5. S UMMARY OF PAPERS
5.1. P APER I: I DENTIFYING FACTORS THAT MAY IMPACT THE ADOPTION AND
COLLABORATORY WITHIN LIS: A SYNTHESIS OF PREVIOUS RESEARCH
Lassi, M. & Sonnenwald, D. (2010). Identifying factors that may impact the adoption and use of a social science collaboratory: a synthesis of previous research. Information Research, 15(3) colis710.
The paper reports on a review of research literature related to collaboratories, focusing in particular on identifying factors that may affect the design, adoption and use of collaboratories, to provide a basis for designing a collaboratory for sharing data collection instruments in LIS. The
choices of literature was not, however, specifically directed at LIS or social sciences, but instead provided a general perspective, on which an empirical study of needs and practices of LIS community members could be built.
The aim of the study was to review and synthesize relevant research to identify factors that impact the design, adoption and use of a collaboratory, particularly with regard to a social science discipline such as LIS.
A review and synthesis of literature in the following research areas was carried out: scientific collaboration, scholarly communication, scientific collaboratories, scientific disciplines, invisible colleges and virtual communities. Using a snowball approach to literature collection, the process started from a set of publications identified as central to topics such as collaboratories, scientific collaboration and scholarly communication. The literature was found in disciplines such as LIS, computer science, CSCW, communication, computer-mediated communication, psychology, sociology and social studies of science.
Six types of factors that appear to impact the design, adoption and use of a collaboratory emerged from the synthesis. The factors were sorted according to their level of focus (on individuals or groups) and aspects of science (progress, social or economic) (Table 3). The identified factors were: career factors that impact a researcher's career advancements; personal factors concerning aspects of doing science which affect researchers on a personal level other than their career; cost of participation factors, focusing on whether the benefits of being active actors in a collaboratory outweigh the costs for the individuals; disciplinary and scientific advancement factors focusing on furthering science and disciplines in general, such as the development of new methodology within a discipline; community factors that affect the community of researchers; and cost of developing and sustaining factors for developing and sustaining a collaboratory for a community or discipline.
Level of focus
Aspects of science
Progress Social Economic
Individual Career Personal Cost of
participation
Group Disciplinary and scientific
advancement Community Cost to develop and
sustain
The findings informed the design of the empirical study, as the broad perspective on related research of the literature review informed the investigation of a specific discipline – the practices and perceptions of creating, reusing and sharing data collection instruments among LIS students, professionals and researchers.
5.2. P APER II: S HARING DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENTS : P ERCEPTIONS OF FACILITATORS AND CHALLENGES FOR A L IBRARY AND
I NFORMATION S CIENCE COLLABORATORY
Lassi, M. & Limberg, L. (manuscript). Sharing data collection instruments:
Perceptions of facilitators and challenges for a Library and Information Science collaboratory.
The paper reports on an empirical study of the needs, barriers and design requirements for a collaboratory for sharing data collection instruments in LIS. The aim of the study was to explore LIS students’, researchers’, and professionals’ 1) current practices of creating, sharing, using and reusing data collection instruments, and 2) perceptions of benefits, facilitators and challenges for a collaboratory for sharing data collection instruments in LIS.
The empirical data of the study were collected through interviews with LIS community members regarding their practices and attitudes concerning creating, reusing and sharing data collection instruments, and their perceptions of the benefits and challenges of an LIS collaboratory.
An empirical study was conducted, which consisted of semi-structured interviews with sixteen members of the LIS community. The study participants were recruited to capture a broad picture of the LIS community, according to two dimensions: their professional and educational positions, and their experiences or expertise in using questionnaires, interviews, and (quasi-)experiments. The interview guide was based on the findings presented in Paper I, the literature review of research related to collaboratories and scientific collaboration, with additional questions focusing on the practices of the study participants. This last element, the additional questions, was added to learn more about the professional and organizational contexts of the study participants who were not working in academia, i.e. librarians and information architects.
In all, the findings indicate that while people express the view that an LIS collaboratory would be beneficial on a community and disciplinary level, the benefits for the individuals may not be sufficient incentive to make them become active collaboratory actors. The most prominent facilitators and benefits for the adoption and use of an LIS collaboratory discussed by the study participants were: building upon previous work can lead to higher quality data collection instruments; using the same data collection instrument can facilitate comparing results across studies; and the fact that people would feel flattered if someone wanted to use their data collection instruments. The most notable challenges discussed by the study participants were: that the uniqueness of their research would make it difficult to use anyone else’s data collection instrument; that they would need rich meta-data to determine its potential for their study; that modifications to a data collection instrument could lower its quality; and that sharing resources is not in the LIS culture. While some of the benefits and challenges discussed by the study participants were discussed by all or the majority of the professional and educational positions (such as the benefits of building upon previous research), other themes were discussed predominantly by one profession. The LIS professionals’ perceptions differed from the other groups, including whether they would have time to actively use a collaboratory, and whether the quality of their data collection instruments would be good enough to be interesting for other collaboratory actors. This may not be so surprising, considering that their professional and organizational contexts differ from the ones prominently researched in relation to scientific collaboration (typically academia). It can be noted that the issue of quality raised by the professionals was not included in the interview guide, but rather something that the study participants suggested without a specified inquiry from the interviewer.