Aaron Sainsbury and Thomas Meservy, Information Systems
Introduction
Research plays a vital role in the advancement of knowledge. In conjunction, feedback through idea exchange, peer reviews, and formal reviews play a vital role in every research project. With the current academic organizations in place, the impact of feedback is not fully realized because of the structure of how and when feedback is received. While collaborative communication among researchers is increasingly more reliant upon technology, there is little focus on the development and implementation of a technologybased collaboration scheme to support and sustain scientific idea exchanges among researchers.
With the implementation of an effective Scientific Idea Exchange (SIE) scheme, it is expected that the amount of research ideas will increase and the quality of research will improve. It is also expected that the amount of feedback will significantly increase, and more researchers will participate in providing feedback. Furthermore, it is expected that the time it takes to review research and provide feedback will be greatly reduced.
The nature of this project may be different than other projects. Instead of conducting research and applying a methodology, I spent the majority of my time doing application development and project setup. My accomplishments are detailed below. It is also important to note that this is an unfinished project. Dr. Meservy and his future RA’s will complete this project and the related research, as I will be graduating in April.
Results/Accomplishments
- Presentation Preparation
- Prepared a presentation that Dr. Meservy gave to fellow colleagues to introduce the SIE scheme idea and how it would benefit research
- Idea Generation
- Spent time with Dr. Meservy generating ideas on how to make the web application more usable and how to get researchers to take the time to put ideas and collaborate.
- Planning
- Spent time with Dr. Meservy planning for how I would my time during the ORCA grant time frame as well as where the project and research will be following my graduation. We would like to take this idea to fruition so the supporting research can be completed.
- We expect this research to have the following academic outcomes:
- Be submitted and presented at the Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS).
- Be submitted and accepted in one of the premier IS journals.
- Work Collaboration Board
- Created a work board for future developers to collaborate on in order to stay on track and plan effectively.
- Bug and Feature Identification
- Identified key bugs and features that the web application is still lacking. Those items were delivered to Dr. Meservy for future application development.
- Code Repository
- Put the source code of the web application into a git code repository in order for future developers to collaborate and work on the web application simultaneously.
Discussion and Future Steps
Although much work has been done on the project and its related research, at this point there are still some steps to take in order for this to be impactful. The future steps are outlined below:
- Complete initial prototype – Iron out bugs and polish off features of the SIE web application
- Get researchers involved – Incentivize researchers to use the application
- Address discussion questions such as:
- What role are the stimuli playing in participation and commitment?
- How many of the existing ideas are push the envelope of accepted knowledge in a field?
- What collaboration patterns and roles emerge during collaboration over time?
- How diverse are the participant backgrounds and ideas exchanged?
- Continually improve – Through feedback and research, continually improve the SIE web application to accommodate the best collaboration environment possible.
- Measure the impact – The initial use and testing will focus on perceptual measures of value. The data gathered from interviews and questionnaires will allow us to assess value related to participation, sustainability, and outcomes of scientific knowledge in association with the use and involvement with an SIE scheme. With the SIE scheme prototype we take a participant-driven approach and draw on Social Capitol Theory and also Cognitive Evaluation Theory within the SelfDetermination Theory framework to address three innate psychological needs (autonomy, competence, and relatedness) to increase intrinsic motivation of participants to engage in idea exchange1 2.
- Ryan, R.M. and Deci, E.L. SelfDetermination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and WellBeing. American Psychologist 55, 1 (2000), 68–78.
- Deci, E.L. and Ryan, R.M. The ‘what’ and ‘why’ of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry 11, (2000), 227–268.