Collaboration and Coordination in Interdisciplinary Research Teams

Speaker
Sara Kiesler
Hillman Professor of Computer Science and Human-Computer Interaction, Carnegie Mellon University

When
-

Where
Newell-Simon Hall 1305 (Michael Mauldin Auditorium)

Description

Strides in science and engineering today depend on teams of people working together; in many cases these teams are made up of researchers from different universities and disciplines working together. I will describe the survey research Jonathon Cummings and I conducted on 475 NSF-supported interdisciplinary teams funded by the ITR program. This program supported considerable research at Carnegie Mellon. We replicated previous results from a different program (Cummings and Kiesler, 2005) showing that when PIs on a team were from different universities, they reported fewer positive project outcomes. We also show that poor coordination predicts fewer outcomes, and that poor coordination explains the multiple university- poor outcome link. Delving into this finding further, we describe: the kinds of coordination and prior experience that are most predictive of positive project outcomes, our analysis of proposals that looks at selection biases, and an analysis of strong versus weak work ties within the ITR project teams. Using data from 3911 pairs of senior personnel, the latter analysis shows how prior experience working together influences the effectiveness of collaborations that cross geographic and disciplinary boundaries. Prior experience is the best predictor of collaborative tie strength within teams, and it influences the relationship between geographic and disciplinary boundaries and collaborative tie strength. We will discuss implications for the support of cyber infrastructure and merit review.

Speaker's Bio

Sara Kiesler is Hillman Professor of Computer Science and Human-Computer Interaction at Carnegie Mellon University. She studies communication, cognitive, and social aspects of computer-mediated environments and human computer interaction. Her current research focuses on collaboration in teams, online communities, and human-robot interaction.

Speaker's Website
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~kiesler/