focus in this article is on training existing health care professionals toward being thriving members of this transformed clinical care team in a relationship-centered PCMH. Our description of the optimal conditions for collaborative training begins with delineating three types of teams and how they relate to levels of collaboration. We then describe how to create a supportive, safe learning environment for this type of training, using a different model of professional socialization, and tools for building culture. Critical skills related to practice development and the cross-disciplinary collaborative processes are also included. Despite significant obstacles in readying current clinicians to be members of thriving collaborative teams, a few next steps toward implementing collaborative training programs for existing professionals are possible using competency-based and adult learning approaches. Grasping the long awaited arrival of collaborative primary health care will also require delivery system and payment reform. Until that happens, there is an abundance of work to be done envisioning new collaborative training programs and initiating a nation-wide effort to motivate and reeducate our colleagues. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved.

Advanced tools for enhancing control room collaborations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Abla, G.; Flanagan, S.M.; Peng, Q.; Burruss, J.R.; Schissel, D.P.

2006-01-01

The US National Fusion Collaboratory (NFC) project has been exploring a variety of computer and network technologies to develop a persistent, efficient, reliable and convenient collaborative environment for magnetic fusion research. One goal is to enhance remote and collocated team collaboration by integrating collaboration software tools into control room operations as well as with data analysis tools. To achieve this goal, the NFC recently introduced two new collaboration technologies into the DIII-D tokamak control room. The first technology is a high-resolution, large format Shared Display Wall (SDW). By creating a shared public display space and providing real time visual information about the multiple aspects of complex experiment activity, the large SDW plays an important role in increasing the rate of information dissemination and promoting interaction among team members. The second technology being implemented is the 'tokamak control room aware' Instant Messaging (IM) service. In addition to providing text-chat capabilities for research scientists, it enables them to automatically receive information about experiment operations and data analysis processes to remotely monitor the status of ongoing tokamak experiment. As a result, the IM service has become a unified portal interface for team collaboration and remote participation

Advanced tools for enhancing control room collaborations

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Abla, G. [General Atomics, P.O. Box 85608, San Diego, CA 92186 5608 (United States)]. E-mail: abla@fusion.gat.com; Flanagan, S.M. [General Atomics, P.O. Box 85608, San Diego, CA 92186 5608 (United States); Peng, Q. [General Atomics, P.O. Box 85608, San Diego, CA 92186 5608 (United States); Burruss, J.R. [General Atomics, P.O. Box 85608, San Diego, CA 92186 5608 (United States); Schissel, D.P. [General Atomics, P.O. Box 85608, San Diego, CA 92186 5608 (United States)

2006-07-15

The US National Fusion Collaboratory (NFC) project has been exploring a variety of computer and network technologies to develop a persistent, efficient, reliable and convenient collaborative environment for magnetic fusion research. One goal is to enhance remote and collocated team collaboration by integrating collaboration software tools into control room operations as well as with data analysis tools. To achieve this goal, the NFC recently introduced two new collaboration technologies into the DIII-D tokamak control room. The first technology is a high-resolution, large format Shared Display Wall (SDW). By creating a shared public display space and providing real time visual information about the multiple aspects of complex experiment activity, the large SDW plays an important role in increasing the rate of information dissemination and promoting interaction among team members. The second technology being implemented is the 'tokamak control room aware' Instant Messaging (IM) service. In addition to providing text-chat capabilities for research scientists, it enables them to automatically receive information about experiment operations and data analysis processes to remotely monitor the status of ongoing tokamak experiment. As a result, the IM service has become a unified portal interface for team collaboration and remote participation.

SemanticOrganizer: A Customizable Semantic Repository for Distributed NASA Project Teams

Science.gov (United States)

Keller, Richard M.; Berrios, Daniel C.; Carvalho, Robert E.; Hall, David R.; Rich, Stephen J.; Sturken, Ian B.; Swanson, Keith J.; Wolfe, Shawn R.

2004-01-01

SemanticOrganizer is a collaborative knowledge management system designed to support distributed NASA projects, including diverse teams of scientists, engineers, and accident investigators. The system provides a customizable, semantically structured information repository that stores work products relevant to multiple projects of differing types. SemanticOrganizer is one of the earliest and largest semantic web applications deployed at NASA to date, and has been used in diverse contexts ranging from the investigation of Space Shuttle Columbia's accident to the search for life on other planets. Although the underlying repository employs a single unified ontology, access control and ontology customization mechanisms make the repository contents appear different for each project team. This paper describes SemanticOrganizer, its customization facilities, and a sampling of its applications. The paper also summarizes some key lessons learned from building and fielding a successful semantic web application across a wide-ranging set of domains with diverse users.

A study of occupational stress, scope of practice, and collaboration in nurse anesthetists practicing in anesthesia care team settings.

Science.gov (United States)

Alves, Steve L

2005-12-01

This study examined occupational stress in Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) practicing with anesthesiologists in anesthesia care team (ACT) settings. The focus was to examine the relationships among CRNA scope of practice (SOP) in ACTs, collaboration, and role-related occupational stress. A survey questionnaire was mailed to CRNAs from the 6 New England states, with a return rate of 30.87% (n = 347). Data analysis included practice characteristics and demographics of the sample, and the research questions were examined applying correlational analysis, t test, and analysis of variance addressing relationships among the study measures. Data analyses revealed that limited, restricted CRNA practice scope was particularly evident in respondents employed by anesthesiology groups, compared with hospital-employed CRNAs. Few CRNA respondents perceived their practice as collaborative, and many used compromise as a conflict-resolution style. Respondents with a broader SOP reported higher collaboration than those with restrictions. Respondents reporting a broader SOP also experienced increased job stress in relation to role overload but used coping resources effectively. Implications for future studies include exploring strategies that achieve consensus between CRNAs and anesthesiologists in ACTs, emphasizing clearly defined roles and optimizing productivity.

Communication skills to develop trusting relationships on global virtual engineering capstone teams

Science.gov (United States)

Zaugg, Holt; Davies, Randall S.

2013-05-01

As universities seek to provide cost-effective, cross-cultural experiences using global virtual (GV) teams, the 'soft' communication skills typical of all teams, increases in importance for GV teams. Students need to be taught how to navigate through cultural issues and virtual tool issues to build strong trusting relationships with distant team members. Weekly team meetings provide an excellent opportunity to observe key team interactions that facilitate relationship and trust-building among team members. This study observed the weekly team meetings of engineering students attending two US universities and one Asian university as they collaborated as a single GV capstone GV team. In addition local team members were interviewed individually and collectively throughout the project to determine strategies that facilitated team relations and trust. Findings indicate the importance of student choice of virtual communication tools, the refining of communication practices, and specific actions to build trusting relationships. As student developed these attributes, collaboration and success was experienced on this GV team.

The Collaborative Future

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Thomas Marlowe

2011-10-01

Full Text Available Collaboration has become an important goal in modern ventures, across the spectrum of commercial, social, and intellectual activities, sometimes as a mediating factor, and sometimes as a driving, foundational principle. Research, development, social programs, and ongoing ventures of all sorts benefit from interactions between teams, groups, and organizations, across intellectual disciplines and across facets and features of the inquiry, product, entity, or activity under consideration. We present a survey of the state of collaboration and collaborative enterprise, in the context of papers and presentations at the International Symposium on Collaborative Enterprises 2011 (CENT 2011, and the extended papers appearing in this special issue.

Transferring skills in quality collaboratives focused on improving patient logistics.

Science.gov (United States)

Weggelaar-Jansen, Anne Marie; van Wijngaarden, Jeroen

2018-04-02

A quality improvement collaborative, often used by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, is used to educate healthcare professionals and improve healthcare at the same time. However, no prior research has been done on the knowledge and skills healthcare professionals need to achieve improvements or the extent to which quality improvement collaboratives help enhance both knowledge and skills. Our research focused on quality improvement collaboratives aiming to improve patient logistics and tried to identify which knowledge and skills are required and to what extent these were enhanced during the QIC. We defined skills important for logistic improvements in a three-phase Delphi study. Based on the Delphi results we made a questionnaire. We surveyed participants in a national quality improvement collaborative to assess the skills rated as 1) important, 2) available and 3) improved during the collaborative. At two sense-making meetings, experts reflected on our findings and hypothesized on how to improve (logistics) collaboratives. The Delphi study found 18 skills relevant for reducing patient access time and 21 for reducing throughput time. All skills retrieved from the Delphi study were scored as 'important' in the survey. Teams especially lacked soft skills connected to project and change management. Analytical skills increased the most, while more reflexive skills needed for the primary goal of the collaborative (reduce access and throughput times) increased modestly. At two sense-making meetings, attendees suggested four improvements for a quality improvement collaborative: 1) shift the focus to project- and change management skills; 2) focus more on knowledge transfer to colleagues; 3) teach participants to adapt the taught principles to their own situations; and 4) foster intra-project reflexive learning to translate gained insights to other projects (inter-project learning). Our findings seem to suggest that Quality collaboratives could benefit if more

Effects of Individual Success on Globally Distributed Team Performance

OpenAIRE

Yılmaz, Onur

2013-01-01

Necessity of different competencies with high level of knowledge makes it inevitable that software development is a team work. With the today's technology, teams can communicate both synchronously and asynchronously using different online collaboration tools throughout the world. Researches indicate that there are many factors that affect the team success and in this paper, effect of individual success on globally distributed team performance will be analyzed. Student team projects undertaken...

The academic librarian as co-investigator on an interprofessional primary research team: a case study.

Science.gov (United States)

Janke, Robert; Rush, Kathy L

2014-06-01

The objective of this study was to explore the role librarians play on research teams. The experiences of a librarian and a faculty member are situated within the wider literature addressing collaborations between health science librarians and research faculty. A case study approach is used to outline the involvement of a librarian on a team created to investigate the best practices for integrating nurses into the workplace during their first year of practice. Librarians contribute to research teams including expertise in the entire process of knowledge development and dissemination including the ability to navigate issues related to copyright and open access policies of funding agencies. The librarian reviews the various tasks performed as part of the research team ranging from the grant application, to working on the initial literature review as well as the subsequent manuscripts that emerged from the primary research. The motivations for joining the research team, including authorship and relationship building, are also discussed. Recommendations are also made in terms of how librarians could increase their participation on research teams. The study shows that librarians can play a key role on interprofessional primary research teams. © 2014 The authors. Health Information and Libraries Journal © 2014 Health Libraries Group.

A/r/tographic Collaboration as Radical Relatedness

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Barbara Bickel PhD

2011-03-01

Full Text Available In this paper the authors examine a/r/tographical collaboration in a community-engaged research study investigating immigrant understandings of home and place. The study, The City of Richgate, involves a complex collaboration between community members, community organizations, educational institutions, and a research team comprising artist-educators. The study crosses border zones of cultural, ethnic, geographic, institutional, public, private, and disciplinary boundaries, reflecting the ever-changing character of postmodern reality. In this paper the authors reflect critically and theoretically on the lived experience of radical relatedness found within the complex collaboration, particularly within the a/r/tographic research team. This offers a qualitative methodology of radical collaboration applicable to many fields of inquiry in the academy, art world, and community.

Medical and pharmacy students’ attitudes towards physician-pharmacist collaboration in Kuwait

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Katoue MG

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Objective: To assess and compare the attitudes of medical and pharmacy students towards physician-pharmacist collaboration and explore their opinions about the barriers to collaborative practice in Kuwait. Methods: A cross-sectional survey of pharmacy and medical students (n=467 was conducted in Faculties of Medicine and Pharmacy, Kuwait University. Data were collected via self-administered questionnaire from first-year pharmacy and medical students and students in the last two professional years of the pharmacy and medical programs. Descriptive and comparative analyses were performed using SPSS, version 22. Statistical significance was accepted at p<0.05. Results: The response rate was 82.4%. Respondents had overall positive attitudes towards physician-pharmacist collaboration. Pharmacy students expressed significantly more positive attitudes than medical students (p< 0.001. Medical students rated the three most significant barriers to collaboration to be: pharmacists’ separation from patient care areas (n=100, 70.0%, lack of pharmacists’ access to patients’ medical record (n=90, 63.0% and physicians assuming total responsibility for clinical decision-making (n=87, 60.8%. Pharmacy students’ top three perceived barriers were: lack of pharmacists’ access to patients’ medical record (n=80, 84.2%, organizational obstacles (n=79, 83.2%, and pharmacists’ separation from patient care areas (n=77, 81.1%. Lack of interprofessional education was rated the fourth-largest barrier by both medical (n=79, 55.2% and pharmacy (n=76, 80.0% students. Conclusions: Medical and pharmacy students in Kuwait advocate physician-pharmacist collaborative practice, but both groups identified substantial barriers to implementation. Efforts are needed to enhance undergraduate/postgraduate training in interprofessional collaboration, and to overcome barriers to physician-pharmacist collaboration to advance a team approach to patient care.

Hidden Disruptions: Technology and Technological Literacy as Influences on Professional Writing Student Teams

Science.gov (United States)

McGrady, Lisa

2010-01-01

This article reports on a study designed to explore whether and in what ways individual students' technological literacies might impact collaborative teams. For the collaborative team discussed in this article, technological literacy--specifically, limited repertoires for solving technical problems, clashes between document management strategies,…

Making science accessible through collaborative science teacher action research on feminist pedagogy

Science.gov (United States)

Capobianco, Brenda M.

research. This study revealed that there are no uniform solutions or standard methods to address issues of equity and accessibility in science education. This study recommends teachers be given time, support, and freedom to collaborate with other teacher-researchers, enact decisions for change, and reflect on and make public the results of their work. Additional implications suggest science teacher educators collaborate with practicing science teachers to devise practical applications and feasible resources for a wider audience.

Team Teaching: Are Two Better than One?

Science.gov (United States)

Bettencourt, M. L.; Weldon, A. A.

2011-01-01

The authors explored two assumptions about college teaching and learning: first, that faculty teach in isolation, as institutional culture values and rewards autonomy over collaboration; and second, that faculty collaboration improves instruction. They present findings from an experiment in team teaching in a university beginning Spanish course in…

The Times They Are a Changin': Neuropsychology and Integrated Care Teams.

Science.gov (United States)

Kubu, Cynthia S; Ready, Rebecca E; Festa, Joanne R; Roper, Brad L; Pliskin, Neil H

2016-01-01

To gather illustrative data from clinical neuropsychologists who are working in integrated care settings in order to provide an initial blueprint for moving forward in this new era of health care. A survey was designed to illustrate the ways in which neuropsychologists are participating in integrated care teams and distributed on major neuropsychology listservs. The survey evaluated the settings, roles, services provided, practice issues, remuneration, and impact of neuropsychologists' participation in integrated care teams with respect to patient care and health outcomes. Frequencies were used to summarize the findings as well as qualitative coding of narrative responses. There were 412 respondents to the survey and 261 of those indicated that they worked in at least one integrated care setting. Neuropsychologists work in a variety of integrated care settings and provide diverse services which contribute to improved patient care and outcomes. Three primary themes emerge from the findings with regard to the engagement and teams: advocacy, collaboration, and communication. We argue for the need for more easily accessible outcome studies illustrating the clinical benefits and cost-savings associated with inclusion of neuropsychologists in integrated care teams. In addition, educational and training initiatives are needed to better equip current and future clinical neuropsychologists to function effectively in integrated care settings.

Exploring teams of learners becoming "WE" in the Intensive Care Unit--a focused ethnographic study.

Science.gov (United States)

Conte, Helen; Scheja, Max; Hjelmqvist, Hans; Jirwe, Maria

2015-08-16

Research about collaboration within teams of learners in intensive care is sparse, as is research on how the learners in a group develop into a team. The aim of this study was to explore the collaboration in teams of learners during a rotation in an interprofessional education unit in intensive care from a sociocultural learning perspective. Focused Ethnographic methods were used to collect data following eight teams of learners in 2009 and 2010. Each team consisted of one resident, one specialist nurse student and their supervisors (n = 28). The material consisted of 100 hours of observations, interviews, and four hours of sound recordings. A qualitative analysis explored changing patterns of interplay through a constant comparative approach. The learners' collaboration progressed along a pattern of participation common to all eight groups with a chronological starting point and an end point. The progress consisted of three main steps where the learners' groups developed into teams during a week's training. The supervisors' guided the progress by gradually stepping back to provide latitude for critical reflection and action. Our main conclusion in training teams of learners how to collaborate in the intensive care is the crucial understanding of how to guide them to act like a team, feel like a team and having the authority to act as a team.

Successful Interprofessional Collaboration on the Hospice Team.

Science.gov (United States)

Reese, Dona J.; Sontag, Mary-Ann

2001-01-01

Despite the holistic approach inherent in the hospice philosophy, social work may be viewed as ancillary to medicine. Social work, in turn, may lack sensitivity about other professions' expertise and values and therefore be unprepared to collaborate across cultural boundaries between professions. This article outlines the barriers and proposes…

Enhancing Collaborative Learning through Group Intelligence Software

Science.gov (United States)

Tan, Yin Leng; Macaulay, Linda A.

Employers increasingly demand not only academic excellence from graduates but also excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to work collaboratively in teams. This paper discusses the role of Group Intelligence software in helping to develop these higher order skills in the context of an enquiry based learning (EBL) project. The software supports teams in generating ideas, categorizing, prioritizing, voting and multi-criteria decision making and automatically generates a report of each team session. Students worked in a Group Intelligence lab designed to support both face to face and computer-mediated communication and employers provided feedback at two key points in the year long team project. Evaluation of the effectiveness of Group Intelligence software in collaborative learning was based on five key concepts of creativity, participation, productivity, engagement and understanding.

Professional Access 2013 programming

CERN Document Server

Hennig, Teresa; Hepworth, George; Yudovich, Dagi (Doug)

2013-01-01

Authoritative and comprehensive coverage for building Access 2013 Solutions Access, the most popular database system in the world, just opened a new frontier in the Cloud. Access 2013 provides significant new features for building robust line-of-business solutions for web, client and integrated environments.  This book was written by a team of Microsoft Access MVPs, with consulting and editing by Access experts, MVPs and members of the Microsoft Access team. It gives you the information and examples to expand your areas of expertise and immediately start to develop and upgrade projects. Exp

Making Sense of Conflict in Distributed Teams: A Design Science Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Guangxuan

2016-01-01

Conflict is a substantial, pervasive activity in team collaboration. It may arise because of differences in goals, differences in ways of working, or interpersonal dissonance. The specific focus for this research is the conflict in distributed teams. As opposed to traditional teams, participants of distributed teams are geographically dispersed…

The Importance of Earth Observations and Data Collaboration within Environmental Intelligence Supporting Arctic Research

Science.gov (United States)

Casas, Joseph

2017-01-01

Within the IARPC Collaboration Team activities of 2016, Arctic in-situ and remote earth observations advanced topics such as :1) exploring the role for new and innovative autonomous observing technologies in the Arctic; 2) advancing catalytic national and international community based observing efforts in support of the National Strategy for the Arctic Region; and 3) enhancing the use of discovery tools for observing system collaboration such as the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Arctic Environmental Response Management Application (ERMA) and the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Arctic Collaborative Environment (ACE) project geo reference visualization decision support and exploitation internet based tools. Critical to the success of these earth observations for both in-situ and remote systems is the emerging of new and innovative data collection technologies and comprehensive modeling as well as enhanced communications and cyber infrastructure capabilities which effectively assimilate and dissemination many environmental intelligence products in a timely manner. The Arctic Collaborative Environment (ACE) project is well positioned to greatly enhance user capabilities for accessing, organizing, visualizing, sharing and producing collaborative knowledge for the Arctic.

Enhancing Team Performance for Long-Duration Space Missions

Science.gov (United States)

Orasanu, Judith M.

2009-01-01

Success of exploration missions will depend on skilled performance by a distributed team that includes both the astronauts in space and Mission Control personnel. Coordinated and collaborative teamwork will be required to cope with challenging complex problems in a hostile environment. While thorough preflight training and procedures will equip creW'S to address technical problems that can be anticipated, preparing them to solve novel problems is much more challenging. This presentation will review components of effective team performance, challenges to effective teamwork, and strategies for ensuring effective team performance. Teamwork skills essential for successful team performance include the behaviors involved in developing shared mental models, team situation awareness, collaborative decision making, adaptive coordination behaviors, effective team communication, and team cohesion. Challenges to teamwork include both chronic and acute stressors. Chronic stressors are associated with the isolated and confined environment and include monotony, noise, temperatures, weightlessness, poor sleep and circadian disruptions. Acute stressors include high workload, time pressure, imminent danger, and specific task-related stressors. Of particular concern are social and organizational stressors that can disrupt individual resilience and effective mission performance. Effective team performance can be developed by training teamwork skills, techniques for coping with team conflict, intracrew and intercrew communication, and working in a multicultural team; leadership and teamwork skills can be fostered through outdoor survival training exercises. The presentation will conclude with an evaluation of the special requirements associated with preparing crews to function autonomously in long-duration missions.

Reflections on collaboration in consumer research

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sørensen, Elin Brandi; The VOICE Group, with

2008-01-01

tacit in the marketing literature, namely the impact of the relationships between researchers. The paper draws on accounts of other research collaborations as well as authors' experiences, and discusses how interpersonal and cross-cultural dynamics influence the work of interpretive research teams.......Abstract: Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore the challenges and opportunities of collaboration in interpretive consumer research. Design/methodology/approach - The paper reviews literature on research teamwork, particularly on qualitative and international projects. It also provides...... an account of research collaboration on an interpretive research project across four countries, involving eight researchers. Findings - Despite the cult of individualism in academic life, most articles in leading marketing journals are now written by multi-author teams. The process and implications...

A Descriptive Account of an Inter-Professional Collaborative Leadership Project

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maura MacPhee

2014-09-01

Full Text Available A collaborative project between an academic healthcare faculty and a professional development director resulted in the design, delivery and evaluation of an inter-professional collaborative leadership workshop with ongoing leadership development activities. The workshop attendees were five inter-professional teams from one large, urban cancer care center in Taipei, Taiwan. The workshop included didactic instruction complemented with team discussions and interactive exercises. Continued practice was encouraged, such as appreciative inquiry exercises and rotated team leadership. Evaluation involved the use of a cross-culturally validated collaborative practice tool and follow-up interviews and focus groups. Although the formal workshop was a 1-day session, continued organizational support and systematic approaches to collaborative leadership practice in clinical settings were necessary components for transfer of learning from the workshop to real life. This paper will include an overview of the foundational leadership concepts covered in the workshop. The instructional strategies, evaluation methods and outcomes will be discussed. The limitations and strengths of this collaborative leadership project will be provided, as well as future plans for a collaborative leadership development program.

Using collaborative technologies in remote lab delivery systems for topics in automation

Science.gov (United States)

Ashby, Joe E.

Lab exercises are a pedagogically essential component of engineering and technology education. Distance education remote labs are being developed which enable students to access lab facilities via the Internet. Collaboration, students working in teams, enhances learning activity through the development of communication skills, sharing observations and problem solving. Web meeting communication tools are currently used in remote labs. The problem identified for investigation was that no standards of practice or paradigms exist to guide remote lab designers in the selection of collaboration tools that best support learning achievement. The goal of this work was to add to the body of knowledge involving the selection and use of remote lab collaboration tools. Experimental research was conducted where the participants were randomly assigned to three communication treatments and learning achievement was measured via assessments at the completion of each of six remote lab based lessons. Quantitative instruments used for assessing learning achievement were implemented, along with a survey to correlate user preference with collaboration treatments. A total of 53 undergraduate technology students worked in two-person teams, where each team was assigned one of the treatments, namely (a) text messaging chat, (b) voice chat, or (c) webcam video with voice chat. Each had little experience with the subject matter involving automation, but possessed the necessary technical background. Analysis of the assessment score data included mean and standard deviation, confirmation of the homogeneity of variance, a one-way ANOVA test and post hoc comparisons. The quantitative and qualitative data indicated that text messaging chat negatively impacted learning achievement and that text messaging chat was not preferred. The data also suggested that the subjects were equally divided on preference to voice chat verses webcam video with voice chat. To the end of designing collaborative

[Multiprofessional team working in palliative medicine].

Science.gov (United States)

Osaka, Iwao

2013-04-01

Now, more than ever, palliative medicine has been gaining recognition for its essential role in cancer treatment. Since its beginning, it has emphasized the importance of collaboration among multidisciplinary professionals, valuing a comprehensive and holistic philosophy, addressing a wide range of hopes and suffering that patients and families experience. There are three models (approaches) for the medical teams: multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary. Palliative care teams often choose the interdisciplinary team model, and the teams in the palliative care units may often choose the transdisciplinary team model. Recently, accumulating research has shown the clinical benefits of the interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary approach in palliative care settings. Clarifying appropriate functions and ideal features of physicians in the health care team, and enforcing the suitable team approach will contribute to improve the quality of whole medical practice beyond the framework of "palliative medicine".

Evidence for a Creative Dilemma Posed by Repeated Collaborations.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hiroyasu Inoue

Full Text Available We focused on how repeat collaborations in projects for inventions affect performance. Repeat collaborations have two contradictory aspects. A positive aspect is team development or experience, and a negative aspect is team degeneration or decline. Since both contradicting phenomena are observed, inventors have a dilemma as to whether they should keep collaborating in a team or not. The dilemma has not previously been quantitatively analyzed. We provide quantitative and extensive analyses of the dilemma in creative projects by using patent data from Japan and the United States. We confirm three predictions to quantitatively validate the existence of the dilemma. The first prediction is that the greater the patent a team achieves, the longer the team will work together. The second prediction is that the impact of consecutive patents decreases after a team makes a remarkable invention, which is measured by the impact of patents. The third prediction is that the expectation of impact with new teams is greater than that with the same teams successful in the past. We find these predictions are validated in patents published in Japan and the United States. On the basis of these three predictions, we can quantitatively validate the dilemma in creative projects. We also propose preventive strategies for degeneration. One is developing technological diversity, and another is developing inventor diversity in teams. We find the two strategies are both effective by validating with the data.

Enhancing Mathematical Communication for Virtual Math Teams

Science.gov (United States)

Stahl, Gerry; Çakir, Murat Perit; Weimar, Stephen; Weusijana, Baba Kofi; Ou, Jimmy Xiantong

2010-01-01

The Math Forum is an online resource center for pre-algebra, algebra, geometry and pre-calculus. Its Virtual Math Teams (VMT) service provides an integrated web-based environment for small teams of people to discuss math and to work collaboratively on math problems or explore interesting mathematical micro-worlds together. The VMT Project studies…

INVESTIGATING FACTORS INFLUENCING STUDENTS’ LEARNING IN A TEAM TEACHING SETTING

OpenAIRE

Brenda L Killingsworth; Yajiong Xue

2015-01-01

Team teaching factors, including mission clarity, affiliation, innovativeness, and fairness, are examined to determine how they influence student learning in a team-taught course. The study involved 184 college students enrolled in an Introduction to Computers course delivered in a team-taught format in a large university located in the United States. The collaborative teaching design followed a traditional team teaching approach with an instructor team teaching the same course collaborativel...

Interprofessional collaboration in the ICU: how to define?

Science.gov (United States)

Rose, Louise

2011-01-01

The intensive care unit (ICU) is a dynamic, complex and, at times, highly stressful work environment that involves ongoing exposure to the complexities of interprofessional team functioning. Failures of communication, considered examples of poor collaboration among health care professionals, are the leading cause of inadvertent harm across all health care settings. Evidence suggests effective interprofessional collaboration results in improved outcomes for critically ill patients. One recent study demonstrated a link between low standardized mortality ratios and self-identified levels of collaboration. The aim of this paper is to discuss determinants and complexities of interprofessional collaboration, the evidence supporting its impact on outcomes in the ICU, and interventions designed to foster better interprofessional team functioning. Elements of effective interprofessional collaboration include shared goals and partnerships including explicit, complementary and interdependent roles; mutual respect; and power sharing. In the ICU setting, teams continually alter due to large staff numbers, shift work and staff rotations through the institution. Therefore, the ideal 'unified' team working together to provide better care and improve patient outcomes may be difficult to sustain. Power sharing is one of the most complex aspects of interprofessional collaboration. Ownership of specialized knowledge, technical skills, clinical territory, or even the patient, may produce interprofessional conflict when ownership is not acknowledged. Collaboration by definition implies interdependency as opposed to autonomy. Yet, much nursing literature focuses on achievement of autonomy in clinical decision-making, cited to improve job satisfaction, retention and patient outcomes. Autonomy of health care professionals may be an inappropriate goal when striving to foster interprofessional collaboration. Tools such as checklists, guidelines and protocols are advocated, by some, as ways

Collaborative testing as a learning strategy in nursing education: a review of the literature.

Science.gov (United States)

Sandahl, Sheryl S

2009-01-01

Nurses are important members of a patient's interprofessional health care team. A primary goal of nursing education is to prepare nursing professionals who can work collaboratively with other team members for the benefit of the patient. Collaborative learning strategies provide students with opportunities to learn and practice collaboration. Collaborative testing is a collaborative learning strategy used to foster knowledge development, critical thinking in decision-making, and group processing skills. This article reviews the theoretical basis for collaborative learning and research on collaborative testing in nursing education.

Enhancing Mathematical Communication for Virtual Math Teams

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gerry Stahl

2010-06-01

Full Text Available The Math Forum is an online resource center for pre-algebra, algebra, geometry and pre-calculus. Its Virtual Math Teams (VMT service provides an integrated web-based environment for small teams of people to discuss math and to work collaboratively on math problems or explore interesting mathematical micro-worlds together. The VMT Project studies the online math discourse that takes place during sessions of virtual math teams working on open-ended problem-solving tasks. In particular, it investigates methods of group cognition that are employed by teams in this setting. The VMT environment currently integrates social networking, synchronous text chat, a shared whiteboard for drawing, web browsers and an asynchronous wiki for exchanging findings within the larger community. A simple version of MathML is supported in the whiteboard, chat and wiki for displaying mathematical expressions. The VMT Project is currently integrating the dynamic mathematics application, GeoGebra, into its collaboration environment. This will create a multi-user version of GeoGebra, which can be used in concert with the chat, web browsers, curricular topics and wiki repository.

Collaborative competency in physiotherapy students: Implications ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Background. It has been suggested that improved collaborative competency in multidisciplinary teams may help understand how health professionals can address problems that no single-disciplinary expert can manage independently. Objective. To describe the development of the ability to collaborate in a South African ...

Distant yet Near: Promoting Interdisciplinary Learning in Significantly Diverse Teams through Socially Responsible Projects

Science.gov (United States)

Adya, Monica; Temple, Bryan K.; Hepburn, Donald M.

2015-01-01

With global specialization of work units within organizations, interdisciplinary work practices comprised of collaborative efforts between technical and business teams are increasingly common in today's workplace. While higher education has responded by creating opportunities for remote teams to learn from collaborative work, occasions for…

Improving collaborative learning in online software engineering education

Science.gov (United States)

Neill, Colin J.; DeFranco, Joanna F.; Sangwan, Raghvinder S.

2017-11-01

Team projects are commonplace in software engineering education. They address a key educational objective, provide students critical experience relevant to their future careers, allow instructors to set problems of greater scale and complexity than could be tackled individually, and are a vehicle for socially constructed learning. While all student teams experience challenges, those in fully online programmes must also deal with remote working, asynchronous coordination, and computer-mediated communications all of which contribute to greater social distance between team members. We have developed a facilitation framework to aid team collaboration and have demonstrated its efficacy, in prior research, with respect to team performance and outcomes. Those studies indicated, however, that despite experiencing improved project outcomes, students working in effective software engineering teams did not experience significantly improved individual achievement. To address this deficiency we implemented theoretically grounded refinements to the collaboration model based upon peer-tutoring research. Our results indicate a modest, but statistically significant (p = .08), improvement in individual achievement using this refined model.

Addressing dysfunctional relations among healthcare teams: improving team cooperation through applied organizational theories.

Science.gov (United States)

Horwitz, Sujin K; Horwitz, Irwin B; Barshes, Neal R

2011-01-01

Previous research has demonstrated that communication failure and interpersonal conflicts are significant impediments among health-care teams to assess complex information and engage in the meaningful collaboration necessary for optimizing patient care. Despite the prolific research on the role of effective teamwork in accomplishing complex tasks, such findings have been traditionally applied to business organizations and not medical contexts. This chapter, therefore, reviews and applies four theories from the fields of organizational behavior (OB) and organization development (OD) as potential means for improving team interaction in health-care contexts. This study is unique in its approach as it addresses the long-standing problems that exist in team communication and cooperation in health-care teams by applying well-established theories from the organizational literature. The utilization and application of the theoretical constructs discussed in this work offer valuable means by which the efficacy of team work can be greatly improved in health-care organizations.

Probing Aircraft Flight Test Hazard Mitigation for the Alternative Fuel Effects on Contrails and Cruise Emissions (ACCESS) Research Team . Volume 2; Appendices

Science.gov (United States)

Kelly, Michael J.

2013-01-01

The Alternative Fuel Effects on Contrails and Cruise Emissions (ACCESS) Project Integration Manager requested in July 2012 that the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) form a team to independently assess aircraft structural failure hazards associated with the ACCESS experiment and to identify potential flight test hazard mitigations to ensure flight safety. The ACCESS Project Integration Manager subsequently requested that the assessment scope be focused predominantly on structural failure risks to the aircraft empennage (horizontal and vertical tail). This report contains the Appendices to Volume I.

Leader evaluation and team cohesiveness in the process of team development: A matter of gender?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Núria Rovira-Asenjo

Full Text Available Leadership positions are still stereotyped as masculine, especially in male-dominated fields (e.g., engineering. So how do gender stereotypes affect the evaluation of leaders and team cohesiveness in the process of team development? In our study participants worked in 45 small teams (4-5 members. Each team was headed by either a female or male leader, so that 45 leaders (33% women supervised 258 team members (39% women. Over a period of nine months, the teams developed specific engineering projects as part of their professional undergraduate training. We examined leaders' self-evaluation, their evaluation by team members, and team cohesiveness at two points of time (month three and month nine, the final month of the collaboration. While we did not find any gender differences in leaders' self-evaluation at the beginning, female leaders evaluated themselves more favorably than men at the end of the projects. Moreover, female leaders were evaluated more favorably than male leaders at the beginning of the project, but the evaluation by team members did not differ at the end of the projects. Finally, we found a tendency for female leaders to build more cohesive teams than male leaders.

Leader evaluation and team cohesiveness in the process of team development: A matter of gender?

Science.gov (United States)

Sczesny, Sabine; Gumí, Tània; Guimerà, Roger; Sales-Pardo, Marta

2017-01-01

Leadership positions are still stereotyped as masculine, especially in male-dominated fields (e.g., engineering). So how do gender stereotypes affect the evaluation of leaders and team cohesiveness in the process of team development? In our study participants worked in 45 small teams (4–5 members). Each team was headed by either a female or male leader, so that 45 leaders (33% women) supervised 258 team members (39% women). Over a period of nine months, the teams developed specific engineering projects as part of their professional undergraduate training. We examined leaders’ self-evaluation, their evaluation by team members, and team cohesiveness at two points of time (month three and month nine, the final month of the collaboration). While we did not find any gender differences in leaders’ self-evaluation at the beginning, female leaders evaluated themselves more favorably than men at the end of the projects. Moreover, female leaders were evaluated more favorably than male leaders at the beginning of the project, but the evaluation by team members did not differ at the end of the projects. Finally, we found a tendency for female leaders to build more cohesive teams than male leaders. PMID:29059231

Organizational determinants of interprofessional collaboration in integrative health care: systematic review of qualitative studies.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vincent C H Chung

Full Text Available CONTEXT: Inteprofessional collaboration (IPC between biomedically trained doctors (BMD and traditional, complementary and alternative medicine practitioners (TCAMP is an essential element in the development of successful integrative healthcare (IHC services. This systematic review aims to identify organizational strategies that would facilitate this process. METHODS: We searched 4 international databases for qualitative studies on the theme of BMD-TCAMP IPC, supplemented with a purposive search of 31 health services and TCAM journals. Methodological quality of included studies was assessed using published checklist. Results of each included study were synthesized using a framework approach, with reference to the Structuration Model of Collaboration. FINDINGS: Thirty-seven studies of acceptable quality were included. The main driver for developing integrative healthcare was the demand for holistic care from patients. Integration can best be led by those trained in both paradigms. Bridge-building activities, positive promotion of partnership and co-location of practices are also beneficial for creating bonding between team members. In order to empower the participation of TCAMP, the perceived power differentials need to be reduced. Also, resources should be committed to supporting team building, collaborative initiatives and greater patient access. Leadership and funding from central authorities are needed to promote the use of condition-specific referral protocols and shared electronic health records. More mature IHC programs usually formalize their evaluation process around outcomes that are recognized both by BMD and TCAMP. CONCLUSIONS: The major themes emerging from our review suggest that successful collaborative relationships between BMD and TCAMP are similar to those between other health professionals, and interventions which improve the effectiveness of joint working in other healthcare teams with may well be transferable to promote better

Nurse practitioners' perceptions of interprofessional team functioning with implications for nurse managers.

Science.gov (United States)

Heale, Roberta; Dickieson, Patti; Carter, Lorraine; Wenghofer, Elizabeth F

2014-10-01

To determine the perceptions of nurse practitioners (NPs) about the level of functioning of their interprofessional teams. Interprofessional teams are a global trend, and nurses play leadership roles in their management. Little is known about the impact of specific barriers to team functioning and the role of the nurse manager on team functioning. Ninety-eight NPs at a conference completed the Interprofessional Team Functioning Survey (ITFS). The survey items with the lowest mean scores were related to organisational systems. These items included workplace policies that support interprofessional teamwork, in particular, orientation to the interprofessional team. Items that generated lower mean scores were adequate time to work as a member of the interprofessional team, team dynamics, collaboration among team members and the sharing of responsibility. Organisational and team relational issues can be addressed through organisational management strategies. Nurse managers have an important role in facilitating high functioning interprofessional teams. Strategies for managers to support interprofessional team functioning emerged. These strategies include ensuring that there are appropriate policies, orientation of new members, allocation of time to support interprofessional teamwork, leadership to enhance team collaboration and clear delineation of responsibilities of each member. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

BioIMAX: A Web 2.0 approach for easy exploratory and collaborative access to multivariate bioimage data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Khan Michael

2011-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Innovations in biological and biomedical imaging produce complex high-content and multivariate image data. For decision-making and generation of hypotheses, scientists need novel information technology tools that enable them to visually explore and analyze the data and to discuss and communicate results or findings with collaborating experts from various places. Results In this paper, we present a novel Web2.0 approach, BioIMAX, for the collaborative exploration and analysis of multivariate image data by combining the webs collaboration and distribution architecture with the interface interactivity and computation power of desktop applications, recently called rich internet application. Conclusions BioIMAX allows scientists to discuss and share data or results with collaborating experts and to visualize, annotate, and explore multivariate image data within one web-based platform from any location via a standard web browser requiring only a username and a password. BioIMAX can be accessed at http://ani.cebitec.uni-bielefeld.de/BioIMAX with the username "test" and the password "test1" for testing purposes.

Interprofessional collaboration and integration as experienced by social workers in health care.

Science.gov (United States)

Glaser, Brooklyn; Suter, Esther

2016-01-01

Interprofessional collaboration in health care is gaining popularity. This secondary analysis focuses on social workers' experiences on interprofessional teams. The data revealed that social workers perceived overall collaboration as positive. However, concerns were made apparent regarding not having the opportunity to work to full scope and a lack of understanding of social work ideology from other professionals. Both factors seem to impede integration of and collaboration with social workers on health care teams. This study confirms the need to encourage and support health care providers to more fully understand the foundation, role, and efficacy of social work on interprofessional teams.

Writing Together: Gender's Effect on Collaboration.

Science.gov (United States)

Rehling, Louise

1996-01-01

Analyzes the behaviors of over 60 student groups in professional writing classes. Finds gender-related effects on collaboration: tendencies to stereotype men as technical experts and to self-segregate into gendered working teams. Suggests new perspectives on the role of gender for collaborative groups in professional writing classrooms. (PA)

The resident physician as leader within the healthcare team.

Science.gov (United States)

Sonnenberg, Lyn Kathryn; Pritchard-Wiart, Lesley; Busari, Jamiu

2018-05-08

Purpose The purpose of this study was to explore inter-professional clinicians' perspectives on resident leadership in the context of inter-professional teams and to identify a definition for leadership in the clinical context. In 2015, CanMEDS changed the title of one of the core competencies from manager to leader. The shift in language was perceived by some as returning to traditional hierarchical and physician-dominant structures. The resulting uncertainty has resulted in a call to action to not only determine what physician leadership is but to also determine how to teach and assess it. Design/methodology/approach Focus groups and follow-up individual interviews were conducted with 23 inter-professional clinicians from three pediatric clinical service teams at a large, Canadian tertiary-level rehabilitation hospital. Qualitative thematic analysis was used to inductively analyze the data. Findings Data analysis resulted in one overarching theme: leadership is collaborative - and three related subthemes: leadership is shared; leadership is summative; and conceptualizations of leadership are shifting. Research limitations/implications Not all members of the three inter-professional teams were able to attend the focus group sessions because of scheduling conflicts. Participation of additional clinicians could have, therefore, affected the results of this study. The study was conducted locally at a single rehabilitation hospital, among Canadian pediatric clinicians, which highlights the need to explore conceptualization of leadership across different contexts. Practical implications There is an evident need to prepare physicians to be leaders in both their daily clinical and academic practices. Therefore, more concerted efforts are required to develop leadership skills among residents. The authors postulate that continued integration of various inter-professional disciplines during the early phases of training is essential to foster collaborative leadership and

Leading a Virtual Intercultural Team. Implications for Virtual Team Leaders

OpenAIRE

Chutnik, Monika; Grzesik, Katarzyna

2009-01-01

Increasing number of companies operate in the setup of teams whose members are geographically scattered and have different cultural origins. They work through access to the same digital network and communicate by means of modern technology. Sometimes they are located in different time zones and have never met each other face to face. This is the age of a virtual team leader. Virtual leadership in intercultural groups requires special skills from leaders. Many of these reflect leadership s...

The codesign of an interdisciplinary team-based intervention regarding initiating palliative care in pediatric oncology.

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Hill, Douglas L; Walter, Jennifer K; Casas, Jessica A; DiDomenico, Concetta; Szymczak, Julia E; Feudtner, Chris

2018-04-07

Children with advanced cancer are often not referred to palliative or hospice care before they die or are only referred close to the child's death. The goals of the current project were to learn about pediatric oncology team members' perspectives on palliative care, to collaborate with team members to modify and tailor three separate interdisciplinary team-based interventions regarding initiating palliative care, and to assess the feasibility of this collaborative approach. We used a modified version of experience-based codesign (EBCD) involving members of the pediatric palliative care team and three interdisciplinary pediatric oncology teams (Bone Marrow Transplant, Neuro-Oncology, and Solid Tumor) to review and tailor materials for three team-based interventions. Eleven pediatric oncology team members participated in four codesign sessions to discuss their experiences with initiating palliative care and to review the proposed intervention including patient case studies, techniques for managing uncertainty and negative emotions, role ambiguity, system-level barriers, and team communication and collaboration. The codesign process showed that the participants were strong supporters of palliative care, members of different teams had preferences for different materials that would be appropriate for their teams, and that while participants reported frustration with timing of palliative care, they had difficulty suggesting how to change current practices. The current project demonstrated the feasibility of collaborating with pediatric oncology clinicians to develop interventions about introducing palliative care. The procedures and results of this project will be posted online so that other institutions can use them as a model for developing similar interventions appropriate for their needs.

Building transparent data access for ocean observatories: Coordination of U.S. IOOS DMAC with NSF's OOI Cyberinfrastructure

Science.gov (United States)

Arrott, M.; Alexander, Corrine; Graybeal, J.; Mueller, C.; Signell, R.; de La Beaujardière, J.; Taylor, A.; Wilkin, J.; Powell, B.; Orcutt, J.

2011-01-01

The NOAA-led U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) and the National Science Foundation's Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) have been collaborating since 2007 on advanced tools and technologies that ensure open access to ocean observations and models. Initial collaboration focused on serving ocean data via cloud computing-a key component of the OOI cyberinfrastructure (CI) architecture. As the OOI transitioned from planning to execution in the Fall of 2009, an OOI/IOOS team developed a customer-based "use case" to align more closely with the emerging objectives of OOI-CI team's first software release scheduled for Summer 2011 and provide a quantitative capacity for stress-testing these tools and protocols. A requirements process was initiated with coastal modelers, focusing on improved workflows to deliver ocean observation data. Accomplishments to date include the documentation and assessment of scientific workflows for two "early adopter" modeling teams from IOOS Regional partners (Rutgers-the State University of New Jersey and University of Hawaii's School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology) to enable full understanding of data sources and needs; generation of all-inclusive lists of the data sets required and those obtainable through IOOS; a more complete understanding of areas where IOOS can expand data access capabilities to better serve the needs of the modeling community; and development of "data set agents" (software) to facilitate data acquisition from numerous data providers and conversions of the data format to the OOI-CI canonical form. ?? 2011 MTS.

Coordinated Implicitly? An Empirical Study on the Role of Social Media in Collaborative Learning

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Zhang, Xi; Chen, Hui; Ordóñez de Pablos, Patricia; Lytras, Miltiadis D.; Sun, Yongqiang

2016-01-01

As social media is widely adopted in collaborative learning, which places teams in a virtual environment, it is critical for teams to identify and leverage the knowledge of their members. Yet little is known about how social media influences teams to coordinate their knowledge and collaborate effectively. In this research, we explore the roles of…

Outcomes of interprofessional collaboration for hospitalized cancer patients.

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San Martin-Rodriguez, Leticia; D'Amour, Danielle; Leduc, Nicole

2008-01-01

This study aims to evaluate the effect of the intensity of interprofessional collaboration on hospitalized cancer patients. We conducted a cross-sectional study of 312 patients to examine the effects of intensity of interprofessional collaboration (low vs high intensity collaboration) on patient satisfaction, uncertainty, pain management, and length of stay. Data on the intensity of interprofessional collaboration, patient satisfaction, and uncertainty were collected from professionals and patients using valid and reliable instruments. Administrative and clinical records were used to calculate the index of pain management and length of hospital stay. The analysis revealed the existence of significant differences between patients who are cared for by teams operating with a high intensity of collaboration and those who are cared for by teams operating with a low intensity of collaboration, as measured by the mean satisfaction (P management (P = .047). The analysis also found no significant difference (P = .217) in their length of hospital stay. The findings suggest that intensity of interprofessional collaboration has a positive effect on patient satisfaction, reduces uncertainty, and improves pain management, yet they also suggest that the degree of collaboration does not influence the length of hospital stay.

Experimental Evaluation of Instructional Consultation Teams on Teacher Beliefs and Practices

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Vu, Phuong; Shanahan, Katherine Bruckman; Rosenfield, Sylvia; Gravois, Todd; Koehler, Jessica; Kaiser, Lauren; Berger, Jill; Vaganek, Megan; Gottfredson, Gary D.; Nelson, Deborah

2013-01-01

Instructional Consultation Teams (IC Teams) are an early intervention service intended to support teachers in working with struggling students. This is a large-scale experimental trial investigating the effects of IC Teams on teacher efficacy, instructional practices, collaboration, and job satisfaction. Public elementary schools (N = 34) were…

The Strength of the Strongest Ties in Collaborative Problem Solving

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

de Montjoye, Yves-Alexandre; Stopczynski, Arkadiusz; Shmueli, Erez

2014-01-01

Complex problem solving in science, engineering, and business has become a highly collaborative endeavor. Teams of scientists or engineers collaborate on projects using their social networks to gather new ideas and feedback. Here we bridge the literature on team performance and information networks...... by studying teams' problem solving abilities as a function of both their within-team networks and their members' extended networks. We show that, while an assigned team's performance is strongly correlated with its networks of expressive and instrumental ties, only the strongest ties in both networks have...... an effect on performance. Both networks of strong ties explain more of the variance than other factors, such as measured or self-evaluated technical competencies, or the personalities of the team members. In fact, the inclusion of the network of strong ties renders these factors non...

A network collaboration implementing technology to improve medication dispensing and administration in critical access hospitals.

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Wakefield, Douglas S; Ward, Marcia M; Loes, Jean L; O'Brien, John

2010-01-01

We report how seven independent critical access hospitals collaborated with a rural referral hospital to standardize workflow policies and procedures while jointly implementing the same health information technologies (HITs) to enhance medication care processes. The study hospitals implemented the same electronic health record, computerized provider order entry, pharmacy information systems, automated dispensing cabinets (ADC), and barcode medication administration systems. We conducted interviews and examined project documents to explore factors underlying the successful implementation of ADC and barcode medication administration across the network hospitals. These included a shared culture of collaboration; strategic sequencing of HIT component implementation; interface among HIT components; strategic placement of ADCs; disciplined use and sharing of workflow analyses linked with HIT applications; planning for workflow efficiencies; acquisition of adequate supply of HIT-related devices; and establishing metrics to monitor HIT use and outcomes.

Three Case Studies on Business Collaboration and Process Management

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Fan, Shaokun

2012-01-01

The importance of collaboration has been recognized for more than 2000 years. While recent improvement in technology creates vast opportunities for collaboration, effective collaboration remains challenging as ad hoc teams work across time, geographical, language, and technical boundaries, and suffer from process inefficiency. My dissertation…

Do collaborative practical tests encourage student-centered active learning of gross anatomy?

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Green, Rodney A; Cates, Tanya; White, Lloyd; Farchione, Davide

2016-05-06

Benefits of collaborative testing have been identified in many disciplines. This study sought to determine whether collaborative practical tests encouraged active learning of anatomy. A gross anatomy course included a collaborative component in four practical tests. Two hundred and seven students initially completed the test as individuals and then worked as a team to complete the same test again immediately afterwards. The relationship between mean individual, team, and difference (between team and individual) test scores to overall performance on the final examination (representing overall learning in the course) was examined using regression analysis. The overall mark in the course increased by 9% with a decreased failure rate. There was a strong relationship between individual score and final examination mark (P learning occurring during the collaborative testing and that weaker students gained the benefit from team marks without significant active learning taking place. This negative outcome may be due to insufficient encouragement of the active learning strategies that were expected to occur during the collaborative testing process. An improved understanding of the efficacy of collaborative assessment could be achieved through the inclusion of questionnaire based data to allow a better interpretation of learning outcomes. Anat Sci Educ 9: 231-237. © 2015 American Association of Anatomists. © 2015 American Association of Anatomists.

Collaborative and Competitive Video Games for Teaching Computing in Higher Education

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Smith, Spencer; Chan, Samantha

2017-01-01

This study measures the success of using a collaborative and competitive video game, named Space Race, to teach computing to first year engineering students. Space Race is played by teams of four, each with their own tablet, collaborating to compete against the other teams in the class. The impact of the game on student learning was studied…

Collaborative Tools for Mixed Teams of Humans and Robots

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Bruemmer, David J; Walton, Miles C

2003-01-01

.... Our approach has been to consider the air vehicles, ground robots and humans as team members with different levels of authority, different communication, processing, power and mobility capabilities...

Integrated collaborative care teams to enhance service delivery to youth with mental health and substance use challenges: protocol for a pragmatic randomised controlled trial.

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Henderson, Joanna L; Cheung, Amy; Cleverley, Kristin; Chaim, Gloria; Moretti, Myla E; de Oliveira, Claire; Hawke, Lisa D; Willan, Andrew R; O'Brien, David; Heffernan, Olivia; Herzog, Tyson; Courey, Lynn; McDonald, Heather; Grant, Enid; Szatmari, Peter

2017-02-06

Among youth, the prevalence of mental health and addiction (MHA) disorders is roughly 20%, yet youth are challenged to access evidence-based services in a timely fashion. To address MHA system gaps, this study tests the benefits of an Integrated Collaborative Care Team (ICCT) model for youth with MHA challenges. A rapid, stepped-care approach geared to need in a youth-friendly environment is expected to result in better youth MHA outcomes. Moreover, the ICCT approach is expected to decrease service wait-times, be more youth-friendly and family-friendly, and be more cost-effective, providing substantial public health benefits. In partnership with four community agencies, four adolescent psychiatry hospital departments, youth and family members with lived experience of MHA service use, and other stakeholders, we have developed an innovative model of collaborative, community-based service provision involving rapid access to needs-based MHA services. A total of 500 youth presenting for hospital-based, outpatient psychiatric service will be randomised to ICCT services or hospital-based treatment as usual, following a pragmatic randomised controlled trial design. The primary outcome variable will be the youth's functioning, assessed at intake, 6 months and 12 months. Secondary outcomes will include clinical change, youth/family satisfaction and perception of care, empowerment, engagement and the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER). Intent-to-treat analyses will be used on repeated-measures data, along with cost-effectiveness and cost-utility analyses, to determine intervention effectiveness. Research Ethics Board approval has been received from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, as well as institutional ethical approval from participating community sites. This study will be conducted according to Good Clinical Practice guidelines. Participants will provide informed consent prior to study participation and data confidentiality will be ensured. A data

Investigation of the sequential validity of quality improvement team ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Background: Self-assessment is widely used in the health care improvement collaboratives quality improvement (QI) teams' to assess their own performance. There is mixed evidence on the validity of this approach. This study investigated sequential validity of self-assessments in a QI HIV collaborative in Tanzania.

From the Collaborative Environment of the Remote Laboratory NetLab to the Global Collaboration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jan Machotka

2008-07-01

Full Text Available The remote laboratory (RL can be considered as a modern collaborative learning environment, where students acquire skills required for efficient collaboration and communication on a local and global scale, both today and in the near future. The majority of current existing RLs are not constructed to allow the involved participants to collaborate in real time. This paper describes the collaborative RL NetLab, developed at the University of South Australia (UniSA, which allows up to three onshore and/or offshore students to conduct remote experiments at the same time as a team. This allows the online RL environment to become very similar, if not nearly identical to its real laboratory counterpart. The collaboration in the real laboratory is replaced by the “global” on-line collaboration.

The Strength of the Strongest Ties in Collaborative Problem Solving

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de Montjoye, Yves-Alexandre; Stopczynski, Arkadiusz; Shmueli, Erez; Pentland, Alex; Lehmann, Sune

2014-06-01

Complex problem solving in science, engineering, and business has become a highly collaborative endeavor. Teams of scientists or engineers collaborate on projects using their social networks to gather new ideas and feedback. Here we bridge the literature on team performance and information networks by studying teams' problem solving abilities as a function of both their within-team networks and their members' extended networks. We show that, while an assigned team's performance is strongly correlated with its networks of expressive and instrumental ties, only the strongest ties in both networks have an effect on performance. Both networks of strong ties explain more of the variance than other factors, such as measured or self-evaluated technical competencies, or the personalities of the team members. In fact, the inclusion of the network of strong ties renders these factors non-significant in the statistical analysis. Our results have consequences for the organization of teams of scientists, engineers, and other knowledge workers tackling today's most complex problems.

Exploring Social Structures in Extended Team Model

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zahedi, Mansooreh; Ali Babar, Muhammad

2013-01-01

Extended Team Model (ETM) as a type of offshore outsourcing is increasingly becoming popular mode of Global Software Development (GSD). There is little knowledge about the social structures in ETM and their impact on collaboration. Within a large interdisciplinary project to develop the next...... generation of GSD technologies, we are exploring the role of social structures to support collaboration. This paper reports some details of our research design and initial findings about the mechanisms to support social structures and their impact on collaboration in an ETM....

The concept of collaborative health.

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Sandberg, Håkan

2010-11-01

Based on empirical research about teamwork in human service organizations in Sweden, the concept of collaborative health (CH) encapsulates the physical, psychological and social health resources the individual uses in teamwork; resources which at the same time are influenced by the teamwork. My argument built on empirical research leading up to identifying and defining the core concept in this article, is that teamwork affects team members' health and this in turn affects the teamwork and its outcome. In this paper collaborative health is viewed from a social constructionism perspective and discussed in relation to earlier concepts developed in social psychology and working life research, including psychosocial stress and burnout. The paper also introduces the concept of functional synergy, which in this context is defined as the simultaneous presence of sharp goal-orientation and synergy in teamwork. The need for a holistic team theory is emphasized as a tool in research on teamwork. Such a theory relies on identifying sound and illuminating constituent concepts. I suggest that collaborative health could be a useful concept for better understanding the complex collaborative and co-operative teamwork of human service organizations of today.

Promoting Collaborative Problem-Solving Skills in a Course on Engineering Grand Challenges

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Zou, Tracy X. P.; Mickleborough, Neil C.

2015-01-01

The ability to solve problems with people of diverse backgrounds is essential for engineering graduates. A course on engineering grand challenges was designed to promote collaborative problem-solving (CPS) skills. One unique component is that students need to work both within their own team and collaborate with the other team to tackle engineering…

Design and field test of collaborative tools in the service of an innovative organization

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

De Beler, N.; Parfouru, S.

2012-01-01

This paper presents the design process of collaborative tools, based on ICT, aiming at supporting the tasks of the team that manages an outage of an energy production plant for maintenance activities. The design process follows an iterative and multidisciplinary approach, based on a collective tasks modeling of the outage management team in the light of Socio Organizational and Human (SOH) field studies, and on the state of the art of ICT. Field test of the collaborative tools designed plays a great place in this approach, allowing taking into account the operational world but involves also some risks which must be managed. To implement tools on all the production plants, we build an 'operational concept' with a level of description which authorizes the evolution of tools and allows some local adaptations. The field tests provide lessons on the ICT topics. For examples: the status of the remote access tools, the potential of use of a given information input by an actor for several individual and collective purposes, the actors perception of the tools meaning, and the requirements for supporting the implementation of change. (authors)

A National Quality Improvement Collaborative for the clinical use of outcome measurement in specialised mental healthcare: results from a parallel group design and a nested cluster randomised controlled trial.

Science.gov (United States)

Metz, Margot J; Veerbeek, Marjolein A; Franx, Gerdien C; van der Feltz-Cornelis, Christina M; de Beurs, Edwin; Beekman, Aartjan T F

2017-05-01

Although the importance and advantages of measurement-based care in mental healthcare are well established, implementation in daily practice is complex and far from optimal. To accelerate the implementation of outcome measurement in routine clinical practice, a government-sponsored National Quality Improvement Collaborative was initiated in Dutch-specialised mental healthcare. To investigate the effects of this initiative, we combined a matched-pair parallel group design (21 teams) with a cluster randomised controlled trial (RCT) (6 teams). At the beginning and end, the primary outcome 'actual use and perceived clinical utility of outcome measurement' was assessed. In both designs, intervention teams demonstrated a significant higher level of implementation of outcome measurement than control teams. Overall effects were large (parallel group d =0.99; RCT d =1.25). The National Collaborative successfully improved the use of outcome measurement in routine clinical practice. None. © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 2017. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Non-Commercial, No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) license.

Examining the Highs and Lows of the Collaborative Relationship Between Technical Assistance Providers and Prevention Implementers.

Science.gov (United States)

Chilenski, Sarah M; Welsh, Janet; Olson, Jonathan; Hoffman, Lesa; Perkins, Daniel F; Feinberg, Mark E

2018-02-01

The PROSPER model uses a three-tiered community partnership, university researcher, and Cooperative Extension-based technical assistance system to support the delivery of evidence-based interventions in communities. This study examines the trajectory and predictors of the collaborative relationship between technical assistance providers and community teams across the three phases of organization, implementation, and sustainability. Members of 14 PROmoting School-university-community Partnerships to Enhance Resilience (PROSPER) community teams and directors of local agencies rated communities' levels of readiness and adolescent substance use norms. Technical assistance providers rated their collaborative relationship with their teams at 14 occasions across 4.5 years. Results from mixed models show that levels of collaboration were stable until the sustainability phase, when they increased significantly. Team differences in change were significant during the implementation phase. Community readiness predicted levels of the collaborative relationship over time: high community readiness was associated with a high level of collaboration during organization, but a decline in collaboration during implementation. These results provide a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between technical assistance provision and community prevention teams and lead to recommendations to improve dissemination models to achieve a greater public health impact.

Interprofessional Collaborative Practice to Improve Patient Outcomes: A Pilot Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jennifer Styron

2014-06-01

Full Text Available This project focused on a pilot project implemented during the 2013-2014 academic year. The overall purpose was to facilitate interprofessional collaborative practice innovations through the development of leadership, core competencies, and the use of technology, especially among nurses. Nursing, medicine, and physician assistant students were educated on the IOM competencies for interprofessional teams and the core competencies identified by the Interprofessional Education Collaborative Expert Panel [1] to develop knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to practice in the collaborative practice environments. The project addressed four goals: Develop faculty expertise and leadership in interprofessional collaborative practice to provide a current, high quality education to nursing, physician assistant, and medical students; Implement a culturally responsive and respectful collaborative interprofessional practice curriculum to prepare nurses, physician assistants, and medical students to deliver high quality, efficient, team-based care in a dynamically evolving environment; Focus interprofessional collaborative practice education on models and practices that lead to improvement in patient outcomes; and Evaluate the program and disseminate best practices. Findings from this pilot include strategies to engage different health professions' students and faculty, partnering with community agencies, building an effective interprofessional team to guide the project, and seeking funding for extension and expansion of the offerings.

Family Medicine Panel Size with Care Teams: Impact on Quality.

Science.gov (United States)

Angstman, Kurt B; Horn, Jennifer L; Bernard, Matthew E; Kresin, Molly M; Klavetter, Eric W; Maxson, Julie; Willis, Floyd B; Grover, Michael L; Bryan, Michael J; Thacher, Tom D

2016-01-01

The demand for comprehensive primary health care continues to expand. The development of team-based practice allows for improved capacity within a collective, collaborative environment. Our hypothesis was to determine the relationship between panel size and access, quality, patient satisfaction, and cost in a large family medicine group practice using a team-based care model. Data were retrospectively collected from 36 family physicians and included total panel size of patients, percentage of time spent on patient care, cost of care, access metrics, diabetic quality metrics, patient satisfaction surveys, and patient care complexity scores. We used linear regression analysis to assess the relationship between adjusted physician panel size, panel complexity, and outcomes. The third available appointments (P size. Patient satisfaction, cost, and percentage fill rate were not affected by panel size. A physician-adjusted panel size larger than the current mean (2959 patients) was associated with a greater likelihood of poor-quality rankings (≤25th percentile) compared with those with a less than average panel size (odds ratio [OR], 7.61; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.13-51.46). Increased panel size was associated with a longer time to the third available appointment (OR, 10.9; 95% CI, 1.36-87.26) compared with physicians with panel sizes smaller than the mean. We demonstrated a negative impact of larger panel size on diabetic quality results and available appointment access. Evaluation of a family medicine practice parameters while controlling for panel size and patient complexity may help determine the optimal panel size for a practice. © Copyright 2016 by the American Board of Family Medicine.

Using Wikis to Investigate Communication, Collaboration and Engagement in Capstone Engineering Design Projects

Science.gov (United States)

Berthoud, L.; Gliddon, J.

2018-01-01

In today's global Aerospace industry, virtual workspaces are commonly used for collaboration between geographically distributed multidisciplinary teams. This study investigated the use of wikis to look at communication, collaboration and engagement in 'Capstone' team design projects at the end of an engineering degree. Wikis were set up for teams…

The Impact of Cooperative Video Games on Team Cohesion

Science.gov (United States)

Anderson, Greg

2010-01-01

In today's economy, productivity and efficiency require collaboration between employees. In order to improve collaboration the factors affecting teamwork must be examined to identify where changes can be made in order to increase performance. One factor contributing to teamwork is team cohesion and represents a process whereby members are joined…

Future Time Perspective in Occupational Teams: Do Older Workers Prefer More Familiar Teams?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Laura U. A. Gärtner

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Working in teams is quite popular across different industries and cultures. While some of these teams exist for longer time periods, other teams collaborate only for short periods and members switch into new teams after goals are accomplished. However, workers’ preferences for joining a new team might vary in different ways. Based on Carstensen’s socioemotional selectivity theory, we predict that emotionally meaningful teams are prioritized when occupational future time perspective (OFTP is perceived as limited. Building and expanding on studies outside of the work context, we expected that older as compared to younger workers prefer more familiar teams, and that this effect is mediated by workers’ OFTP. Moreover, we assumed that experimentally manipulated OFTP can change such team preferences. The hypotheses were tested in an online scenario study using three experimental conditions (within-person design. Four hundred and fifty-four workers (57% female, age M = 45.98, SD = 11.46 were asked to choose between a familiar and a new team in three consecutive trials: under an unspecified OFTP (baseline, under an expanded OFTP (amendment of retirement age, and under a restricted OFTP (insolvency of the current company. Whereas the baseline condition was always first, the order of the second and third conditions was randomized among participants. In the baseline condition, results showed the expected mediation effect of workers’ OFTP on the relation between workers’ age and preference for a familiar over a new team. Higher age was associated with more limited OFTP, which in turn was associated with higher preference for a familiar over a new team. Moreover, experimentally restricting OFTP increased preference for a familiar team over a new team regardless of workers’ age, providing further evidence for the assumed causal processes and showing interesting avenues for practical interventions in occupational teams.

Future Time Perspective in Occupational Teams: Do Older Workers Prefer More Familiar Teams?

Science.gov (United States)

Gärtner, Laura U. A.; Hertel, Guido

2017-01-01

Working in teams is quite popular across different industries and cultures. While some of these teams exist for longer time periods, other teams collaborate only for short periods and members switch into new teams after goals are accomplished. However, workers’ preferences for joining a new team might vary in different ways. Based on Carstensen’s socioemotional selectivity theory, we predict that emotionally meaningful teams are prioritized when occupational future time perspective (OFTP) is perceived as limited. Building and expanding on studies outside of the work context, we expected that older as compared to younger workers prefer more familiar teams, and that this effect is mediated by workers’ OFTP. Moreover, we assumed that experimentally manipulated OFTP can change such team preferences. The hypotheses were tested in an online scenario study using three experimental conditions (within-person design). Four hundred and fifty-four workers (57% female, age M = 45.98, SD = 11.46) were asked to choose between a familiar and a new team in three consecutive trials: under an unspecified OFTP (baseline), under an expanded OFTP (amendment of retirement age), and under a restricted OFTP (insolvency of the current company). Whereas the baseline condition was always first, the order of the second and third conditions was randomized among participants. In the baseline condition, results showed the expected mediation effect of workers’ OFTP on the relation between workers’ age and preference for a familiar over a new team. Higher age was associated with more limited OFTP, which in turn was associated with higher preference for a familiar over a new team. Moreover, experimentally restricting OFTP increased preference for a familiar team over a new team regardless of workers’ age, providing further evidence for the assumed causal processes and showing interesting avenues for practical interventions in occupational teams. PMID:29018376

Future Time Perspective in Occupational Teams: Do Older Workers Prefer More Familiar Teams?

Science.gov (United States)

Gärtner, Laura U A; Hertel, Guido

2017-01-01

Working in teams is quite popular across different industries and cultures. While some of these teams exist for longer time periods, other teams collaborate only for short periods and members switch into new teams after goals are accomplished. However, workers' preferences for joining a new team might vary in different ways. Based on Carstensen's socioemotional selectivity theory, we predict that emotionally meaningful teams are prioritized when occupational future time perspective (OFTP) is perceived as limited. Building and expanding on studies outside of the work context, we expected that older as compared to younger workers prefer more familiar teams, and that this effect is mediated by workers' OFTP. Moreover, we assumed that experimentally manipulated OFTP can change such team preferences. The hypotheses were tested in an online scenario study using three experimental conditions (within-person design). Four hundred and fifty-four workers (57% female, age M = 45.98, SD = 11.46) were asked to choose between a familiar and a new team in three consecutive trials: under an unspecified OFTP (baseline), under an expanded OFTP (amendment of retirement age), and under a restricted OFTP (insolvency of the current company). Whereas the baseline condition was always first, the order of the second and third conditions was randomized among participants. In the baseline condition, results showed the expected mediation effect of workers' OFTP on the relation between workers' age and preference for a familiar over a new team. Higher age was associated with more limited OFTP, which in turn was associated with higher preference for a familiar over a new team. Moreover, experimentally restricting OFTP increased preference for a familiar team over a new team regardless of workers' age, providing further evidence for the assumed causal processes and showing interesting avenues for practical interventions in occupational teams.

Patients as team members: opportunities, challenges and paradoxes of including patients in multi-professional healthcare teams.

Science.gov (United States)

Martin, Graham P; Finn, Rachael

2011-11-01

Current healthcare policy emphasises the need for more collaborative, team-based approaches to providing care, and for a greater voice for service users in the management and delivery of care. Increasingly, policy encourages 'partnerships' between users and professionals so that users, too, effectively become team members. In examining this phenomenon, this paper draws on insights from the organisational-sociological literature on team work, which highlights the challenges of bringing together diverse professional groups, but which has not, to date, been applied in contexts where users, too, are included in teams. Using data from a qualitative study of five pilot cancer-genetics projects, in which service users were included in teams responsible for managing and developing new services, it highlights the difficulties involved in making teams of such heterogeneous members-and the paradoxes that arise when this task is achieved. It reveals how the tension between integration and specialisation of team members, highlighted in the literature on teams in general, is especially acute for service users, the distinctiveness of whose contribution is more fragile, and open to blurring. © 2011 The Authors. Sociology of Health & Illness © 2011 Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness/Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Securing collaborative environments

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Agarwal, Deborah [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Jackson, Keith [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Thompson, Mary [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

2002-05-16

The diverse set of organizations and software components involved in a typical collaboratory make providing a seamless security solution difficult. In addition, the users need support for a broad range of frequency and locations for access to the collaboratory. A collaboratory security solution needs to be robust enough to ensure that valid participants are not denied access because of its failure. There are many tools that can be applied to the task of securing collaborative environments and these include public key infrastructure, secure sockets layer, Kerberos, virtual and real private networks, grid security infrastructure, and username/password. A combination of these mechanisms can provide effective secure collaboration capabilities. In this paper, we discuss the requirements of typical collaboratories and some proposals for applying various security mechanisms to collaborative environments.

Inelastic X-ray Scattering Beamline Collaborative Development Team Final Report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Burns, Clement

2008-01-01

This is the final report for the project to create a beam line for inelastic x-ray scattering at the Advanced Photon Source. The facility is complete and operating well, with spectrometers for both high resolution and medium resolution measurements. With the advent of third generation synchrotron sources, inelastic x-ray scattering (IXS) has become a valuable technique to probe the electronic and vibrational states of a wide variety of systems of interest in physics, chemistry, and biology. IXS is a weak probe, and experimental setups are complex and require well-optimized spectrometers which need a dedicated beamline to function efficiently. This project was the result of a proposal to provide a world-class, user friendly beamline for IXS at the Advanced Photon Source. The IXS Collaborative Development Team (IXS-CDT) was formed from groups at the national laboratories and a number of different universities. The beamline was designed from the front end to the experimental stations. Two different experimental stations were provided, one for medium resolution inelastic x-ray scattering (MERIX) and a spectrometer for high resolution inelastic x-ray scattering (HERIX). Funding for this project came from several sources as well as the DOE. The beamline is complete with both spectrometers operating well. The facility is now open to the general user community and there has been a tremendous demand to take advantage of the beamline's capabilities. A large number of different experiments have already been carried out on the beamline. A detailed description of the beamline has been given in the final design report (FDR) for the beamline from which much of the material in this report came. The first part of this report contains a general overview of the project with more technical details given later.

Trust and Collaboration in PLC Teams: Teacher Relationships, Principal Support, and Collaborative Benefits

Science.gov (United States)

Hallam, Pamela R.; Smith, Henry R.; Hite, Julie M.; Hite, Steven J.; Wilcox, Bradley R.

2015-01-01

Professional learning communities (PLCs) are being recognized as effective in improving teacher collaboration and student achievement. Trust is critical in effectively implementing the PLC model, and the school principal is best positioned to influence school trust levels. Using five facets of trust, this research sought to clarify the impact of…

Analyzing Team Based Engineering Design Process in Computer Supported Collaborative Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Dong-Kuk; Lee, Eun-Sang

2016-01-01

The engineering design process has been largely implemented in a collaborative project format. Recently, technological advancement has helped collaborative problem solving processes such as engineering design to have efficient implementation using computers or online technology. In this study, we investigated college students' interaction and…

Convergence of advances in genomics, team science, and repositories as drivers of progress in psychiatric genomics.

Science.gov (United States)

Lehner, Thomas; Senthil, Geetha; Addington, Anjené M

2015-01-01

After many years of unfilled promise, psychiatric genetics has seen an unprecedented number of successes in recent years. We hypothesize that the field has reached an inflection point through a confluence of four key developments: advances in genomics; the orientation of the scientific community around large collaborative team science projects; the development of sample and data repositories; and a policy framework for sharing and accessing these resources. We discuss these domains and their effect on scientific progress and provide a perspective on why we think this is only the beginning of a new era in scientific discovery. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Collaborative Practice Model: Improving the Delivery of Bad News.

Science.gov (United States)

Bowman, Pamela N; Slusser, Kim; Allen, Deborah

2018-02-01

Ideal bad news delivery requires skilled communication and team support. The literature has primarily focused on patient preferences, impact on care decisions, healthcare roles, and communication styles, without addressing systematic implementation. This article describes how an interdisciplinary team, led by advanced practice nurses, developed and implemented a collaborative practice model to deliver bad news on a unit that had struggled with inconsistencies. Using evidence-based practices, the authors explored current processes, role perceptions and expectations, and perceived barriers to developing the model, which is now the standard of care and an example of interprofessional team collaboration across the healthcare system. This model for delivering bad news can be easily adapted to meet the needs of other clinical units.
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Physician-Pharmacist collaboration in a pay for performance healthcare environment.

Science.gov (United States)

Farley, T M; Izakovic, M

2015-01-01

Healthcare is becoming more complex and costly in both European (Slovak) and American models. Healthcare in the United States (U.S.) is undergoing a particularly dramatic change. Physician and hospital reimbursement are becoming less procedure focused and increasingly outcome focused. Efforts at Mercy Hospital have shown promise in terms of collaborative team based care improving performance on glucose control outcome metrics, linked to reimbursement. Our performance on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) post-operative glucose control metric for cardiac surgery patients increased from a 63.6% pass rate to a 95.1% pass rate after implementing interventions involving physician-pharmacist team based care.Having a multidisciplinary team that is able to adapt quickly to changing expectations in the healthcare environment has aided our institution. As healthcare becomes increasingly saturated with technology, data and quality metrics, collaborative efforts resulting in increased quality and physician efficiency are desirable. Multidisciplinary collaboration (including physician-pharmacist collaboration) appears to be a viable route to improved performance in an outcome based healthcare system (Fig. 2, Ref. 12).

Collaborative Design and a Web Based Database For Active Roofs

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Quanjel, E.M.C.J.; Otter, den A.F.H.J.; Zeiler, W.; Wamelink, H.; Prins, M.; Geraerdts, R.

2009-01-01

Lack of collaboration in design teams often results in a low mutual level of understanding about the design to produce. This is due to the following intertwined aspects: a lack of integration in the team, knowledge gaps between team members and failing flows of information and communication between

Proceedings of the 3rd Biennial Conference of the Society for Implementation Research Collaboration (SIRC) 2015: advancing efficient methodologies through community partnerships and team science

OpenAIRE

Lewis, Cara; Darnell, Doyanne; Kerns, Suzanne; Monroe-DeVita, Maria; Landes, Sara J.; Lyon, Aaron R.; Stanick, Cameo; Dorsey, Shannon; Locke, Jill; Marriott, Brigid; Puspitasari, Ajeng; Dorsey, Caitlin; Hendricks, Karin; Pierson, Andria; Fizur, Phil

2016-01-01

Table of contents Introduction to the 3rd Biennial Conference of the Society for Implementation Research Collaboration: advancing efficient methodologies through team science and community partnerships Cara Lewis, Doyanne Darnell, Suzanne Kerns, Maria Monroe-DeVita, Sara J. Landes, Aaron R. Lyon, Cameo Stanick, Shannon Dorsey, Jill Locke, Brigid Marriott, Ajeng Puspitasari, Caitlin Dorsey, Karin Hendricks, Andria Pierson, Phil Fizur, Katherine A. Comtois A1: A behavioral economic perspective ...

Collaborative teacher learning in different primary school settings

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Doppenberg, J.J.; Bakx, A.W.E.A.; Brok, den P.J.

2012-01-01

During the last two decades there has been a growing awareness of the potentially strong role teacher collaboration can play in relation to teacher and team learning. Teachers collaborate with their colleagues in different formal and informal settings. Because most studies have focused on teacher

Extended teams in vocational education : collaboration on the border

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mazereeuw, Marco; Wopereis, Iwan; McKenney, Susan

2016-01-01

Extended Teams (ETs), in which teachers and workplace supervisors are jointly responsible for the quality of education, were established to solve problems concerning school–workplace connections in vocational and professional education. Six ETs were investigated during their 1st year of

Extended teams in vocational education: Collaboration on the border

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mazereeuw, Marco; Wopereis, Iwan; McKenney, Susan

2018-01-01

Extended Teams (ETs), in which teachers and workplace supervisors are jointly responsible for the quality of education, were established to solve problems concerning school–workplace connections in vocational and professional education. Six ETs were investigated during their 1st year of

Using a Learning Collaborative Strategy With Office-based Practices to Increase Access and Improve Quality of Care for Patients With Opioid Use Disorders.

Science.gov (United States)

Nordstrom, Benjamin R; Saunders, Elizabeth C; McLeman, Bethany; Meier, Andrea; Xie, Haiyi; Lambert-Harris, Chantal; Tanzman, Beth; Brooklyn, John; King, Gregory; Kloster, Nels; Lord, Clifton Frederick; Roberts, William; McGovern, Mark P

2016-01-01

Rapidly escalating rates of heroin and prescription opioid use have been widely observed in rural areas across the United States. Although US Food and Drug Administration-approved medications for opioid use disorders exist, they are not routinely accessible to patients. One medication, buprenorphine, can be prescribed by waivered physicians in office-based practice settings, but practice patterns vary widely. This study explored the use of a learning collaborative method to improve the provision of buprenorphine in the state of Vermont. We initiated a learning collaborative with 4 cohorts of physician practices (28 total practices). The learning collaborative consisted of a series of 4 face-to-face and 5 teleconference sessions over 9 months. Practices collected and reported on 8 quality-improvement data measures, which included the number of patients prescribed buprenorphine, and the percent of unstable patients seen weekly. Changes from baseline to 8 months were examined using a p-chart and logistic regression methodology. Physician engagement in the learning collaborative was favorable across all 4 cohorts (85.7%). On 6 of the 7 quality-improvement measures, there were improvements from baseline to 8 months. On 4 measures, these improvements were statistically significant (P learning collaborative approach to engage physicians, modestly improve patient access, and significantly reduce practice variation. The strategy is potentially generalizable to other systems and regions struggling with this important public health problem.

Automatic tools for enhancing the collaborative experience in large projects

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bourilkov, D; Rodriquez, J L

2014-01-01

With the explosion of big data in many fields, the efficient management of knowledge about all aspects of the data analysis gains in importance. A key feature of collaboration in large scale projects is keeping a log of what is being done and how - for private use, reuse, and for sharing selected parts with collaborators and peers, often distributed geographically on an increasingly global scale. Even better if the log is automatically created on the fly while the scientist or software developer is working in a habitual way, without the need for extra efforts. This saves time and enables a team to do more with the same resources. The CODESH - COllaborative DEvelopment SHell - and CAVES - Collaborative Analysis Versioning Environment System projects address this problem in a novel way. They build on the concepts of virtual states and transitions to enhance the collaborative experience by providing automatic persistent virtual logbooks. CAVES is designed for sessions of distributed data analysis using the popular ROOT framework, while CODESH generalizes the approach for any type of work on the command line in typical UNIX shells like bash or tcsh. Repositories of sessions can be configured dynamically to record and make available the knowledge accumulated in the course of a scientific or software endeavor. Access can be controlled to define logbooks of private sessions or sessions shared within or between collaborating groups. A typical use case is building working scalable systems for analysis of Petascale volumes of data as encountered in the LHC experiments. Our approach is general enough to find applications in many fields.

Team learning center design principles

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Daily, B.; Loveland, J.; Whatley, A. [New Mexico State Univ., Las Cruces, NM (United States)] [and others

1995-06-01

This is a preliminary report of a multi-year collaboration of the authors addressing the subject: Can a facility be designed for team learning and would it improve the efficiency and effectiveness of team interactions? Team learning in this context is a broad definition that covers all activities where small to large groups of people come together to work, to learn, and to share through team activities. Multimedia, networking, such as World Wide Web and other tools, are greatly enhancing the capability of individual learning. This paper addresses the application of technology and design to facilitate group or team learning. Many organizational meetings need tens of people to come together to do work as a large group and then divide into smaller subgroups of five to ten to work and then to return and report and interact with the larger group. Current facilities were not, in general, designed for this type of meeting. Problems with current facilities are defined and a preliminary design solution to many of the identified problems is presented.

Collaborating with Rising Stars

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersen, Kristina Vaarst; Mors, Marie Louise; Jeppesen, Jacob

2018-01-01

Status provides preferential access to resources, as well as favorable judgment, which in turn may lead to increases in performance. Prior work has established that such benefits even spill over between collaboration partners, thus allowing collaboration partners of high status individuals to bas...

Exploring Mission Concepts with the JPL Innovation Foundry A-Team

Science.gov (United States)

Ziemer, John K.; Ervin, Joan; Lang, Jared

2013-01-01

The JPL Innovation Foundry has established a new approach for exploring, developing, and evaluating early concepts called the A-Team. The A-Team combines innovative collaborative methods with subject matter expertise and analysis tools to help mature mission concepts. Science, implementation, and programmatic elements are all considered during an A-Team study. Methods are grouped by Concept Maturity Level (CML), from 1 through 3, including idea generation and capture (CML 1), initial feasibility assessment (CML 2), and trade space exploration (CML 3). Methods used for each CML are presented, and the key team roles are described from two points of view: innovative methods and technical expertise. A-Team roles for providing innovative methods include the facilitator, study lead, and assistant study lead. A-Team roles for providing technical expertise include the architect, lead systems engineer, and integration engineer. In addition to these key roles, each A-Team study is uniquely staffed to match the study topic and scope including subject matter experts, scientists, technologists, flight and instrument systems engineers, and program managers as needed. Advanced analysis and collaborative engineering tools (e.g. cost, science traceability, mission design, knowledge capture, study and analysis support infrastructure) are also under development for use in A-Team studies and will be discussed briefly. The A-Team facilities provide a constructive environment for innovative ideas from all aspects of mission formulation to eliminate isolated studies and come together early in the development cycle when they can provide the biggest impact. This paper provides an overview of the A-Team, its study processes, roles, methods, tools and facilities.

Understanding interprofessional collaboration in the context of chronic disease management for older adults living in communities: a concept analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Bookey-Bassett, Sue; Markle-Reid, Maureen; Mckey, Colleen A; Akhtar-Danesh, Noori

2017-01-01

To report a concept analysis of interprofessional collaboration in the context of chronic disease management, for older adults living in communities. Increasing prevalence of chronic disease among older adults is creating significant burden for patients, families and healthcare systems. Managing chronic disease for older adults living in the community requires interprofessional collaboration across different health and other care providers, organizations and sectors. However, there is a lack of consensus about the definition and use of interprofessional collaboration for community-based chronic disease management. Concept analysis. Electronic databases CINAHL, Medline, HealthStar, EMBASE, PsychINFO, Ageline and Cochrane Database were searched from 2000 - 2013. Rodgers' evolutionary method for concept analysis. The most common surrogate term was interdisciplinary collaboration. Related terms were interprofessional team, multidisciplinary team and teamwork. Attributes included: an evolving interpersonal process; shared goals, decision-making and care planning; interdependence; effective and frequent communication; evaluation of team processes; involving older adults and family members in the team; and diverse and flexible team membership. Antecedents comprised: role awareness; interprofessional education; trust between team members; belief that interprofessional collaboration improves care; and organizational support. Consequences included impacts on team composition and function, care planning processes and providers' knowledge, confidence and job satisfaction. Interprofessional collaboration is a complex evolving concept. Key components of interprofessional collaboration in chronic disease management for community-living older adults are identified. Implications for nursing practice, education and research are proposed. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Collaborative design in education : evaluation of three approaches

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Leeuwen, van J.P.; Gassel, van F.J.M.; Otter, den A.F.H.J.; Duarte, J.P.; Sampaio, A.Z.

2005-01-01

Collaboration in design can take place in a physical, social space, in a distributed or virtual environment, or in a combination of both. Design teams use a range of ICT means to support both synchronous and asynchronous communication. While these tools are designed to facilitate collaboration, the

Peripheral Social Awareness Information in Collaborative Work.

Science.gov (United States)

Spring, Michael B.; Vathanophas, Vichita

2003-01-01

Discusses being aware of other members of a team in a collaborative environment and reports on a study that examined group performance on a task that was computer mediated with and without awareness information. Examines how an awareness tool impacts the quality of a collaborative work effort and the communications between group members.…

Occupational therapists in the interdisciplinary team setting.

Science.gov (United States)

Reed, S M

1984-01-01

The interdisciplinary team approach to patient care provides an answer to the fragmentation and confusion patients feel when dealing with our complex healthcare system. Even though the team approach has been in use for the past two decades, implementation of a successful team is very difficult and rarely sustained over a significant period of time. This is especially true in general hospitals and in physical rehabilitation programs that spring from general hospitals where the physician and the nurse are the traditional care group. Occupational therapists, as they establish roles on interdisciplinary teams as staff members and team leaders, will require a knowledge of what makes a team function effectively. They can use this knowledge to evaluate the status of their own team and contribute to changes that will insure its long-term success. Six key issues should be addressed during the planning stage of any new healthcare team to insure its continued viability. These issues are: program philosophy, client focus, role clarification, collaboration and information sharing, policies and procedures, and staff supportiveness.

Beyond Brainstorming: Exploring Convergence in Teams

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Seeber, Isabella; de Vreede, Gert-Jan; Maier, Ronald

2017-01-01

Collaborative brainstorming is often followed by a convergence activity where teams extract the most promising ideas on a useful level of detail from the brainstorming results. Contrary to the wealth of research on electronic brainstorming, there is a dearth of research on convergence. We used...

Team Teaching in Social Work: Sharing Power with Bachelor of Social Work Students

Science.gov (United States)

Zapf, Michael Kim; Jerome, Les; Williams, Margaret

2011-01-01

Team teaching in social work education usually involves sequential lectures delivered by different instructors--relay or tag-team teaching. Truly collaborative or collegial team teaching involves a committed group of diverse instructors interacting together as equals in the classroom. Having more than one teacher in the classroom confounds…

COLLABORATION BOARD (CB55)

CERN Multimedia

B. Cousins

Open Access Publication Policy ATLAS had recently issued a short statement in support of open access publishing. The mood of the discussions in the December CMS Collaboration Board had appeared to be in favour and so it was being proposed that CMS issue the same statement as that made by ATLAS (the statement is attached to the agenda of this meeting). The Collaboration Board agreed. Election of the Chair of the Collaboration Board Following the agreement to shorten the terms of both the Spokesperson and the Collaboration Board Chair, and to introduce a longer overlap period between the election and the start of the term, the election for the next Collaboration Board Chair was due in December 2007. If the old standard schedule specified in the Constitution were adapted to this date, then the Board should be informed at the present meeting that the election was being prepared. However, it was felt that the experience of the previous year's election of the Spokesperson had shown that it would be desirable to...

The effectiveness of a nurse practitioner-led pain management team in long-term care: A mixed methods study.

Science.gov (United States)

Kaasalainen, Sharon; Wickson-Griffiths, Abigail; Akhtar-Danesh, Noori; Brazil, Kevin; Donald, Faith; Martin-Misener, Ruth; DiCenso, Alba; Hadjistavropoulos, Thomas; Dolovich, Lisa

2016-10-01

. Qualitative analysis highlighted the perceived benefits of LTC staff about having access to a nurse practitioner and benefits of the pain team, along with barriers to managing pain in LTC. The findings from this study showed that implementing a nurse practitioner-led pain team can significantly improve resident pain and functional status as well as clinical practice behaviours of LTC staff. LTC homes should employ a nurse practitioner, ideally located onsite as opposed to an offsite consultative role, to enhance inter-professional collaboration and facilitate more consistent and timely access to pain management. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Team-Based Care: A Concept Analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Baik, Dawon

2017-10-01

The purpose of this concept analysis is to clarify and analyze the concept of team-based care in clinical practice. Team-based care has garnered attention as a way to enhance healthcare delivery and patient care related to quality and safety. However, there is no consensus on the concept of team-based care; as a result, the lack of common definition impedes further studies on team-based care. This analysis was conducted using Walker and Avant's strategy. Literature searches were conducted using PubMed, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), and PsycINFO, with a timeline from January 1985 to December 2015. The analysis demonstrates that the concept of team-based care has three core attributes: (a) interprofessional collaboration, (b) patient-centered approach, and (c) integrated care process. This is accomplished through understanding other team members' roles and responsibilities, a climate of mutual respect, and organizational support. Consequences of team-based care are identified with three aspects: (a) patient, (b) healthcare professional, and (c) healthcare organization. This concept analysis helps better understand the characteristics of team-based care in the clinical practice as well as promote the development of a theoretical definition of team-based care. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Configurable Project Collaboration Portal, Phase I

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — SplashNote Systems is proposing to develop a more effective and innovative approach to project collaboration in distributed teams. The proposed system uniquely gives...

Accelerators: Sparking Innovation and Transdisciplinary Team Science in Disparities Research

Science.gov (United States)

Horowitz, Carol R.; Shameer, Khader; Gabrilove, Janice; Atreja, Ashish; Shepard, Peggy; Goytia, Crispin N.; Smith, Geoffrey W.; Dudley, Joel; Manning, Rachel; Bickell, Nina A.; Galvez, Maida P.

2017-01-01

Development and implementation of effective, sustainable, and scalable interventions that advance equity could be propelled by innovative and inclusive partnerships. Readied catalytic frameworks that foster communication, collaboration, a shared vision, and transformative translational research across scientific and non-scientific divides are needed to foster rapid generation of novel solutions to address and ultimately eliminate disparities. To achieve this, we transformed and expanded a community-academic board into a translational science board with members from public, academic and private sectors. Rooted in team science, diverse board experts formed topic-specific “accelerators”, tasked with collaborating to rapidly generate new ideas, questions, approaches, and projects comprising patients, advocates, clinicians, researchers, funders, public health and industry leaders. We began with four accelerators—digital health, big data, genomics and environmental health—and were rapidly able to respond to funding opportunities, transform new ideas into clinical and community programs, generate new, accessible, actionable data, and more efficiently and effectively conduct research. This innovative model has the power to maximize research quality and efficiency, improve patient care and engagement, optimize data democratization and dissemination among target populations, contribute to policy, and lead to systems changes needed to address the root causes of disparities. PMID:28241508

Interprofessional patient-centred practice in oncology teams: utopia or reality?

Science.gov (United States)

Bilodeau, Karine; Dubois, Sylvie; Pepin, Jacinthe

2015-03-01

Studies on interprofessional practice usually report professionals' viewpoints and document organizational, procedural and relational factors influencing that practice. Considering the importance of interprofessional patient-centred (IPPC) practice, it seems necessary to describe it in detail in an actual context of care, from the perspective of patients, their families and health-care professionals. The goal of this study was to describe IPPC practice throughout the continuum of cancer care. A qualitative multiple case study was completed with two interprofessional teams from a Canadian teaching hospital. Interviews were conducted with patients, their families and professionals, and observation was carried out. Three themes were illustrated by current team practice: welcoming the person as a unique individual, but still requiring the patient to comply; the paradoxical coexistence of patient-centred discourse and professional-centred practice; and triggering team collaboration with the culmination of the patient's situation. Several influential factors were described, including the way the team works; the physical environment; professionals' and patients'/family members' stance on the collaboration; professionals' stance on patients and their families; and patients' stance on professionals. Finally, themes describing the desired IPPC practice reflect the wish of most participants to be more involved. They were: providing support in line with the patient's experience and involvement; respecting patients by not imposing professionals' values and goals; and consistency and regularity in the collaboration of all members.

The interdisciplinary team in type 2 diabetes management: Challenges and best practice solutions from real-world scenarios

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Margaret McGill

2017-03-01

Full Text Available The Global Partnership for Effective Diabetes Management has previously recommended the implementation of an interdisciplinary team (IDT approach to type 2 diabetes (T2DM management as one of 10 practical steps for health care professionals to help more people achieve their glycaemic goal. This article discusses some of the key contributors to success and also the challenges faced when applying IDT care, by examining case studies and examples from around the world. The real-world practices discussed show that implementing successful interdisciplinary care in diabetes is possible despite significant barriers such as established hierarchal structures and financial resource constraints. Instituting collaborative, integrated working relationships among multiple disciplines under strong leadership, together with enhanced and active communication and improved patient access to appropriate specialties is essential. Patients have a crucial role in the management of their own disease and including them as part of the treatment team is also critical. IDTs in diabetes care improve patient outcomes in terms of control of glycaemia and cardiometabolic risk factors, and decreased risk of diabetes complications. Ensuring access to an appropriate IDT, in whatever form, is paramount to enable the best care to be delivered.

Networking 2.0: Expanding your collaboration circles through the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee (IARPC)

Science.gov (United States)

Rohde, J. A.; Bowden, S.; Stephenson, S. N.; Starkweather, S.

2015-12-01

The Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee (IARPC) envisions a prosperous, sustainable, and healthy Arctic understood through innovative and collaborative research coordinated among Federal agencies and domestic and international partners. IARPC's approach is to harnesses the talent of the scientific and stakeholder community through Federally-run but broadly open collaboration teams, and an innovative website that expands the frontiers of collaborative research. The Obama Administration released the five-year Arctic Research Plan: FY2013-2017 in February 2013. The Plan focuses on advancing knowledge and sustainability of the Arctic by improving collaboration in seven priority research areas: sea ice and marine ecosystems, terrestrial ice and ecosystems, atmospheric studies, observing systems, regional climate models, human health studies, and adaptation tools for communities. From these seven research areas, 12 collaboration teams were formed to respond to the 145 milestones laid out in the Plan. The collaboration teams are charged with enhancing inter-institutional and interdisciplinary implementation of scientific research on local, regional, and circumpolar environmental and societal issues in the Arctic. The collaboration teams are co-chaired by Federal program managers, and, in some cases, external partners and are open to research and stakeholder communities. They meet on a regular basis by web- or teleconference to inform one another about ongoing and planned programs and new research results, as well as to inventory existing programs, identify gaps in knowledge and research, and address and implement the Plan's milestones. In-between meetings, team members communicate via our innovative, user-driven, collaboration website. Members share information about their research activities by posting updates, uploading documents, and including events on our calendar, and entering into dialogue about their research activities. Conversations taking place on the

Physicians' perspectives of pharmacist-physician collaboration in the United Arab Emirates: Findings from an exploratory study.

Science.gov (United States)

Hasan, S; Stewart, K; Chapman, C B; Kong, D C M

2018-03-28

Interprofessional collaborative care has been shown to improve patient outcomes. Physicians' views on collaboration with pharmacists give an insight into what contributes to a well-functioning team. Little is known about these views from low and ​middle-income countries and nothing from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The purpose of this study is to investigate physicians' opinions on collaborative relationships with community pharmacists in the UAE. Semi-structured individual interviews and group discussions are conducted with a purposive sample of physicians. Thematic analysis based on the framework approach is used to generate themes. A total of 53 physicians participated. Three themes about collaboration emerged: perceived benefits of collaboration, facilitators of collaboration and perceived barriers to collaboration. Perceived benefits include reducing the burden on physicians, having the pharmacist as an extra safety check within the system, having the pharmacist assist patients to manage their medications: coping with side effects, reducing drug waste and costs, and attaining professional and health-system gains. Perceived facilitators included awareness and trust building, professional role definition, pharmacists' access to patient records and effective communication. Perceived barriers included patient and physician acceptance, logistic and financial issues and perceived pharmacist competence. This study has, for the first time, provided useful information to inform the future development of pharmacist-physician collaboration in the UAE and other countries with similar healthcare systems.

Associated and Mediating Variables Related to Job Satisfaction among Professionals from Mental Health Teams.

Science.gov (United States)

Fleury, Marie-Josée; Grenier, Guy; Bamvita, Jean-Marie; Chiocchio, François

2018-06-01

Using a structural analysis, this study examines the relationship between job satisfaction among 315 mental health professionals from the province of Quebec (Canada) and a wide range of variables related to provider characteristics, team characteristics, processes, and emergent states, and organizational culture. We used the Job Satisfaction Survey to assess job satisfaction. Our conceptual framework integrated numerous independent variables adapted from the input-mediator-output-input (IMOI) model and the Integrated Team Effectiveness Model (ITEM). The structural equation model predicted 47% of the variance of job satisfaction. Job satisfaction was associated with eight variables: strong team support, participation in the decision-making process, closer collaboration, fewer conflicts among team members, modest knowledge production (team processes), firm affective commitment, multifocal identification (emergent states) and belonging to the nursing profession (provider characteristics). Team climate had an impact on six job satisfaction variables (team support, knowledge production, conflicts, affective commitment, collaboration, and multifocal identification). Results show that team processes and emergent states were mediators between job satisfaction and team climate. To increase job satisfaction among professionals, health managers need to pursue strategies that foster a positive climate within mental health teams.

Rationale and methodology of a collaborative learning project in congenital cardiac care.

Science.gov (United States)

Wolf, Michael J; Lee, Eva K; Nicolson, Susan C; Pearson, Gail D; Witte, Madolin K; Huckaby, Jeryl; Gaies, Michael; Shekerdemian, Lara S; Mahle, William T

2016-04-01

Collaborative learning is a technique through which individuals or teams learn together by capitalizing on one another's knowledge, skills, resources, experience, and ideas. Clinicians providing congenital cardiac care may benefit from collaborative learning given the complexity of the patient population and team approach to patient care. Industrial system engineers first performed broad-based time-motion and process analyses of congenital cardiac care programs at 5 Pediatric Heart Network core centers. Rotating multidisciplinary team site visits to each center were completed to facilitate deep learning and information exchange. Through monthly conference calls and an in-person meeting, we determined that duration of mechanical ventilation following infant cardiac surgery was one key variation that could impact a number of clinical outcomes. This was underscored by one participating center's practice of early extubation in the majority of its patients. A consensus clinical practice guideline using collaborative learning was developed and implemented by multidisciplinary teams from the same 5 centers. The 1-year prospective initiative was completed in May 2015, and data analysis is under way. Collaborative learning that uses multidisciplinary team site visits and information sharing allows for rapid structured fact-finding and dissemination of expertise among institutions. System modeling and machine learning approaches objectively identify and prioritize focused areas for guideline development. The collaborative learning framework can potentially be applied to other components of congenital cardiac care and provide a complement to randomized clinical trials as a method to rapidly inform and improve the care of children with congenital heart disease. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Web 2.0 Sites for Collaborative Self-Access: The Learning Advisor vs. Google®

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Craig D. Howard

2011-09-01

Full Text Available While Web 2.0 technologies provide motivated, self-access learners with unprecedented opportunities for language learning, Web 2.0 designs are not of universally equal value for learning. This article reports on research carried out at Indiana University Bloomington using an empirical method to select websites for self-access language learning. Two questions related to Web 2.0 recommendations were asked: (1 How do recommended Web 2.0 sites rank in terms of interactivity features? (2 How likely is a learner to find highly interactive sites on their own? A list of 20 sites used for supplemental and self-access activities in language programs at five universities was compiled and provided the initial data set. Purposive sampling criteria revealed 10 sites truly represented Web 2.0 design. To address the first question, a feature analysis was applied (Herring, The international handbook of internet research. Berlin: Springer, 2008. An interactivity framework was developed from previous research to identify Web 2.0 design features, and sites were ranked according to feature quantity. The method used to address the second question was an interconnectivity analysis that measured direct and indirect interconnectivity within Google results. Highly interactive Web 2.0 sites were not prominent in Google search results, nor were they often linked via third party sites. It was determined that, using typical keywords or searching via blogs and recommendation sites, self-access learners were highly unlikely to find the most promising Web 2.0 sites for language learning. A discussion of the role of the learning advisor in guiding Web 2.0 collaborative self-access, as well as some strategic short cuts to quick analysis, conclude the article.

Scientific collaboration and collective knowledge new essays

CERN Document Server

Mayo-Wilson, Conor; Weisberg, Michael

2018-01-01

Descartes once argued that, with sufficient effort and skill, a single scientist could uncover fundamental truths about our world. Contemporary science proves the limits of this claim. From synthesizing the human genome to predicting the effects of climate change, some current scientific research requires the collaboration of hundreds (if not thousands) of scientists with various specializations. Additionally, the majority of published scientific research is now co-authored, including more than 80% of articles in the natural sciences, meaning small collaborative teams have become the norm in science. This volume is the first to address critical philosophical questions regarding how collective scientific research could be organized differently and how it should be organized. For example, should scientists be required to share knowledge with competing research teams? How can universities and grant-giving institutions promote successful collaborations? When hundreds of researchers contribute to a discovery, how ...

The challenges of implementing advanced access for residents in family medicine in Quebec. Do promising strategies exist?

Science.gov (United States)

Abou Malham, Sabina; Touati, Nassera; Maillet, Lara; Breton, Mylaine

2018-12-01

The advanced access (AA) model is a highly recommended innovation to improve timely access to primary healthcare. Despite that many studies have shown positive impacts for healthcare professionals, and for patients, implementing this model in clinics with a teaching mission for family medicine residents poses specific challenges. To identify these challenges within these clinics, as well as potential strategies to address them. The authors adopted a qualitative multiple case study design, collected data in 2016 using semi-structured interviews (N = 40) with healthcare professionals and clerical staff in four family medicine units in Quebec, and performed a thematic analysis. They validated results through a discussion workshop, involving many family physicians and residents practicing in different regions Results: Five challenges emerged from the data: 1) choosing, organizing residents' patient; 2) managing and balancing residents' appointment schedules; 3) balancing timely access with relational continuity; 4) understanding the AA model; 5) establishing collaborative practices with other health professionals. Several promising strategies were suggested to address these challenges, including clearly defining residents' patient panels; adopting a team-based care approach; incorporating the model into academic curriculum and clinical training; proactive and ongoing education of health professionals, residents, and patients; involving residents in the change process and in adjustment strategies. To meet the challenges of implementing AA, decision-makers should consider exposing residents to AA during academic training and clinical internships, involving them in team work on arrival, engaging them as key actors in the implementation and in intra- and inter-professional collaborative models.

Towards the Verification of Human-Robot Teams

Science.gov (United States)

Fisher, Michael; Pearce, Edward; Wooldridge, Mike; Sierhuis, Maarten; Visser, Willem; Bordini, Rafael H.

2005-01-01

Human-Agent collaboration is increasingly important. Not only do high-profile activities such as NASA missions to Mars intend to employ such teams, but our everyday activities involving interaction with computational devices falls into this category. In many of these scenarios, we are expected to trust that the agents will do what we expect and that the agents and humans will work together as expected. But how can we be sure? In this paper, we bring together previous work on the verification of multi-agent systems with work on the modelling of human-agent teamwork. Specifically, we target human-robot teamwork. This paper provides an outline of the way we are using formal verification techniques in order to analyse such collaborative activities. A particular application is the analysis of human-robot teams intended for use in future space exploration.

WORKPAD : process management and geo-collaboration help disaster response

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Catarci, T.; Leoni, de M.; Marrella, A.; Mecella, M.; Russo, A.; Steinmann, R.; Bortenschlager, M.

2011-01-01

In complex emergency/disaster scenarios, persons from teams from various emergency-response organizations collaborate to achieve a common goal. In these scenarios, the use of smart mobile devices and applications can improve the collaboration dynamically. The lack of basic interaction principles can

Psychometric test of the Team Climate Inventory-short version investigated in Dutch quality improvement teams

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nieboer Anna P

2009-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Although some studies have used the Team Climate Inventory within teams working in health care settings, none of these included quality improvement teams. The aim of our study is to investigate the psychometric properties of the 14-item version of the Team Climate Inventory in healthcare quality improvement teams participating in a Dutch quality collaborative. Methods This study included quality improvement teams participating in the Care for Better improvement program for home care, care for the handicapped and the elderly in the Netherlands between 2006 and 2008. As part of a larger evaluation study 270 written questionnaires from team members were collected at baseline and 139 questionnaires at end measurement. Confirmatory factor analyses, reliability, Pearson correlations and paired samples t-tests were conducted to investigate construct validity, reliability, predictive validity and temporal stability. Results Confirmatory factor analyses revealed the expected four-factor structure and good fit indices. For the four subscales – vision, participative safety, task orientation and support for innovation – acceptable Cronbach's alpha coefficients and high inter-item correlations were found. The four subscales all proved significant predictors of perceived team effectiveness, with participatory safety being the best predictor. As expected the four subscales were found to be stable over time; i.e. without significant changes between baseline and end measurement. Conclusion The psychometric properties of the Dutch version of the TCI-14 are satisfactory. Together these results show that the TCI-14 is a useful instrument to assess to what extent aspects of team climate influence perceived team effectiveness of quality improvement teams.

Psychometric test of the Team Climate Inventory-short version investigated in Dutch quality improvement teams.

Science.gov (United States)

Strating, Mathilde M H; Nieboer, Anna P

2009-07-24

Although some studies have used the Team Climate Inventory within teams working in health care settings, none of these included quality improvement teams. The aim of our study is to investigate the psychometric properties of the 14-item version of the Team Climate Inventory in healthcare quality improvement teams participating in a Dutch quality collaborative. This study included quality improvement teams participating in the Care for Better improvement program for home care, care for the handicapped and the elderly in the Netherlands between 2006 and 2008. As part of a larger evaluation study 270 written questionnaires from team members were collected at baseline and 139 questionnaires at end measurement. Confirmatory factor analyses, reliability, Pearson correlations and paired samples t-tests were conducted to investigate construct validity, reliability, predictive validity and temporal stability. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed the expected four-factor structure and good fit indices. For the four subscales--vision, participative safety, task orientation and support for innovation--acceptable Cronbach's alpha coefficients and high inter-item correlations were found. The four subscales all proved significant predictors of perceived team effectiveness, with participatory safety being the best predictor. As expected the four subscales were found to be stable over time; i.e. without significant changes between baseline and end measurement. The psychometric properties of the Dutch version of the TCI-14 are satisfactory. Together these results show that the TCI-14 is a useful instrument to assess to what extent aspects of team climate influence perceived team effectiveness of quality improvement teams.

[Involvement of medical representatives in team medical care].

Science.gov (United States)

Hirotsu, Misaki; Sohma, Michiro; Takagi, Hidehiko

2009-04-01

In recent years, chemotherapies have been further advanced because of successive launch of new drugs, introduction of molecular targeting, etc., and the concept of so-called Team Medical Care ,the idea of sharing interdisciplinary expertise for collaborative treatment, has steadily penetrated in the Japanese medical society. Dr. Naoto Ueno is a medical oncologist at US MD Anderson Cancer Center, the birthplace of the Team Medical Care. He has advocated the concept of ABC of Team Oncology by positioning pharmaceutical companies as Team C. Under such team practice, we believe that medical representatives of a pharmaceutical company should also play a role as a member of the Team Medical Care by providing appropriate drug use information to healthcare professionals, supporting post-marketing surveillance of treated patients, facilitating drug information sharing among healthcare professionals at medical institutions, etc.

Psychobiological Assessment and Enhancement of Team Cohesion and Psychological Resilience in ROTC Cadets Using a Virtual-Reality Team Cohesion Test

Science.gov (United States)

2016-06-01

Using a Virtual - Reality Team Cohesion Test PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Josh Woolley MD/PhD CONTRACTING ORGANIZATION: NORTHERN CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE SAN...Team Cohesion and Psychological Resilience in ROTC Cadets Using a Virtual - Reality Team Cohesion Test 5b. GRANT NUMBER W81XWH-15-1-0042 5c. PROGRAM...targets while flying a virtual air vehicle. No individual has access to all the necessary information or controls, so operating as a team is crucial

Final Report "CoDeveloper: A Secure Web-Invocable Collaborative Software Development Tool"

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Svetlana Shasharina

2005-11-27

Modern scientific simulations generate large datasets at remote sites with appropriate resources (supercomputers and clusters). Bringing these large datasets to the computers of all members of a distributed team of collaborators is often impractical or even impossible: there might not be enough bandwidth, storage capacity or appropriate data analysis and visualization tools locally available. To address the need to access remote data, avoid heavy Internet traffic and unnecessary data replication, Tech-X Corporation developed a tool, which allows running remote data visualization collaboratively and sharing the visualization objects as they get generated. The size of these objects is typically much smaller than the size of the original data. For marketing reasons, we renamed the product CoReViz. The detailed information on this product can be found at http://www.txcorp.com/products/CoReViz/. We installed and tested this tool at multiple machines at Tech-X and on seaborg at NERSC. In what follows, we give a detailed description of this tool.

Occupational therapy students in the process of interprofessional collaborative learning: a grounded theory study.

Science.gov (United States)

Howell, Dana

2009-01-01

The purpose of this grounded theory study was to generate a theory of the interprofessional collaborative learning process of occupational therapy (OT) students who were engaged in a collaborative learning experience with students from other allied health disciplines. Data consisted of semi-structured interviews with nine OT students from four different interprofessional collaborative learning experiences at three universities. The emergent theory explained OT students' need to build a culture of mutual respect among disciplines in order to facilitate interprofessional collaborative learning. Occupational therapy students went through a progression of learned skills that included learning how to represent the profession of OT, hold their weight within a team situation, solve problems collaboratively, work as a team, and ultimately, to work in an actual team in practice. This learning process occurred simultaneously as students also learned course content. The students had to contend with barriers and facilitators that influenced their participation and the success of their collaboration. Understanding the interprofessional learning process of OT students will help allied health faculty to design more effective, inclusive interprofessional courses.

Distributed Collaborative Homework Activities in a Problem-Based Usability Engineering Course

Science.gov (United States)

Carroll, John M.; Jiang, Hao; Borge, Marcela

2015-01-01

Teams of students in an upper-division undergraduate Usability Engineering course used a collaborative environment to carry out a series of three distributed collaborative homework assignments. Assignments were case-based analyses structured using a jigsaw design; students were provided a collaborative software environment and introduced to a…

Toward Efficient Team Formation for Crowdsourcing in Noncooperative Social Networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Wanyuan; Jiang, Jiuchuan; An, Bo; Jiang, Yichuan; Chen, Bing

2017-12-01

Crowdsourcing has become a popular service computing paradigm for requesters to integrate the ubiquitous human-intelligence services for tasks that are difficult for computers but trivial for humans. This paper focuses on crowdsourcing complex tasks by team formation in social networks (SNs) where a requester connects to a large number of workers. A good indicator of efficient team collaboration is the social connection among workers. Most previous social team formation approaches, however, either assume that the requester can maintain information of all workers and can directly communicate with them to build teams, or assume that the workers are cooperative and be willing to join the specific team built by the requester, both of which are impractical in many real situations. To this end, this paper first models each worker as a selfish entity, where the requester prefers to hire inexpensive workers that require less payment and workers prefer to join the profitable teams where they can gain high revenue. Within the noncooperative SNs, a distributed negotiation-based team formation mechanism is designed for the requester to decide which worker to hire and for the worker to decide which team to join and how much should be paid for his skill service provision. The proposed social team formation approach can always build collaborative teams by allowing team members to form a connected graph such that they can work together efficiently. Finally, we conduct a set of experiments on real dataset of workers to evaluate the effectiveness of our approach. The experimental results show that our approach can: 1) preserve considerable social welfare by comparing the benchmark centralized approaches and 2) form the profitable teams within less negotiation time by comparing the traditional distributed approaches, making our approach a more economic option for real-world applications.

PBL and beyond: trends in collaborative learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Pluta, William J; Richards, Boyd F; Mutnick, Andrew

2013-01-01

Building upon the disruption to lecture-based methods triggered by the introduction of problem-based learning, approaches to promote collaborative learning are becoming increasingly diverse, widespread and generally well accepted within medical education. Examples of relatively new, structured collaborative learning methods include team-based learning and just-in-time teaching. Examples of less structured approaches include think-pair share, case discussions, and the flipped classroom. It is now common practice in medical education to employ a range of instructional approaches to support collaborative learning. We believe that the adoption of such approaches is entering a new and challenging era. We define collaborate learning by drawing on the broader literature, including Chi's ICAP framework that emphasizes the importance of sustained, interactive explanation and elaboration by learners. We distinguish collaborate learning from constructive, active, and passive learning and provide preliminary evidence documenting the growth of methods that support collaborative learning. We argue that the rate of adoption of collaborative learning methods will accelerate due to a growing emphasis on the development of team competencies and the increasing availability of digital media. At the same time, the adoption collaborative learning strategies face persistent challenges, stemming from an overdependence on comparative-effectiveness research and a lack of useful guidelines about how best to adapt collaborative learning methods to given learning contexts. The medical education community has struggled to consistently demonstrate superior outcomes when using collaborative learning methods and strategies. Despite this, support for their use will continue to expand. To select approaches with the greatest utility, instructors must carefully align conditions of the learning context with the learning approaches under consideration. Further, it is critical that modifications are made

Abstract: Collaborative Partnership to Build the Nursing and ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Conclusion: Our poster described the highlights of the collaborative work between the members of the UIC faculty and their Rwandan counterparts. We also delineated the role of the UIC College of Nursing in facilitating the collaboration and ongoing support for the HRH- Rwandan team since the inception of the program.

Improving communication for interdisciplinary teams working on storage of digital information in DNA [version 1; referees: 2 approved

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Emily E. Hesketh

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Close collaboration between specialists from diverse backgrounds and working in different scientific domains is an effective strategy to overcome challenges in areas that interface between biology, chemistry, physics and engineering. Communication in such collaborations can itself be challenging.  Even when projects are successfully concluded, resulting publications — necessarily multi-authored — have the potential to be disjointed. Few, both in the field and outside, may be able to fully understand the work as a whole. This needs to be addressed to facilitate efficient working, peer review, accessibility and impact to larger audiences. We are an interdisciplinary team working in a nascent scientific area, the repurposing of DNA as a storage medium for digital information. In this note, we highlight some of the difficulties that arise from such collaborations and outline our efforts to improve communication through a glossary and a controlled vocabulary and accessibility via short plain-language summaries. We hope to stimulate early discussion within this emerging field of how our community might improve the description and presentation of our work to facilitate clear communication within and between research groups and increase accessibility to those not familiar with our respective fields — be it molecular biology, computer science, information theory or others that might become relevant in future. To enable an open and inclusive discussion we have created a glossary and controlled vocabulary as a cloud-based shared document and we invite other scientists to critique our suggestions and contribute their own ideas.

Interprofessional working: communication, collaboration... perspiration!

Science.gov (United States)

Dawson, Sheila

2007-10-01

Palliative care is rarely delivered by one provider; for most patients their care will be managed by community and one or more hospital teams at the least. This can be problematic for patients, their family and friends, and health professionals. Evidence suggests that, in general, providers work in isolation from each other. Although formal processes are in place for transfer of information between the sectors on discharge between acute and community sectors, there is a de facto lack of communication and therefore a lack of appreciation of the working practices within each environment. This resulting lack of collaboration between teams can lead to disruptive care that detracts from the holistic philosophy purported to be the basis of supportive and palliative care (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) 2004; Department of Health (DH) 2000). In October 2005, 20% of a clinical nurse specialist's (CNS) full-time post was dedicated to working between the palliative care teams of Central Manchester and Manchester Children's NHS Trust (CMMC) and Central Manchester PCT (CMPCT). The aim was to improve communication and dialogue to promote more effective integrated working between the two sites and develop effective interprofessional working. This article will evaluate the impact of this new post, after 18 months, on collaboration between the teams, their practices and their patients. Finally, it will offer recommendations for future development.

Team Work: Time well Spent

Science.gov (United States)

Moore Johnson, Susan; Reinhorn, Stefanie K.; Simon, Nicole S.

2016-01-01

Teachers in high-poverty schools often feel stressed and fatigued. We might expect that if we ask these teachers to take on even more work by meeting regularly in collaborative improvement teams, they will respond with skepticism, even resentment. But in a study of 83 teachers in six outstanding high-poverty schools, these researchers found the…

Coaching interprofessional health care improvement teams: the coachee, the coach and the leader perspectives.

Science.gov (United States)

Godfrey, Marjorie M; Andersson-Gare, Boel; Nelson, Eugene C; Nilsson, Mats; Ahlstrom, Gerd

2014-05-01

To investigate health care improvement team coaching activities from the perspectives of coachees, coaches and unit leaders in two national improvement collaboratives. Despite numerous methods to improve health care, inconsistencies in success have been attributed to factors that include unengaged staff, absence of supportive improvement resources and organisational inertia. Mixed methods sequential exploratory study design, including quantitative and qualitative data from interprofessional improvement teams who received team coaching. The coachees (n = 382), coaches (n = 9) and leaders (n = 30) completed three different data collection tools identifying coaching actions perceived to support improvement activities. Coachees, coaches and unit leaders in both collaboratives reported generally positive perceptions about team coaching. Four categories of coaching actions were perceived to support improvement work: context, relationships, helping and technical support. All participants agreed that regardless of who the coach is, emphasis should include the four categories of team coaching actions. Leaders should reflect on their efforts to support improvement teams and consider the four categories of team coaching actions. A structured team coaching model that offers needed encouragement to keep the team energized, seems to support health care improvement. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Challenges to creating primary care teams in a public health centre ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The management of the CHC decided to create dedicated practice teams offering continuity of care, family-orientated care, and the integration of acute and chronic patients. The teams depended on effective collaboration between the doctors and the CNPs. Methods A co-operative inquiry group, consisting of two facility ...

Killer Apps : Developing Novel Applications That Enhance Team Coordination, Communication, and Effectiveness

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Buengeler, Claudia; Klonek, Florian; Lehmann-Willenbrock, Nale; Morency, Louis Philippe; Poppe, Ronald

2017-01-01

As part of the Lorentz workshop, “Interdisciplinary Insights into Group and Team Dynamics,” held in Leiden, Netherlands, this article describes how Geeks and Groupies (computer and social scientists) may benefit from interdisciplinary collaboration toward the development of killer apps in team

Killer Apps: Developing Novel Applications That Enhance Team Coordination, Communication, and Effectiveness

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Buengeler, Claudia; Klonek, Florian; Lehmann-Willenbrock, Nale; Morency, Louis-Philippe; Poppe, R.W.

2017-01-01

As part of the Lorentz workshop, “Interdisciplinary Insights into Group and Team Dynamics,” held in Leiden, Netherlands, this article describes how Geeks and Groupies (computer and social scientists) may benefit from interdisciplinary collaboration toward the development of killer apps in team

A Co-Opetitive Automated Negotiation Model for Vertical Allied Enterprises Teams and Stakeholders

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Taiguang Gao

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Upstream and downstream of supply chain enterprises often form a tactic vertical alliance to enhance their operational efficiency and maintain their competitive edges in the market. Hence, it is critical for an alliance to collaborate over their internal resources and resolve the profit conflicts among members, so that the functionality required by stakeholders can be fulfilled. As an effective solution, automated negotiation for the vertical allied enterprises team and stakeholder will sufficiently make use of emerging team advantages and significantly reduce the profit conflicts in teams with grouping decisions rather than unilateral decisions by some leader. In this paper, an automated negotiation model is designed to describe both the collaborative game process among the team members and the competitive negotiation process between the allied team and the stakeholder. Considering the co-competitiveness of the vertical allied team, the designed model helps the team members making decision for their own sake, and the team counter-offers for the ongoing negotiation are generated with non-cooperative game process, where the profit derived from negotiation result is distributed with Shapley value method according to contribution or importance contributed by each team member. Finally, a case study is given to testify the effectiveness of the designed model.

Collaborative Care in Schools: Enhancing Integration and Impact in Youth Mental Health

Science.gov (United States)

Lyon, Aaron R.; Whitaker, Kelly; French, William P.; Richardson, Laura P.; Wasse, Jessica Knaster; McCauley, Elizabeth

2016-01-01

Collaborative Care is an innovative approach to integrated mental health service delivery that focuses on reducing access barriers, improving service quality, and lowering healthcare expenditures. A large body of evidence supports the effectiveness of Collaborative Care models with adults and, increasingly, for youth. Although existing studies examining these models for youth have focused exclusively on primary care, the education sector is also an appropriate analog for the accessibility that primary care offers to adults. Collaborative Care aligns closely with the practical realities of the education sector and may represent a strategy to achieve some of the objectives of increasingly popular multi-tiered systems of supports frameworks. Unfortunately, no resources exist to guide the application of Collaborative Care models in schools. Based on the existing evidence for Collaborative Care models, the current paper (1) provides a rationale for the adaptation of Collaborative Care models to improve mental health service accessibility and effectiveness in the education sector; (2) presents a preliminary Collaborative Care model for use in schools; and (3) describes avenues for research surrounding school-based Collaborative Care, including the currently funded Accessible, Collaborative Care for Effective School-based Services (ACCESS) project. PMID:28392832

Collaborative Evaluation within a Framework of Stakeholder-Oriented Evaluation Approaches

Science.gov (United States)

O'Sullivan, Rita G.

2012-01-01

Collaborative Evaluation systematically invites and engages stakeholders in program evaluation planning and implementation. Unlike "distanced" evaluation approaches, which reject stakeholder participation as evaluation team members, Collaborative Evaluation assumes that active, on-going engagement between evaluators and program staff,…

Situational Awareness Support to Enhance Teamwork in Collaborative Working Environments

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kulyk, Olga Anatoliyivna; van Dijk, Elisabeth M.A.G.; van der Vet, P.E.; Nijholt, Antinus; van der Veer, Gerrit C.; Whitworth, B.; de Moor, A.

This chapter addresses awareness support to enhance teamwork in co-located collaborative environments. In particular, we focus on the concept of situational awareness which is essential for successful team collaboration. Mutual situational awareness leads to informal social interactions, development

Sourcing teams and interdepartmental integration

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lidegaard, Nina; Ellegaard, Chris; Møller, Morten Munkgaard

2015-01-01

Internal integration is often mentioned as a prerequisite for conducting strategic sourcing, as multiple functional departments must collaborate on creating value-creating activities amongst them. Though it is one of many possibilities, the use of cross-functional teams is often the most commonly...... proposed solution to ensure internal integration. This paper presents an exploratory case study evaluating the use of internal integration mechanisms in a cross-functional sourcing process. Two commodity categories are examined. One is organised in a cross-functional team, while the other is not. Findings...... indicate that informal integration mechanisms not promoted by management or the organizational structure may contribute to the overall level of integration....

Multi-User GeoGebra for Virtual Math Teams

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gerry Stahl

2010-05-01

Full Text Available The Math Forum is an online resource center for pre-algebra, algebra, geometry and pre-calculus. Its Virtual Math Teams (VMT service provides an integrated web-based environment for small teams to discuss mathematics. The VMT collaboration environment now includes the dynamic mathematics application, GeoGebra. It offers a multi-user version of GeoGebra, which can be used in concert with VMT’s chat, web browsers, curricula and wiki repository.

Collaborative Technologies for Distributed Science - Fusion Energy and High-Energy Physics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schissel, D.P.; Abla, G.; Burruss, J.R.; Gottschalk, E.

2006-01-01

The large-scale experiments, needed for fusion energy sciences (FES) and high-energy physics (HEP) research, are staffed by correspondingly large, geographically dispersed teams. At the same time, theoretical work has come to rely increasingly on complex numerical simulations developed by distributed teams of scientists and applied mathematicians and run on massively parallel computers. These trends will only accelerate. Operation of the most powerful accelerator ever built, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, will begin next year and will dominate experimental high-energy physics. The fusion program will be increasingly oriented toward the ITER where even now, a decade before operation begins, a large portion of national programs efforts are organized around coordinated efforts to develop promising operational scenarios. While both FES and HEP have a significant track record for developing and exploiting remote collaborations, with such large investments at stake, there is a clear need to improve the integration and reach of the tools available. These challenges are being addressed by the creation and deployment of advanced collaborative software and hardware tools. Grid computing, to provide secure on-demand access to data analysis capabilities and related functions, is being deployed as an alternative to traditional resource sharing among institutions. Utilizing public-key based security that is recognized worldwide, numerous analysis and simulation codes are securely available worldwide in a service-oriented approach. Traditional audio teleconferencing is being augmented by more advanced capabilities including videoconferencing, instant messaging, presentation sharing, applications sharing, large display walls, and the virtual-presence capabilities of Access Grid and VRVS. With these advances, remote real-time experimental participation has begun as well as remote seminars, working meetings, and design review meetings. Work continues to focus on reducing the

Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration in the Redesign of Family-Centered Rounds Process

Science.gov (United States)

Xie, Anping; Carayon, Pascale; Cartmill, Randi; Li, Yaqiong; Cox, Elizabeth D.; Plotkin, Julie A.; Kelly, Michelle M.

2014-01-01

A human factors approach to healthcare system redesign emphasizes the involvement of multiple healthcare stakeholders (e.g., patients and families, healthcare providers) in the redesign process. This study explores the experience of multiple stakeholders with collaboration in a healthcare system redesign project. Interviews were conducted with ten stakeholder representatives who participated in the redesign of the family-centered rounds process in a pediatric hospital. Qualitative interview data were analyzed using a phenomenological approach. A model of collaborative healthcare system redesign was developed, which defined four phases (i.e., setup of the redesign team, preparation for meetings, collaboration in meetings, follow-up after meetings) and two outcomes (i.e., team outcomes, redesign outcomes) of the collaborative process. Challenges to multi-stakeholder collaboration in healthcare system redesign, such as need to represent all relevant stakeholders, scheduling of meetings and managing different perspectives, were identified. PMID:25124394

Capacity building by data team members to sustain schools' data use

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hubers, Mireille Desirée

2016-01-01

Data-based decision making in education has been emphasized globally in recent years. To support schools in their use of data, the data team procedure was implemented in Dutch secondary schools. A data team consists of six to eight educators at the same school. Collaboratively, they learn how to use

The Potential of Grant Applications as Team Building Exercises: A Case Study

Science.gov (United States)

Siemens, Lynne

2010-01-01

Faced with increasingly complex and technologically sophisticated research questions, academics are working with others through collaboration and research teams. To be effective, these research teams need to maximize the factors that contribute to success while minimizing the potentially negative impact of associated challenges. One particular…

Team and Project Work in Engineering Practices

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anders Buch

2015-11-01

Full Text Available In this article, we investigate teamwork amongst professionals in engineering consultancy companies in order to discern how teamwork affects the collaboration and work practices of the professionals. The article investigates how professional engineering practices are enacted in two engineering consultancy companies in Denmark where teamwork has been or is an ideal for organizing work. Through a practice-based lens, the article sets out to investigate, firstly, how discourses about team and project work affect engineering work practices; secondly, how technologymediated management is reconciled in teamwork practices; and thirdly, how team and project work affect engineering professionalism and collaborative work practices. A practice theoretical framework informs the analysis. Teamwork is investigated as a phenomenon enacted through the sayings, doings and relatings of practitioners in landscapes of practices and the interconnectedness of the practices is traced through the setup of specific ecologies in the sites.

Tangible Technology-Enhanced Learning for Improvement of Student Collaboration

Science.gov (United States)

Barneva, Reneta P.; Gelsomini, Federico; Kanev, Kamen; Bottoni, Paolo

2018-01-01

Collaboration among students in the course of learning plays an important role in developing communication skills. In particular, it helps for team building and brainstorming on solutions of complex problems. While an effective group organization is critical for the success of such collaborative learning, many instructors would make arbitrary…

Concurrent Mission and Systems Design at NASA Glenn Research Center: The Origins of the COMPASS Team

Science.gov (United States)

McGuire, Melissa L.; Oleson, Steven R.; Sarver-Verhey, Timothy R.

2012-01-01

Established at the NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) in 2006 to meet the need for rapid mission analysis and multi-disciplinary systems design for in-space and human missions, the Collaborative Modeling for Parametric Assessment of Space Systems (COMPASS) team is a multidisciplinary, concurrent engineering group whose primary purpose is to perform integrated systems analysis, but it is also capable of designing any system that involves one or more of the disciplines present in the team. The authors were involved in the development of the COMPASS team and its design process, and are continuously making refinements and enhancements. The team was unofficially started in the early 2000s as part of the distributed team known as Team JIMO (Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter) in support of the multi-center collaborative JIMO spacecraft design during Project Prometheus. This paper documents the origins of a concurrent mission and systems design team at GRC and how it evolved into the COMPASS team, including defining the process, gathering the team and tools, building the facility, and performing studies.

Advancing MCH Interdisciplinary/Interprofessional Leadership Training and Practice Through a Learning Collaborative.

Science.gov (United States)

McHugh, Meaghan C; Margolis, Lewis H; Rosenberg, Angela; Humphreys, Elizabeth

2016-11-01

Purpose The Interdisciplinary Leadership Learning Collaborative (ILLC), under the sponsorship of AUCD and the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, brought together six teams, composed of 14 MCHB and UCEDD training programs to enhance their leadership training. Description Using adult learning principles, interactive training methods, and skill-focused learning, the ILLC built upon the evidence-based Interdisciplinary Leadership Development Program of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The program began with a 4-day on-site intensive and then continued through monthly conference calls, a mid-term on-site workshop, and a summary virtual workshop to present programmatic accomplishments and share plans for sustainability. Coaching/consultation for the teams around particular challenges was also part of the program. Assessment All teams reported enhancements in intentional leadership training, threading of leadership concepts across clinical, didactic, and workshop settings, and new collaborative partnerships for leadership training. Teams also identified a number of strategies to increase sustainability of their intentional leadership training efforts. Conclusion for Practice The learning collaborative is a productive model to address the growing need for interdisciplinary MCH leaders.

Socio-material perspectives on interprofessional team and collaborative learning.

Science.gov (United States)

McMurtry, Angus; Rohse, Shanta; Kilgour, Kelly N

2016-02-01

Interprofessional teamwork and collaboration have become important parts of health care practice and education. Most of the literature on interprofessional learning, however, assumes that learning is something acquired by individuals and readily transferred to other contexts. This assumption severely limits the ways in which interprofessional educators and researchers can conceptualise and support learning related to collaborative interprofessional health care. Socio-material theories provide an alternative to individualistic, acquisition-oriented notions by reconceiving learning in terms of collective dynamics, participation in social communities and active engagement with material contexts. Socio-material literature and theories were reviewed to identify concepts relevant to interprofessional learning. After briefly summarising the origins and key principles of socio-material approaches, the authors draw upon specific socio-material theories--including complexity theory, cultural-historical activity theory and actor-network theory--in order to reconceive how learning happens in interprofessional contexts. This reframing of interprofessional learning focuses less on individuals and more on collective dynamics and the actual social and material relations involved in practice. The paper proposes five ways in which learning may be enacted in interprofessional teamwork and collaboration from a socio-material perspective: (i) diverse contributions; (ii) social interactions and relationships; (iii) synthesis of professional ideas; (iv) integration of material elements, and (v) connections to large-scale organisations. For each of these categories, the paper provides practical illustrations to assist educators and researchers who wish to identify and assess this learning. Although more exploratory than comprehensive, this paper articulates many key aspects of socio-material learning theories and offers practical guidance for those who wish to employ and assess them in

Physicians' attitudes about interprofessional treatment of chronic pain: family physicians are considered the most important collaborators.

Science.gov (United States)

Klinar, Ivana; Ferhatovic, Lejla; Banozic, Adriana; Raguz, Marija; Kostic, Sandra; Sapunar, Damir; Puljak, Livia

2013-06-01

Interprofessional collaboration is the process in which different professional groups work together to positively impact health care. We aimed to explore physicians' attitudes toward interprofessional collaboration in the context of chronic pain management with the implication that if attitudes are not positive, appropriate interventions could be developed. A quantitative attitudes study. The ethical committee approved the study. A web-based survey about interprofessional treatment of chronic pain was administered to physicians. Outcome measures were as follows: physicians' demographic and workplace information, previous experience of working within an interprofessional team, and attitudes towards interprofessional collaboration in chronic pain management. There were 90 physicians who responded to the survey. Physicians had positive attitudes towards team work in the context of chronic pain, but they were undecided about sharing their role within an interprofessional team. The family physician was singled out as the most important as well as the most common collaborator in chronic pain treatment. Interprofessional educational seminars and workshops were suggested as methods for improving interprofessional collaboration. Interprofessional collaboration may be enhanced with continuing medical education that will bring together different healthcare professionals, enable them to exchange experiences and learn about their potential roles within a team. © 2012 Nordic College of Caring Science.

Team Foundation Server 2013 customization

CERN Document Server

Beeming, Gordon

2014-01-01

This book utilizes a tutorial based approach, focused on the practical customization of key features of the Team Foundation Server for collaborative enterprise software projects.This practical guide is intended for those who want to extend TFS. This book is for intermediate users who have an understanding of TFS, and basic coding skills will be required for the more complex customizations.

DISTRIBUTED LEADERSHIP COLLABORATION FACTORS TO SUPPORT IDEA GENERATION IN COMPUTER-SUPPORTED COLLABORATIVE e-LEARNING

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Niki Lambropoulos

2011-01-01

Full Text Available This paper aims to identify, discuss and analyze students’ collaboration factors related to distributed leadership (DL, which correlates with interaction quality evident in idea generation. Scripting computer-supported collaborative e-learning (CSCeL activities based on DL can scaffold students’ interactions that support collaboration and promote idea generation. Furthermore, the associated tools can facilitate collaboration via scripting and shed light on students’ interactions and dialogical sequences. Such detailed planning can result in effective short e-courses. In this case study, 21 MSc students’ teams worked on a DL project within a 2-day e-course at the IT Institute (ITIN, France. The research methods involved a self-reported questionnaire; the Non-Negative Matrix Factorization (NNMF algorithm with qualitative analysis; and outcomes from the Social Network Analysis (SNA tools implemented within the forums. The results indicated that scripting DL based on the identified distributed leadership attributes can support values such as collaboration and can be useful in supporting idea generation in short e-courses.

Collaboration and Virtualization in Large Information Systems Projects

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stefan Ioan NITCHI

2009-01-01

Full Text Available A project is evolving through different phases from idea and conception until the experiments, implementation and maintenance. The globalization, the Internet, the Web and the mobile computing changed many human activities, and in this respect, the realization of the Information System (IS projects. The projects are growing, the teams are geographically distributed, and the users are heterogeneous. In this respect, the realization of the large Information Technology (IT projects needs to use collaborative technologies. The distribution of the team, the users' heterogeneity and the project complexity determines the virtualization. This paper is an overview of these aspects for large IT projects. It shortly present a general framework developed by the authors for collaborative systems in general and adapted to collaborative project management. The general considerations are illustrated on the case of a large IT project in which the authors were involved.

Collaborating for Success: Team Teaching the Engineering Technical Thesis

Science.gov (United States)

Keating, Terrence; Long, Mike

2012-01-01

This paper will examine the collaborative teaching process undertaken at College of the North Atlantic-Qatar (CNA-Q) by Engineering and the Communication faculties to improve the overall quality of engineering students' capstone projects known as the Technical Thesis. The Technical Thesis is divided into two separate components: a proposal stage…

ICT tools in collaborative engineering

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ir. Peter van Kollenburg; Dr.Ir. Hay Geraedts

2001-01-01

In the fall of 1999, we started, the Integrated Product Development- Collaborative Engineering ( IPD-CE) project as a first pilot. We experimented with modern communication technology in order to find useful tools for facilitating the cooperative work and the contacts of all the participants. Teams

Legislating Interprofessional Regulatory Collaboration in Nova Scotia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

William Lahey

2013-10-01

Full Text Available To shift health professions regulation from traditional to ‘collaborative’ self-regulation, Nova Scotia has adopted legislation which will: make all self-regulating health professions members of the Regulated Health Professions Network; mandate the Network to facilitate voluntary collaboration among its members; and enable regulators to work together on investigations of patient complaints, to adjust scopes of practice on an ongoing basis and to adjudicate appeals of unsuccessful applicants for registration. The goals are to give health professions regulation the capacity to enable and support the functioning of interprofessional teams. The legislation was adopted primarily for two reasons: collaborative development and unanimous support by all of the province’s self-regulating professions; and alignment with the government’s health care reform agenda and its emphasis on collaborative team-based care. Contrary to the approach of several other provinces, the legislation will enable but not require regulators to collaborate on the premise that consensual collaboration is more likely to happen, to be meaningful and to yield tangible benefits. Support for this approach can be taken from the impressive collaborative work on which the legislation is based. Evaluation will be critical, and the five-year review required by the legislation will give Nova Scotia the opportunity to test not only the legislation but the ideas on which it is based. The extent of the legislation’s reliance on voluntary process will prove to be either its greatest strength or its greatest weakness.

Understanding teacher design teams - A mixed methods approach to developing a descriptive framework

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Binkhorst, F.; Handelzalts, A.; Poortman, Cindy L.; van Joolingen, W. R.

2015-01-01

Collaboration is a crucial element of effective professional development for teachers. In Teacher Design Teams (TDTs), teachers collaborate on (re)designing educational materials. To optimize their effectiveness, a strong theoretical and practical basis is required. In this study, therefore, we

Coordination processes in computer supported collaborative writing

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kanselaar, G.; Erkens, Gijsbert; Jaspers, Jos; Prangsma, M.E.

2005-01-01

In the COSAR-project a computer-supported collaborative learning environment enables students to collaborate in writing an argumentative essay. The TC3 groupware environment (TC3: Text Composer, Computer supported and Collaborative) offers access to relevant information sources, a private notepad, a

Role construction and boundaries in interprofessional primary health care teams: a qualitative study.

Science.gov (United States)

MacNaughton, Kate; Chreim, Samia; Bourgeault, Ivy Lynn

2013-11-24

The move towards enhancing teamwork and interprofessional collaboration in health care raises issues regarding the management of professional boundaries and the relationship among health care providers. This qualitative study explores how roles are constructed within interprofessional health care teams. It focuses on elucidating the different types of role boundaries, the influences on role construction and the implications for professionals and patients. A comparative case study was conducted to examine the dynamics of role construction on two interprofessional primary health care teams. The data collection included interviews and non-participant observation of team meetings. Thematic content analysis was used to code and analyze the data and a conceptual model was developed to represent the emergent findings. The findings indicate that role boundaries can be organized around interprofessional interactions (giving rise to autonomous or collaborative roles) as well as the distribution of tasks (giving rise to interchangeable or differentiated roles). Different influences on role construction were identified. They are categorized as structural (characteristics of the workplace), interpersonal (dynamics between team members such as trust and leadership) and individual dynamics (personal attributes). The implications of role construction were found to include professional satisfaction and more favourable wait times for patients. A model that integrates these different elements was developed. Based on the results of this study, we argue that autonomy may be an important element of interprofessional team functioning. Counter-intuitive as this may sound, we found that empowering team members to develop autonomy can enhance collaborative interactions. We also argue that while more interchangeable roles could help to lessen the workloads of team members, they could also increase the potential for power struggles because the roles of various professions would become less

Development of a Communication Strategy to Increase Interprofessional Collaboration in the Outpatient Setting

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chelsea Phillips Renfro

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Managing patient health is a complex task, requiring the support of an interprofessional healthcare team. Collaboration between neighboring community pharmacies and primary care practices can be an alternate solution for team-based patient care. The purpose of this project was to design and implement a communication strategy for patients with diabetes and hypertension between a community pharmacy and physician practice. An interprofessional team for the practice settings was formed to develop a strategy for collaboration. After agreeing on the common goals and target patient population for the disease states, the team devised a way to communicate via electronic health record (EHR. The communication strategy allowed for more frequent follow-up with the patients which has the potential to result in better clinical outcomes. A communication strategy between a community pharmacy and a physician practice office can be achieved using EHR technology. The greatest outcome of this project was the formation of the collaborative team between the practice settings that continues to work together on additional patient-centered initiatives. Further research is warranted to allow for incorporation of patient perspectives in development of communication strategies.

Action research, simulation, team communication, and bringing the tacit into voice society for simulation in healthcare.

Science.gov (United States)

Forsythe, Lydia

2009-01-01

In healthcare, professionals usually function in a time-constrained paradigm because of the nature of care delivery functions and the acute patient populations usually in need of emergent and urgent care. This leaves little, if no time for team reflection, or team processing as a collaborative action. Simulation can be used to create a safe space as a structure for recognition and innovation to continue to develop a culture of safety for healthcare delivery and patient care. To create and develop a safe space, three qualitative modified action research institutional review board-approved studies were developed using simulation to explore team communication as an unfolding in the acute care environment of the operating room. An action heuristic was used for data collection by capturing the participants' narratives in the form of collaborative recall and reflection to standardize task, process, and language. During the qualitative simulations, the team participants identified and changed multiple tasks, process, and language items. The simulations contributed to positive changes for task and efficiencies, team interactions, and overall functionality of the team. The studies demonstrated that simulation can be used in healthcare to define safe spaces to practice, reflect, and develop collaborative relationships, which contribute to the realization of a culture of safety.

Multilateral collaboration between technical communicators and translators

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vandepitte, Sonia; Maylath, Bruce; Mousten, Birthe

2016-01-01

This article describes a multilateral international project (Thompson and Carter 1973, Moreno-Lopez 2004) in technical communication and translator training programmes and discusses its use of technologies in what is seen as the largest and most complex international learning-by-doing collaboration...... to date. The project is a student collaboration involving two sets of cross-cultural virtual teams who either translate from Danish and Dutch into English and review (or edit) into American English or who are involved in international collaborative writing by Spaniards and Americans, usability testing...

Research collaboration and team science a state-of-the-art review and agenda

CERN Document Server

Bozeman, Barry

2014-01-01

Today in most scientific and technical fields more than 90% of research studies and publications are collaborative, often resulting in high-impact research and development of commercial applications, as reflected in patents. Nowadays in many areas of science, collaboration is not a preference but, literally, a work prerequisite. The purpose of this book is to review and critique the burgeoning scholarship on research collaboration. The authors seek to identify gaps in theory and research and identify the ways in which existing research can be used to improve public policy for collaboration and to improve project-level management of collaborations using Scientific and Technical Human Capital (STHC) theory as a framework. Broadly speaking, STHC is the sum of scientific and technical and social knowledge, skills and resources embodied in a particular individual. It is both human capital endowments, such as formal education and training and social relations and network ties that bind scientists and the users of ...

We Are Going to Name Names and Call You Out! Improving the Team in the Academic Operating Room Environment.

Science.gov (United States)

Bodor, Richard; Nguyen, Brian J; Broder, Kevin

2017-05-01

Communication failures between multidisciplinary teams can impact efficiency, performance, and morale. Academic operating rooms (ORs) often have surgical, anesthesia, and nursing teams, each teaching multiple trainees. Incorrectly identifying name and "rank" (postgraduate year [PGY]) of resident trainees can disrupt performance evaluations and team morale and even potentially impair delivery of quality care when miscommunication errors proliferate. Our OR-based survey asked 50 participants (18 surgeons, 14 anesthesiologists, and 18 nursing members), to recall basic identification data including provider names and PGY levels from their recent collaborating OR teams. Participants also weighed in on the importance of using accurate "names and ranks" for all OR participants. Each service reliably knew their own team members' names and rank. However, surgery and anesthesia teams displayed decreased knowledge about their lower level trainees, whereas nursing teams performed best, identifying all level nurses present. Deficits occurred whenever participants tried recalling basic identifying data about contributors from any other collaborating team. Typically, misidentified participants were lower level PGY residents working on other teams' services. All survey respondents desired improving systems to better remember "names and ranks" identifications among OR participants, citing both safety and team morale benefits. Many fail to know the names and ranks of contributors among members of different OR teams. Even our most reliable nursing team was inconsistent at identification information from collaborating practitioners. Despite universally acknowledged benefits, participants rarely learned basic background identification data beyond their own team. Those surveyed all desired improving identifications with suggestions including sterile name and rank tags and proper notification of entry and exit from the OR. Because successful collaborations require appropriate level task

Teacher Teams, Teamwork, and Empowerment: Exploring Associations and the Nexus to Change

Science.gov (United States)

Henkin, Alan B.; Park, Sungmin; Singleton, Carole A.

2007-01-01

Research on team-based schools suggests the importance of teacher empowerment as a factor in the school revitalization and reform equation and as a critical element in redefining schools as collaborative workplaces. In this study, the authors inquire into potential associations between teamwork skills and teacher team empowerment. Research…

Developing leadership in rural interprofessional palliative care teams.

Science.gov (United States)

Hall, Pippa; Weaver, Lynda; Handfield-Jones, Richard; Bouvette, Maryse

2008-01-01

This project brought together community-based practitioners and academics to develop and deliver interventions designed to enhance the leadership abilities of the designated leaders of seven rural/small town-based palliative care teams. Members of these community-based teams have already gained recognition for their teams' leadership and service delivery in their communities. All of the teams had worked closely with most members of the academic team prior to this project. The team members participated in a needs assessment exercise developed by the Sisters of Charity of Ottawa Health Service and University of Ottawa academic team. Results of the needs assessment identified leadership qualities that had contributed to their success, as well as their needs to further enhance their individual leadership qualities. The team effort, however, was the most important factor contributing to the success of their work. The interventions developed to address the identified needs had to be adapted creatively through the collaborative efforts of both the community and academic teams. The educational interventions facilitated the integration of learning at the individual and community level into the busy work schedules of primary health care providers.

Behavioral Emergency Response Team: Implementation Improves Patient Safety, Staff Safety, and Staff Collaboration.

Science.gov (United States)

Zicko, Cdr Jennifer M; Schroeder, Lcdr Rebecca A; Byers, Cdr William S; Taylor, Lt Adam M; Spence, Cdr Dennis L

2017-10-01

Staff members working on our nonmental health (non-MH) units (i.e., medical-surgical [MS] units) were not educated in recognizing or deescalating behavioral emergencies. Published evidence suggests a behavioral emergency response team (BERT) composed of MH experts who assist with deescalating behavioral emergencies may be beneficial in these situations. Therefore, we sought to implement a BERT on the inpatient non-MH units at our military treatment facility. The objectives of this evidence-based practice process improvement project were to determine how implementation of a BERT affects staff and patient safety and to examine nursing staffs' level of knowledge, confidence, and support in caring for psychiatric patients and patients exhibiting behavioral emergencies. A BERT was piloted on one MS unit for 5 months and expanded to two additional units for 3 months. Pre- and postimplementation staff surveys were conducted, and the number of staff assaults and injuries, restraint usage, and security intervention were compared. The BERT responded to 17 behavioral emergencies. The number of assaults decreased from 10 (pre) to 1 (post); security intervention decreased from 14 to 1; and restraint use decreased from 8 to 1. MS staffs' level of BERT knowledge and rating of support between MH staff and their staff significantly increased. Both MS and MH nurses rated the BERT as supportive and effective. A BERT can assist with deescalating behavioral emergencies, and improve staff collaboration and patient and staff safety. © 2017 Sigma Theta Tau International.

Behavioral Design Teams: The Next Frontier in Clinical Delivery Innovation?

Science.gov (United States)

Robertson, Ted; Darling, Matthew; Leifer, Jennifer; Footer, Owen; Gordski, Dani

2017-11-01

A deep understanding of human behavior is critical to designing effective health care delivery models, tools, and processes. Currently, however, few mechanisms exist to systematically apply insights about human behavior to improve health outcomes. Behavioral design teams (BDTs) are a successful model for applying behavioral insights within an organization. Already operational within government, this model can be adapted to function in a health care setting. To explore how BDTs could be applied to clinical care delivery and review models for integrating these teams within health care organizations. Interviews with experts in clinical delivery innovation and applied behavioral science, as well as leaders of existing government BDTs. BDTs are most effective when they enjoy top-level executive support, are co-led by a domain expert and behavioral scientist, collaborate closely with key staff and departments, have access to data and IT support, and operate a portfolio of projects. BDTs could be embedded in health care organizations in multiple ways, including in or just below the CEO’s office, within a quality improvement unit, or within an internal innovation center. When running a portfolio, BDTs achieve a greater number and diversity of insights at lower costs. They also become a platform for strategic learning and scaling.

Can collaboration within multidisciplinary teamwork be explained using Belbin?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dederichs, Anne; Karlshøj, Jan

2013-01-01

case study is performed within a project-oriented course offered for students within the civil engineering - and architectural engineering programme. The task of the course is to plan a high-rise office building in multidisciplinary student teams. The course was held by a multidisciplinary team...... of teachers for 13 multidisciplinary teams of students. Belbin’s theory on teamwork was introduced and the teams were formed according to the theory, in order to optimize the collaboration. Students were given a standard- and course specific questionnaire including the possibility for making individual notes...

Collaborative Learning Processes in the Context of a Public Health Professional Development Program: A Case Study

Science.gov (United States)

Tremblay, Marie-Claude; Richard, Lucie; Brousselle, Astrid; Chiocchio, François; Beaudet, Nicole

2017-01-01

The health promotion laboratory (HPL-Canada) is a public health professional development program building on a collaborative learning approach in order to support long-term practice change in local health services teams. This study aims to analyse the collaborative learning processes of two teams involved in the program during the first year of…

Making USGS Science Data more Open, Accessible, and Usable: Leveraging ScienceBase for Success

Science.gov (United States)

Chang, M.; Ignizio, D.; Langseth, M. L.; Norkin, T.

2016-12-01

In 2013, the White House released initiatives requiring federally funded research to be made publicly available and machine readable. In response, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has been developing a unified approach to make USGS data available and open. This effort has involved the establishment of internal policies and the release of a Public Access Plan, which outlines a strategy for the USGS to move forward into the modern era in scientific data management. Originally designed as a catalog and collaborative data management platform, ScienceBase (www.sciencebase.gov) is being leveraged to serve as a robust data hosting solution for USGS researchers to make scientific data accessible. With the goal of maintaining persistent access to formal data products and developing a management approach to facilitate stable data citation, the ScienceBase Data Release Team was established to ensure the quality, consistency, and meaningful organization of USGS data through standardized workflows and best practices. These practices include the creation and maintenance of persistent identifiers for data, improving the use of open data formats, establishing permissions for read/write access, validating the quality of standards compliant metadata, verifying that data have been reviewed and approved prior to release, and connecting to external search catalogs such as the USGS Science Data Catalog (data.usgs.gov) and data.gov. The ScienceBase team is actively building features to support this effort by automating steps to streamline the process, building metrics to track site visits and downloads, and connecting published digital resources in line with USGS and Federal policy. By utilizing ScienceBase to achieve stewardship quality and employing a dedicated team to help USGS scientists improve the quality of their data, the USGS is helping to meet today's data quality management challenges and ensure that reliable USGS data are available to and reusable for the public.

Web-based versus face-to-face interprofessional team encounters with standardized patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Lempicki, Kelly A; Holland, Christine S

2018-03-01

Challenges exist in developing interprofessional education (IPE) activities including coordinating schedules and obtaining appropriate space for teams to work. Virtual worlds have been explored as a means to overcome some of these challenges. We sought to develop a web-based interprofessional team interaction with a standardized patient (SP), as compared to a face-to-face SP interaction, focusing on the competency area of interprofessional communication. Interprofessional teams of students were randomized to complete a web-based or face-to-face SP encounter. The web-based encounter was conducted via video conference that students accessed using their own electronic device. Interprofessional communication was evaluated by faculty observers and the SPs. Participants of the web-based encounter also completed a perceptions questionnaire. Interprofessional communication was rated as average/above average by the authors and SPs. Perceptions of the web-based encounter were mixed with not all students willing to complete such an encounter again despite finding it enjoyable and a positive learning experience. The need for adequate preparation was identified, including the opportunity to review the patient case before the encounter. The web-based SP encounter afforded students the opportunity to utilize communication technology to provide patient-centered care while collaborating as an interprofessional team. Video conferencing presents an opportunity to bypass some logistical challenges in scheduling IPE experiences and can be implemented as a co-curricular activity, avoiding course revisions. Additional studies are needed to further explore student and patient perspectives and clarify when, and with what level of trainees, the experiences are most valuable. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Reducing inequalities in health and access to health care in a rural Indian community: an India-Canada collaborative action research project.

Science.gov (United States)

Haddad, Slim; Narayana, Delampady; Mohindra, Ks

2011-11-08

Inadequate public action in vulnerable communities is a major constraint for the health of poor and marginalized groups in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). The south Indian state of Kerala, known for relatively equitable provision of public resources, is no exception to the marginalization of vulnerable communities. In Kerala, women's lives are constrained by gender-based inequalities and certain indigenous groups are marginalized such that their health and welfare lag behind other social groups. The goal of this socially-engaged, action-research initiative was to reduce social inequalities in access to health care in a rural community. Specific objectives were: 1) design and implement a community-based health insurance scheme to reduce financial barriers to health care, 2) strengthen local governance in monitoring and evidence-based decision-making, and 3) develop an evidence base for appropriate health interventions. Health and social inequities have been masked by Kerala's overall progress. Key findings illustrated large inequalities between different social groups. Particularly disadvantaged are lower-caste women and Paniyas (a marginalized indigenous group), for whom inequalities exist across education, employment status, landholdings, and health. The most vulnerable populations are the least likely to receive state support, which has broader implications for the entire country. A community based health solidarity scheme (SNEHA), under the leadership of local women, was developed and implemented yielding some benefits to health equity in the community-although inclusion of the Paniyas has been a challenge. The Canadian-Indian action research team has worked collaboratively for over a decade. An initial focus on surveys and data analysis has transformed into a focus on socially engaged, participatory action research. Adapting to unanticipated external forces, maintaining a strong team in the rural village, retaining human resources capable of analyzing