Collaborative Librarians

One of the most difficult things about being a non-librarian librarian is that it can feel isolating. Aside from training and a general mindset, I don’t have much in common with my institution’s librarians. But I’m not strictly speaking an information architect or a knowledge manager, either. Some of my coworkers give me a hard time when I try to explain what it is I do, because I don’t have a good answer.

So, what do I do? The short answer is that I’m the project manager for the Asia Cohort Consortium, a collaboration of Asian researchers building a cohort of a million participants. Each individual cohort is funded by its own government or funding agency and follows its own individual research path. When they see a project that might be of interest to the larger group, someone proposes doing that project together and pooling a subset of the group’s data. The ACC also acts as an incubator to help new Asia-based cohorts get started.

On a daily basis, that means that I do a lot of coordination – scheduling conference calls, pulling together agendas, sending out documents. But it also means forging relationships between PIs, developing a collaborative portal to display information in the most useful and usable way possible and building a community. All of those things draw significantly on the skills I learned at the iSchool.

The most frequent question I get from other information professionals is what kind of science background I have. I don’t have any science background, which is both a blessing and a curse. There are times when it would be helpful if I understood what the hell my PIs were talking about. But mostly, it doesn’t get in the way and even helps keep me focused on the information. Since I don’t understand it, I can’t get caught up in the science of it all.

The phenomenon of scientific research collaboration has been studied extensively, though remains poorly understood. Defining what exactly constitutes a collaboration is tricky. Is it a casual conversation in a hallway that leads to a new research direction, or does it require a substantial contribution of time and resources? Who can be considered a collaborator? Generally graduate students are not considered as true collaborators until they have been granted their PhDs, despite possibly making significant contributions (Katz, 1997).

Most collaborations are born of existing social connections, “begin informally and are often the result of informal conversation [which then leads] to increasing commitment to co-operate” (Katz, 1997). Scientists tend to collaborate most frequently with people they already know, either from graduate school or a previous job. This speaks to a level of trust necessary to collaborate successfully. Scientists also tend to collaborate with researchers who are geographically proximate, as this simplifies the process of coalescing as a collaborative unit. Easier access means casual conversations are more frequent, keeping researchers on the same page in terms of their research. Misunderstandings are fewer as researchers can communicate face-to-face and utilize social cues missed out on by technological communications. Trust is more easily developed when people are interacting in person (Gallie, 2005).

There are great benefits to collaborating on research. Researchers are able to take advantage of each other’s skills and knowledge, learn new skills and methods (especially tacit knowledge), challenge their own thinking by collaborating with scientists with different viewpoints and backgrounds, work with others who are passionate about the same interests, gain new contacts, and potentially gain greater visibility for their work (Katz, 1997). As with any social construct, there are also possible costs. These could include additional expenses when the team size increases or when travel is necessary, an increase in the time needed to do the research due to increased negotiations over meaning and results, increased administrative needs and costs and reconciling different cultures if the collaboration involves more than one entity such as a university or research center. (Katz, 1997).

There are areas of this process where technology can help and areas where it not only cannot help but might actually hinder the research process. Where the knowledge that needs to be shared is explicit, meaning that it can be clearly written down and codified, communication by online tools can work beautifully. However, when a discussion needs to take place that revolves around tacit knowledge, that which cannot be easily codified, electronic means are less than ideal. When ideas and results need to be hashed out, defined, and clarified, face-to-face communication is still better, as it allows for nonverbal communication to take place, as well. It’s simply easier to iron out confusion in person (Gallie, 2005). One way to combat this in an online tool is through the use of forums where differences can explicitly be ironed out through in-depth discussions. Kouzes advocates for “…support for the discussion of unfamiliar concepts so that misunderstandings can be corrected” (Kouzes, 1996).

Collaboratories were defined by Kouzes as “…laboratories without walls” and used to explain the concept of collaborating across institutional, geographic and disciplinary boundaries. Numerous research studies have been funded to try to create a framework for building collaboratories. Thus far, this has not been successful. This is due to the fact that each research collaboration is unique and requires its own set of tools to manage the collaboration. Each project has its own set of data, its own set of processes and procedures and its own unique social structure. One size does not fit all (Schleyer, 2001). And yet, some basic requirements can be defined. Look for that in an upcoming post.