ABSTRACT
This paper describes our experience with the iterative development and use of a project charter for helping to manage expectations of the various members of interdisciplinary research teams. Some of our team members may be working with other researchers for the first time, and many of them have not worked previously with researchers from other disciplines. The charter is based on the need to explicitly discuss principles and policies of research practice with people from different disciplines at the start of the project, and to have a common agreement to refer to if necessary during the project. Our current template contains the following principles:
• We are interested in disseminating the results of this project as widely as possible, with credit to us for doing it.
• We intend this work to move forward at a steady pace, given due awareness of the vagaries of life.
• We would prefer for this work to be funded.
• We understand that the work we do on this project may have future phases. Modifications and additions may be made to further the project by other members.
• We wish to communicate in such a way as to preserve professional dignity.
• We would like to foster goodwill among all the participants.
Although these seem on the surface like motherhood statements that would go without saying, in practical terms these principles, and the longer list of policies that emerge from them, is actually the basis of fundamental misunderstandings between disciplines.
- Hara, N., Solomon, P., Kim, S.-L. & Sonnenwald, D. H. (2003) An Emerging View of Scientific Collaboration: Scientists' Perspectives on Collaboration and Factors that Impact Collaboration. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. 54(10), 952--965. Google ScholarDigital Library
- SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada). (2007). International Collaboration. Retrieved June 30, 2007 from http://www.sshrc.ca/web/whatsnew/initiatives/international/index_e.asp.Google Scholar
- Ruecker, S. (2006). "Experimental Interfaces Involving Visual Grouping During Browsing." Partnership: the Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research. 1(1).Google Scholar
- Radzikowska, M., Ruecker, S., Fiorentino, C., and Michura, P. (2007). The Novel as Slot Machine. Paper presented at the Society for Digital Humanities (SDH/SEMI) conference. University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon. May 28--30, 2007.Google Scholar
- Svensson, P. (2003). Interdisciplinary Design Research. In B. Laurel (Ed.), Design Research: Methods and Perspectives (193--200). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
- Amabile, T. M., Patterson, C., Mueller, J., Wojcik, T., Odomirok, P. W., Marsh, M. & Kramer, S. J. (2001). Academic-Practitioner Collaboration in Management Research: A Case of Cross-Profession Collaboration. Academy of Management Journal, 44(2), 418--431.Google Scholar
- Wynne, S., Ruecker, S., Nelson, T. M., Albakry, W., Strong, M., Lewcio, M., and Plouffe, M. (2007). The rich prospect of tension, affiliation and reward: from social capital to image analysis. Paper presented at the Society for Digital Humanities (SDH/SEMI) conference. University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon. May 28--30, 2007.Google Scholar
- Zimmerman, E. (2003). Play as Research: The iterative design process. In B. Laurel (Ed.), Design Research: Methods and Perspectives (176--184). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
- Bennett, N. & Kidwell Jr., R. E. (2001). The Provision of Effort in Self-Designing Work Groups: The Case of Collaborative Research. Small Group Research, 32(6), 727--744.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Rockwell, G. and Johnson, N. (2007). The Globalization Compendium: Reflecting on Contemporary Research and Online Publication. Paper presented at the Society for Digital Humanities (SDH/SEMI) conference. University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon. May 28--30, 2007.Google Scholar
- Cuneo, C. (2003). Interdisciplinary Teams - Let's Make Them Work. University Affairs. 1(1).Google Scholar
- Sillitoe, P. Interdisciplinary Experiences: Working with Indigenous Knowledge in Development. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 29, 1, (March 2004), 6--23.Google Scholar
- Schuler, D, & Clement, A. (2004). Artful integration and participatory design: Preface to the proceedings of PDC 2004. In Clement, A., van den Besselaar, P. (Eds.), Proceedings of the Eighth Conference on Participatory Design (1st ed., pp. v-vi). New York, NY: ACM Press.Google Scholar
- Hobson, S. (nd) Case Studies in Gerontology for the Applied Health Sciences. Retrieved July 17, 2007, from http://publish.uwo.ca/~shobson/models.htmlGoogle Scholar
- Wilson, V and Pirrie, A. (2000). Multidisciplinary Teamworking Indicators of Good Practice. The Scottish Council for Research in Education Research Report, 77.Google Scholar
- Zhang, S., Zhao, C., Zhang, Q, Su, H., Guo, H., Cui, J., Pan, Y. and Moody, P. (2007). Managing Collaborative Activities in Project Management. Proceedings of the 2007 symposium on Computer Human Interaction for the Management of Information Technology (CHIMIT '07). March 30--31, 2007. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Seipel, M. (2005). Interdisciplinarity: An Introduction. Retrieved July 22, 2007, from http://www2.truman.edu/~mseipel/Google Scholar
- Keil, M., Smith, J., Pawlowski, S. and Jin, L. (2004). Why Didn't Somebody Tell Me?: Climate, information asymmetry, and bad news about troubled projects. ACM SIGMIS Database, 35(2), 65--84. Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
The iterative design of a project charter for interdisciplinary research
Recommendations
Collaborative interdisciplinary astrobiology research: a bibliometric study of the NASA Astrobiology Institute
This study aims to undertake a bibliometric investigation of the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) funded research that was published between 2008 and 2012 (by teams of Cooperative Agreement Notice Four and Five). For this purpose, the study creates an ...
Exploring the interdisciplinary evolution of a discipline: the case of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
This study explores interdisciplinarity evolution of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (BMB) over a one-hundred-year period on several fronts, namely: change in interdisciplinarity, identification of core disciplines, disciplinary emergence, and ...
Discovering interdisciplinary interactions between two research fields using citation networks
As more and more interdisciplinary areas are emerging at a quick pace, analysis of interdisciplinary interactions among disciplines is of great importance. Citation network analysis is advancing as a tool to extricate policy implications from scientific ...
Comments