The Archaeology of Knowledge

This week I received unwelcome news AGAIN from google. For about 3 years, I have used igoogle as my homepage to keep track of email, blogs I follow, and tools for weather and translation. It is nice because I can see in a glance all internet activity I'm interested in when I sign on the the internet. However, this week a notice popped up that igoogle will go away as of November.

This happened before with google's webpage program. I was able to create my own webpage, but they discontinued the product two years ago. This got me to thinking about what happens to our electronic footprint and the knowledge we store in it.

Transparency and Storage of Knowledge

Today, archaeologists try to decipher the knowledge embedded on material objects thousands of years later. There is still records in caves and carvings, although the knowledge behind those records have been lost. The question for archaeology is can we retrieve that lost knowledge without an understanding of the context in which the records were created? While we may have lost the contexts, there are still clues that archaeologists and anthropologists can put together to try to understand the contexts in which these records of knowledge were created. These artifacts have survived the elements, destruction, civilizations, and politics.

However, advances in technology (caves to paper to electronics) have meant increasing parishibility of knowledge. Records from the middle ages are written on paper that disintegrates as time goes on. While knowledge was able to be disseminated to a wider audience (it's hard to carry a cave around), it also means that the permanence (in the form of a permanent record) decreased. Now as we come to the electronic age, knowledge creation becomes more transparent, but the storage of this is threatened. In the short term, an individual's foibles and mistakes are open to the world (i.e., facebook timeline, twitter, even blog comments). In the long run, however, as technology changes, so does access to records of knowledge. How many of you have information on floppy disks that you are unable to access now because there are no machines to read the floppies?

How will those in the Future Know who we are?

Which brings me back to my question as to what will happen to all of the knowledge we built through the electronic ages? Will those in the future know about our civilization by looking at our buildings? What other means do we have for a permanent record of our knowledge that can be passed down from generation to generation? As more knowledge is disseminated (outside of the context in which it was created) and made more universal, will be become a more closed civilization that those in the future will not be able to understand? Is it possible that those civilizations that we think we know may have had knowledge (most likely passed down through oral traditions) what will forever be lost to use, yet at the time were universal truths?

Expertise, competency, and content

Three terms, expertise, competency, and content, are used interchangeably with knowledge, especially in the context of workplace learning and training. However, they may have multiple meanings depending on the theoretical constructs of the research. Therefore, it is important to discuss and define each of these terms as they relate to knowledge.

Content Knowledge

The traditional form of knowledge often is referred to as content knowledge. This is knowledge that can be possessed (Nonaka, 1994), as “what is known, or the corpus of knowledge that does not belong to any particular individual or context (Yakhlef, 2010, p.39).” Knowledge of content can be measured, identified (especially lack of content knowledge), and/or recorded and stored for use by those who would not ordinarily have access to the knowledge. As a result, content knowledge can also be abstracted for use by those that have never required a particular content knowledge, nor have had access to an environment or situation that required that content (Yakhlef, 2010). For example, a teacher in a rural area without access to internet service may not have access or use of learning management system (LMS) software. He or she may learn about the software, how to use it by using reading a textbook, or even receive some hands on training away from his or her classroom. However, he or she would be prepared on how to use the software should his or her school install the software, and be able to formulate ways in which to use the software in his or her teaching should the opportunity arise, without ever having to use the LMS.

Because of the ease in measuring content knowledge, most training and professional education focus on transferring content knowledge at the individual, group, and organizational level (Cook & Yanow, 1995; Yakhlef, 2002; Yakhlef, 2010). However, with the advent of the internet, for an individual to possess content knowledge is not as important as for an individual to be able to access and know how to use content knowledge. In other words, individuals need to have skills and experience to use content knowledge efficiently and effectively. This is then known as competence (Herling, 2000; Yaklief, 2010). Content knowledge without competency means an individual may have difficulty performing his or her work or changing his or her behavior as the situation requires (Herling, 2000; Laufer & Glick, 1998).

Competency

Herling (2000) defines competence as “an ability to do something satisfactory-not necessarily outstandingly or even well, but rather to a minimum level of acceptable performance (p.9).” At the organizational level, the competency model of management is based on the identifiable skill sets needed to efficiently perform required work and the overall capacity among workers. Organizations need to identify skill sets, gaps in the skill sets, potential problems due to the gaps, and ways to manage/train so that the organization can perform efficiently (Herling, 2000; Sanghi, 2007). Training to develop competency may include interdepartamental cross-training, interaction with experts to develop performance expectations, guided practice, and the opportunity to engage in dialectic reflection (i.e. negotiating meaning with others) (Goodwin, 1994; Herling, 2000; Laufer & Glick, 1998; Sanghi, 2007;Yaklief, 2010). Content knowledge plays a part in competency training in that trainees must first either have the content knowledge or access to content knowledge in order to develop the skills that lead to perforance which demonstrates competency.

Expertise

Much has been written about organizational expertise, especially in the context of differences between the expert and novice. One common theme is that expertise requires a depth of understanding based on experience. An expert not only knows what (content knowledge) and how (competency), but also why and when to use knowledge (Allee, 1997). This requires a certain level of tacit knowledge about the domain and/or environment in which the application of knowledge is required (Sternberg & Horvath, 1999). Expertise requires the translation of content knowledge into practice, applying knowledge to the environment, problem, and/or situation, modifying content through discursive processes (Laufer & Glick, 1998;Yahlief, 2010).

Although researchers may not agree upon the order, many differentiate generalized expertise and specialized expertise. Specialized expertise is knowledge that comes from experience and learning within a specific domain, such as aerospace or endocrinology within the engineering and medical professions. Through focused interaction with the environment, professional artifacts, and other professionals within a community of practice, in-depth specialized understanding is created (Herling, 2000; Sternberg & Horvath, 1999; Yaklief, 2010). This specialized understanding often is then converted into content that can be disseminated back into the community of practice or to outsiders (who may then be interested in joining the specialized community of practice). While an individual may have a specialization, expertise requires knowledge within the domain that the community recognizes as important. Without the social acceptance of the specialization, there is no expertise.

Disseminating Content, Competency, and Expertise in the Workplace

Generalized expertise can either be developed through application of a specialized expertise across domains (Herling, 2000) or through a deep understanding of the domain as a whole, within multiple specializations within that domain linked together to create general expertise (Allee, 1997; Herling, 2000). Herling defines expertise as “displayed behavior within a specialized domain and/or related domain in the form of consistently demonstrated actions of an individual that are both optimally efficient in their execution and effective in their results (p.20).” He bases this definition on three componants required for expertise: knowledge, experience, and problem solving. In this case, knowledge is equivilent to content knowledge.

For this paper, we will differentiate expertise from competence and content knowledge through the depth of knowledge and understanding. Content knowledge can be defined as the information and explicit knowledge that can be stored, accessed, possessed and translated/abstracted outside of the situation/environment in which it was created. Content knowledge is static and is minimally impacted through social interaction except through the social valuation of the content knowledge. In other words, if the content knowledge is not identified as being valuable it may be lost, and if it has perceived exceptional value, it may be controled. Competency can be defined as the minimum skills and understanding of processes needed to effiently perform tasks within a given environment or situation. This requires tacit knowledge to conform to the situational and environmental requirements that impact performance. Expertise can be defined as a depth of understanding through experience, content knowledge, skills, and discoursive interaction with multiple settings, artifacts, and others. Expertise is dynamic in that knowledge and understanding is constantly changing as deeper meaning is developed through interaction.

A person who is perceived as having expertise and the ability to apply that expertise to varying, yet specific situations is an expert. Herling contends that an individual first specializes, using specialized content knowledge. Eventually, the competency in the specialized field will be added to an individual’s overall general knowledge moving an individual from competent to an expert in a specialized area to a generalized expert. However, as discussed above, some individuals may first have competency in a domain, then develop a general knowledge about that domain learning about different componants of the domain, then develop various specialties within the domain to understand the socio-cognitive aspects of the domain. As a result, new content knowledge is developed to give a deeper understanding of the domain.

Knowledge can then be desiminated through a group, department, or organization. Content knowledge is accessed by an individual, group, department, or even organization (in the form of training materials). Through interaction (both social and cognitive) with the environment and the content competency is developed. The longer that one performs competently in a dynamic environment (such as the workplace) the more expertise is developed. This expertise is then captured through artifacts such as finished products, reports, discussion, curriculum, and training which then can be desiminated to novices, in which the process begins again. Knowledge creation, therefore, is a dynamic process, rather than the static form that content knowledge represents (Allee, 1999; Cook & Yanow, 1995; Herling, 2000; Sanghi, 2007; Yaklief, 2010)

References:

Allee, V. (1997). The Knowledge Evolution. Newton, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Akgun, A., Lynn, G., & Byrne, J. (2003). Organizational learning: A socio-cognitive framework. Human Relations, 839-868.

Cook, S., & Brown, J. S. (1999). Bridging epistemologies: The generative dance between organizational knowledge and organizational knowing . Oranizational Science, 381-400.

Cook, S., & Yanow, D. (1995). Culture and Organizational Learning. Journal of Management Inquiry, 373-390.

Herling, R. (2000). Operational definition of expertise and competence. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 8-21.

Laufer, E., & Glick, J. (1998). Expert and novice differences in cognition and activity: A practical work activity. In Y. Engeström, & D. Middleton, Cognition and communication at work (pp. 177-198). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Nonaka, I. (1994). A dynamic theory of organizational knowledge creation. Organizational Science, 14-37.

Sanghi, S. (2007). The handbook of competency mapping: Understanding, designing and implementing competency models in organizations, 2nd edition. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

Sternberg, R. & Horvath, J., eds. (1999). Tacit knowledge in professional practice: researcher and practitioner perspectives. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Yakhlef, A. (2002). Towards a discursive approach to organisational knowledge formation. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 18, 319-339.

Yaklief, A. (2010). The three facets of knowledge: A critique of practice based learning theory. Research Policy, 39-46.

Accessing Knowledge and Expertise

This is a continuation of my dissertation:

The last two themes dealt with how the group and members accessed, created, and used knowledge and expertise. In the one theme, knowledge and expertise of perceived value often was used as currency within the power structure, with study participants sharing, accessing resources, or withholding their knowledge and expertise based on their analysis of situational factors within the environment. This could be termed as transactional knowledge. With the second theme, when expertise and perceived knowledge was shared, there was a process of negotiation in which meaning was created, sometimes at the individual, group, organizational, or professional levels, sometimes at multiple levels. This could be termed as negotiated knowledge or expertise.

Transactional knowledge could be used within the group, between departments, within the organization, and outside of the organization, either between stakeholders or within a community of practice. Expertise, in and of itself, would be difficult to define, but needed to be valued by decision makers and those within the power structure. While a person might have had an expertise to offer on the project, not all expertise was perceived as being valuable to the project. Sam, for example, explains the perceived value of the elearning department within the organization:

We’re isolated a little bit. And we…I don’t know if the other contract managers or whoever they are, um…see elearning as something that they could…they could use to their advantage when doing classroom training. You know, we’ve had experience with blended learning solutions where people may…take some elearning kind of as prerequisite before they get to the classroom training. And then get…everybody would be on the same kind of page if they had don…if they do that. You know what I mean? So things like that, I’m not sure is a…is a solution that they have in mind (Sam, interview 2).

As a result of the elearning department not perceived as having valued expertise in the registration process, for example, those in authority drew resources from the stand-up training department, rejecting the design and registration work presented by those in the elearning department.

The perception of valued knowledge and/or expertise, therefore, was dependent upon whether the knowledge or expertise was 1) in demand, 2) valued by those within the power structure, 3) was perceived as meeting the needs of others (stakeholders, group members, those with legitimate authority), and/or 4) added value to a product, project, or process. In the case of added value, because knowledge was a product for the organization in this study, the ability to convert knowledge into something tangible became an added value to the organization. The tangible knowledge, or knowledge that was represented in a format that was identifiable, could take the form of documents, models, visual representations, interviews or testimonials, assessments such as quizzes and tests, credentials such as diplomas or training credits, web or training tools, and brands. The more tangible the expertise or knowledge was perceived, the easier it was for that knowledge or expertise to be traded or used as currency.

The use and offering of valued expertise and knowledge could be banked and used as a currency for future access to resources. Phillip, for example, spoke about the importance of his work with this group for future positions in the organization, “This is where my education is, all my experience is here. I feel really comfortable, confident, you know, in this field. So I probably want to stay here and this…this ac…this would, um, compliment the experience I’d already have. So could transfer into…into moving me into some other position, maybe, in the future.” The use and offering of valued expertise and knowledge could also allow the value of an individual, group, or department to increase. The quarterly report was important to the organization because it could be used as currency for future projects with the project funder. In addition, many study participants spoke of how this project could be a model for future projects both within and outside of the organization.

The use and offering of valued expertise and knowledge could also create a community of practice within a socially based work network. Within this network, trust, status, and the identification of valued knowledge was developed. The network then could provide access to information, resources, and expertise for future work. However, access within the network was not always reciprocal. If the expertise or knowledge being offered the network was not perceived as being useful or valuable to others within the network, than a member or members may not have had reciprocal access. As a result, the relationship within the community moved away from collaboration and moved towards direction, or even dictating from those with a perceived position of power.

Within the group, for example, the elearning group’s expertise became less and less valued. By the end of the study, the elearning group would withhold their expertise as the stand-up training department began to control the flow of knowledge for the group. This created a situation in which the elearning group used their expertise to do their part of the project, but withheld that knowledge and expertise from the stand-up training department until the elearning piece was complete. As Phillip explains it:

it’s not so…it’s not so much…making concessions or, you know, be willing to give stuff up, it’s, “ I don’t think we’re collaborating in the best way that we can to get this product done.” (Phillip, interview 2).

The elearning group perceived the stand-up training group as dictating the way in which they completed their work. As a result, to maintain ownership over their work and expertise, the elearning department did not consult the stand-up training group until the elearning piece was completed. The elearning group would then make any necessary changes, but did not share their expertise as they were completing their task.

The video group withheld their expertise in a different way. As Olivia explains,
I think a function of that too is I’m not involved in all of the planning sessions for the classroom training or the online training, so they, decisions are made that I don’t know about or they decide that they want this objective. Ah, I don’t think that I need to be a part of that? As long as I know exactly what they want out of that. (Olivia, interview 1).

Olivia did not offer her expertise because she believed decision makers and those in position of authority did not value that expertise. She only did the work that was dictated to her by those higher up in the organizational power structure. Any value that she could have added to the group’s work was withheld if not requested by the group or the organizational power structure. In this way, she maintained ownership of her expertise, withholding it rather than giving it away when it would not be valued.

Members of the group also managed access to their knowledge network. Olivia, for example, seemed to be a strong gatekeeper to her network, partly because of her perception that the group and those in authority did not value her expertise, but also because she was unsure of her place within the project and organization. In other words, she maintained her network outside of the organization and group so that it would not be corrupted should she have to leave the organization. On the other hand, other group members protected their networks from specific members, again so their network was not corrupted (lack of trust, poor reputation, associations with undesirable experts, ideas, or policies).

While transactional knowledge and expertise was based on perceived value, with knowledge identified as something tangible or the ability to be made tangible (through documentation, visuals, processes, etc…), knowledge that created meaning was dependent upon discussion and interaction. This interaction could include communication between coworkers, resources, documentation, the environment, and/or communication tools.

When interviewing study participants, they spoke much more about discussions and trying to develop a shared understanding of the project in the first set of interviews than in the second. The participants used terms such as “being on the same page”, “understanding where they [other group members] were coming from”, and “they (don’t) get it” when they were initially interviewed, which were not as common in the second set of interviews.

There are a couple of possible reasons to explain this. First, in the initial stages of the study, the group seemed to work at getting a shared mental model of their work, project goals, and understanding the perspective of their group members. According to research on group formation (Tuckman,1967; Gersick, 1988) and communication (Jeffrey, Maes, & Bratton-Jeffrey, 2005), this is a natural function of newly formed groups. Once the group has developed a shared mental model, the knowledge and expertise will then be partiaged throughout the group (shared cognition). This partiaged knowledge will be accessed when needed with the renegotiation of the group mental model taking place when internal and external factors demand it.

The lack of discussion and focus on shared meaning and meaning making in the second half of the project might also be explained by the change in management midway through the study. The new management was not perceived as valuing a shared vision or ownership of group projects. They used a management style in which all decisions and project direction came from management rather than from the group itself. As a result, the management changed the project communication structure in which the group members no longer had the opportunity or environment in which to create shared meaning. Weekly group meetings were discontinued and the conversations online were monitored by the Project Director. If she felt the conversation had lasted too long, she would stop discussion online.

Some of the factors participants identified as being important for creating shared meaning included: 1) an openness to ideas, 2) feedback, 3) a sense of trust from those with whom the meaning would be negotiated, 4) awareness of where the starting point should be, 5) a sense of relationship of those involved or perspective taking abilities, and 6) cognitive dissonance or the awareness that there is a difference in understanding. The problem with negotiation meaning on the part of the management, as the group members perceived it, was that creating shared meaning was time consuming, often without results or identifiable (transactional) valued knowledge.

Group members used a number of communication modalities to create shared meanings. These included:

• Face-to-face communication in the form of formal discussions (e.g. regular “check-ins” and updates), working meetings (e.g. planning, departmental, content), weekly meetings, and informal discussions (e.g. breaks, “water cooler” or hallway conversations);

• Written communication in the form of scripts, online postings, programming codes, work approvals, reports, emails, writing planning documents, project task checklists, and feedback solicitations;

• Visuals in the form of write board diagrams, maps that represent content; flow charts, powerpoint slides, video footage, and representative photos.

These different modalities helped to transform implicit knowledge into a tangible, identifiable form which sometimes triggered cognitive dissonance and helped participants discover differences both within and outside of the group.

The cognitive dissonance, once identified, then was the basis for negotiated meaning, with participants defining the boundaries of their understanding. Each participant creates new boundaries, sometimes redefining vision, ideas and/or meaning. For example, Phillip described the process the group went through in adapting content for elearning:

So we kind of, like, arrived at some middle position. So it’s kind of a neat…ah, you know working relationship. And what it does is gives you o…other ways to think about things that you just wouldn’t have thought of. You know, you…you don’t know to think of those…things if you don’t know. (Phillip, interview 1).

At other times, participants maintain their vision, schema or individual beliefs, but are able to understand the perspectives of other group members. This new understanding, a result of perspective taking, would allow group members the ability to discuss their work using negotiated meaning for shared common terms, language, symbols, and formats.

The interaction group members had in negotiating meaning also created relationships both within and extending outside of the group. Group members could act as translators of knowledge for resources within their own knowledge networks. Specifically, each group member had their own knowledge network which they accessed when they needed to find intellectual and cognitive resources (e.g. answers to questions, feedback, information, expertise or specialization). When the individual member was unable to find the resources through their own network, they then turned to group members.

However, because the group members’ cognitive boundaries might not allow them to communicate and/or understand other group members’ knowledge networks, the group would need to rely on its members to mediate understanding between the various knowledge networks and group members. A good example of this was Ronda visiting healthcare provider students with Helen. Helen was able to speak to the students, many of which were also healthcare service recipients and then translate that knowledge into concepts and terminology that Ronda was familiar with. Ronda then incorporated this information into her elearning designs. Without Helen, however, Ronda might have had difficulty in interacting with the students, asking the correct questions for identifying their needs, and/or understanding the information the students provided as Ronda did not have first hand experience or knowledge about the subject matter.

The collaborative writing process and the use of written forms such as meeting minutes and online postings documented the negotiation of meaning and dialogues that created shared mental models. These written communications then became both currency and a basis for continued negotiation of meaning.

For example, the map document was the result of a written roadmap on a whiteboard developed by the core group (Robert, Helen, Paul, Phillip, and Ronda). This whiteboard roadmap was then used as a basis for the Top 10 List learning object outline. Moving between the core group (which members acted as translators) and the elearning department, the Top 10 List became the Map. The Map was the tangible result of the dialogue between the core group and the elearning group. The Map then continued to be revised as those in the various departments began to use it. The project decision makers (Project Director, Project Manager, and Director of IT) began to reconceptualize the project based on the vision outlined in the Map. Each draft of the Map became a documented dialogue that negotiated meaning both inside and outside the group.

Related to this negotiated meaning is the choice of language in collaborative writing which reflects the cultural underpinnings of the discourse community of the profession, department, and/or group. This is knowledge which is difficult to identify. As a result, group members would use other group members and their knowledge networks to check understanding and meaning. As Helen explained about Ronda’s work:

So sh…you have to be able…if you’re going to be writing about it, theoretically, she’s going to write all this, you have to understand disease, how it’s treated, you know, the modalities. I mean, she didn’t know… what do you mean when you say modalities? Ahhh! Inpatient, outpatient, long term care, you know, medication, but…all that kind of stuff. So, she would sit there and ask…she asked us lots of questions so that she could understand it so she could write about it. (Helen, interview 2).

Ronda confirmed this view:

Well, mostly I’m looking for factual corrections, just to make sure that I’ve said the things…I’ve made the point and I’ve captured the information correctly. Cause I’m not an expert on disease interventions. So for example, if I’m doing a…eh, a learning object on medication, ah, understanding the range of medication and the contra indications from medication. Um, there’s a lot of detail there about, you know, milligrams and dosages and, ah, contra indications and answers and stuff. Ah, I would turn to Philip and Helen and Paul to make sure that I’m correct. That I haven’t said anything incorrectly. (Ronda, Interview 1).

It was not necessary for Ronda to have expertise in the field as long as she was able to build her understanding of the healthcare profession’s culture and discourse community by accessing the expertise and experience of the face-to-face training group. Each time Ronda received feedback from Helen, Paul, or Phillip, she developed a deeper understanding of the cultural underpinnings of the healthcare field, even without direct professional experience. Those within the face-to-face training department developed a deeper understanding of the elearning culture and discourse community by accessing the knowledge network of Ronda, David, and Sam. However, the group members did not perceive to have access to Olivia’s knowledge network, either because Olivia was unable or unwilling to translate the culture and discourse needed to access knowledge within her network. While Robert offered access to his knowledge network, the group members perceived their own networks as more valuable sources of insight and knowledge than Robert’s. As a result, they did not access his knowledge network unless they were forced to.

Resources:

Galanes, G. & Adams, K. (2007). Effective Group Discussion: Theory and Practice. Boston: McGraw Hill.

Gersick, Connie (1988). Time and transition in work teams: Toward a new model of group development. Academy of Management Journal, 31 (1), 9-31.

Jeffrey, A., Maes, J., and Bratton-Jeffrey, M. (2005) Improving team decision-making performance with collaborative modeling. Team Performance Management 11 (1/2), p. 40-50.

Tuckman, Bruce (1965) Developmental sequence in small groups. In Classics for Group Facilitators.

Knowledge as currency

I currently am working on the theme that knowledge and expertise is used as currency within the workplace (as part of my dissertation). As I have been analyzing the data from my study, I realized that knowledge and expertise used as currency needs to be identifiable.

This got me to thinking about "identifiable knowledge." Notice I don't say tacit or explicit knowledge. The reason is that knowledge that can be turned into currency might be explicit, but expertise can be identifiable, yet be based upon tacit knowledge. So, by identifiable, knowledge and expertise needs to be identified by both those who have and don't have the knowledge or expertise, need to take a form (finished product, process, written documentation, behavior) that both tracks and measures the knowledge and expertise, and needs to be located in a central place or depository (i.e. computer, file cabinet, employee, group, or department) where it can be accessed.

The value of knowledge

As I mentioned before, I am still thinking through many of these ideas for my dissertation. One factor that keeps coming up in my analysis of this theme is the value of expertise and knowledge. There might be expertise, there might be knowledge. However, when knowledge and expertise is being used as currency, then there needs to be value attached to it by the "consumers" of knowledge and expertise. In the US, that currency has become even more important as the current intellectual property laws place a great economic focus on expertise and knowledge.

Who values the knowledge and expertise? According to Friere, that would be those in position of power. And as long as they are able to devalue knowledge and expertise that might threaten their authority, valued knowledge and expertise will be the currency of education.

What does this mean? It means that concrete knowledge, concrete processes, and knowledge and expertise that is sanctioned by those in power will be the basis for someone to be successful in our culture. Thus, welcome the testing and standardized educational system. As much as the media, policy makers, and politicians extort the "new skills" businesses need for our country to continue to improve in the world economy, what they are really saying is that they need a different currency (different knowledge and expertise than what is already out there). That currency will constantly be changing depending on the needs of the economy. But the system will still be the same in which those with valued expertise and knowledge (at the time) will have the ability to use that currency while those with devalued knowledge and expertise (outdated, undervalued by those in power) will need to follow the dictates of those in power (the market).

New educational model

So as I play the currency game and get credentials that I hoped would be valued, I now find that (as has happened my whole life), my expertise now is no longer valued in our economy/culture. There are no jobs for those who have an understanding of the international knowledge economy, that can teach foreign language and cross cultural communication skills, that can improve team management skills, no jobs for those that can teach better communication or writing skills, no jobs for those in adult and online instructional design (as opposed to technical jobs for elearning of which there are many jobs), and no jobs to create a new educational system.

Whereas my expertise 7 years ago when I started the Ph.D program was in demand, now it is assumed that all faculty are able to integrate technology into their teaching.

But here is the rub: there is a lot of knowledge and expertise that 1)cannot be measured, 2) is lost when it is made into something identifiable, 3) does not ad value, 4) exists but has yet to find value, and 5) is distributed.

This means that the classes that I planned for this week (as I do every week) does not have perceived value, especially in this point in time. My students don't see the amount of preparation I put into the planning of the class, aligning learning goals with class activities. It is hard to measure the amount of time I take thinking about my course and how I can teach it so the students may be able to use the skill and their experience in the future when they are faced with a similar situation.

I have also found that those within my study group who are the most successful are those that know how to identify valued knowledge to multiple groups, how to access resources, knowledge, and expertise when needed, and are flexible in the way in which they align their work with others goals. These are the skills we should be teaching our students. If we continue to focus on the currency of their future rather than how to create currency and use it, then we will end up with a stagnant economy. We will also continue to lose expertise and new knowledge as has happened throughout the ages to those with ideas before their time.

What happens when no one recognizes your genius?

Okay, so I'm not claiming to be a genius. Let's start there. However, two things happened yesterday to trigger this post.

First, I met with my dissertation adviser. He is very good in terms of focusing my work. However, I'm always so depressed after speaking with him as I feel I will never complete this process. I had sent him drafts of chapters (one of which I found out later was the wrong file...not the 71 page completed draft but rather a 3 page draft).

What is difficult is that I have a lot of ideas running around in my head which are very difficult to articulate. I don't write in the traditional way (linear), and as I told my adviser, many times I just want to get the thought down on paper. I had sent to him a work in progress, the findings chapter (many pieces of which I have posted on this blog over the past few months). They were bits and pieces just so he could get a feeling of what I was working on. But it is hard to link all of these ideas together.

This type of knowledge is something I'm still trying to label for my dissertation. However, I'm leading towards the term of Partaged Knowledge. This is the ability to link together ideas and understanding both internally and externally to an individual. I derived the term from the French word of "partager" which means both to share and to divide. Partaged knowledge is knowledge that one would need to be able to access and link to other knowledge (i.e. linking ideas, putting into context). This might be internal like when I am writing. Many of my ideas are separate initially, seemingly without any correlation (divided). However, through the writing process, I must link together those ideas into one cohesive whole (thus the sharing or putting together through interaction of ideas).

The same can happen with group processes in which group members come into the group (especially a distributed group) with different expertise, access to resources, cultural influences, and experience/mental models of the work (divided resources and expertise). Through their work processes, their knowledge is partaged (yes, there is an English work which means share) throughout the group and beyond through knowledge networks.

Where do the ideas go?

While I might have good ideas, or even brilliant, my meeting with my adviser made me realize that it means nothing if you can't communicate those ideas in such a way that others will understand them. As my adviser apologized for what he thought was the harshness of his written comments (i.e. I'm totally confused as to what you are trying to say here), I could only appreciate his comments...The fact was, I was confused and I had written it!

For the most part, I have a thick skin about my writing. I look at the process as a means of negotiating meaning. This means I never look at a paper or something I have written as a final product in a process. Rather part of the process of understanding. But I do get frustrated as the length of time that it takes to complete a major project such as an article or a thesis/dissertation. Likewise, my family does not understand this process and why it is taking so long. I walked out with a hole in my stomach as the amount of work that I still need to do began to weigh me down.

Leonardo diVinci's lost genius

Last night, I watched a program (on PBS) about Leonardo DiVinci's Dream Machines (produced by Channel 4 in Britain). What struck me was the ending in which they spoke about the large number of notebooks DiVinci left behind, hoping his assistant would disseminate the knowledge once DiVinci died. Instead, DiVinci's notebooks were divided up, some being destroyed, some kept by a Cardinal who presumably withheld the notebooks because they were deemed dangerous (as many new ideas are), others passed on to individuals. While DiVinci's art was made public, his scientific and non-art observations and analyses were kept private as the world he lived in was not ready for his ideas.

These ideas have now been revisited and align with what we know today. What would be considered fantasy and impossible to believe back in diVinci's day, now are considered genius.

So what is the difference? Well, for one thing, we now have ideas that can be linked to diVinci's. In other words, partaged knowledge can be distributed across time as well as space and people. However, more than anything, diVinci was unable to communicate his ideas to his contemporaries (for many reasons). Now, others are taking his notes and "making sense" of them in new contexts. Had diVinci been a better communicator for his time, perhaps he would have had many of his ideas implemented. My guess was that he was hoping this was something his assistant would do. But perhaps his assistant did not have the ability to understand the copious notes his "master" had made.

So like the dissertation process, it is just as important for those with multiple ideas to be able to link those ideas together and communicate them outside of one's own head. Otherwise, it is a very frustrating process.

Social networking: the hope of someone finding your genius

Blogging, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are all ways that people are trying to communicate their ideas and "genius." I watch as my children and their friends use social networks to broadcast their ideas and work. They are hoping that someone will recognize their genius which may not be recognized in a more provincial community. Ideas that are out of the box may find acceptance outside of the hegemony of a person's own culture. Likewise, other people's ideas will push the boundaries of cultures.

So perhaps social networking could be considered the ultimate tool in critical pedagogy. Perhaps that is why so many people are scared by its use, especially in primary and secondary education.

Distributed knowledge in the workplace

I'm still working on this idea, but both Michael Hanley and Karyn Romeis have blogged about knowledge recently so I decided to post what I currently am grappling with. There are still a lot of questions to answer.

Three types of knowledge

In analyzing the data, knowledge could be placed into three categories: tangible representation of knowledge which could be found in policies, forms, formats, curriculum, degrees or credentials, records, and other artifacts at the individual, group, departmental, organizational, and/or professional level; procedural and tacit knowledge, which would include an understanding of work processes and the knowledge created as a result of those processes; and spatial knowledge, which was created through the linking of ideas, social relationships, cognitive interaction, and/or cultural interaction. Each type of knowledge was manifested, accessed, created, and valued differently at the individual, group, and organizational level.

Spatial knowledge is the most valuable for knowledge based organizations. Knowledge can be part of the network internal to the group, external to the group, within the profession, internal to the organization and external to the organization.

However, spatial knowledge is difficult to quantify, control, and capture. Spatial knowledge is created through creative practices (writing, design, problem solving) rather than through the imposition of formats or processes. The imposition of formats helps to create organizational boundaries and impose organizational expectations that may lead to a change culture. But there will be no cultural change if the individuals do not perceive ownership to a document, work artifact or product, or process. In other words, they will confom to the imposed format, process, and/or culture, but they will not claim ownership to it.

This creates a tension between values imposed through authority and personal values. As the AIM model theorizes (Skitka, L., 2003), a group member has three choices: 1) live with the imposed values while maintaining personal values, try to change imposed values, or leave the environment (in the case of this study, quit) in order to maintain individual or group values. In this study, a fourth option developed, create a parallel structure so both individual/group values are maintained, while fulfilling the requirements of the imposed culture.

Implications

1) If there is a difference in epistemology which leads to a breakdown in the group knowledge creation process, it might help to use a strategy in which acceptable content rather than knowledge is defined and negotiated at the individual, group, and organizational level. (What are the other components of “knowledge” which might need to be negotiated initially or will affect the collaborative writing process? Start the collaborative writing process with a common “content”.)

2)This brings up questions as to the role of “know-how” in the group collaborative process. If it is considered an individual attribute, can a group have “know-how”? Is there such a thing as collective “know-how”? Would it be developed or used in the same way as individual know how? Is this why knowledge management is unable to capture group implicit knowledge? Is the continuation of the communication a way to develop collective know-how which is important to the group and not to the power structure? Because it is more difficult to measure, is it possible that collective know-how is in fact knowledge that is not important to those in power or within a group, but is important to the individual?

3) Who owns the knowledge? This is especially important in a distributed group in which knowledge is culled from multiple sources (profession, personal experience, the group, the department, the organization, and other stackholders). What if no one takes ownership? What happens to the work process, the end product, group dynamics, organizational culture? This can be seen in corporations where everyone, yet no one owns the knowledge.

Buchanan, R. (1992). Wicked problems in design thinking. Design Issues, 8(2), 5-21.

Skitka, L. (2003). Of different minds: An accessible identity model of justice reasoning. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 7(4), 286-297.

Defining knowledge and group processes

As I prepare for a preliminary presentation of the findings from my dissertation study to date, I have decided to focus on two of the sub-questions from my dissertation:

1. How do individuals define “knowledge”?
2. What process or processes does a distributed group in the workplace use to create shared meaning and understanding during collaborative writing projects? What factors do they identify as shaping that process or processes?

In my previous post, I concluded that:

In this project, it would appear that the source of conflict over epistemology was not a shared understanding of what content was (information, tangible) or know-how (intangible), but rather a shared understanding of design (“what is” as opposed to “what can be created”). This appears to be an overlooked aspect of the collaborative writing process.

I also bring up the following issues:

This brings up questions as to the role of “know-how” in the group collaborative process. If it is considered an individual attribute, can a group have “know-how”? Is there such a thing as collective “know-how”? Would it be developed or used in the same way as individual know how?

In order to answer this, it important to first understand the two writing projects and the differences between the two. To do so, I will concentrate on the second question, but also bring in the idea of design and how it affects the group collaborative writing processes and knowledge of the power structures.

The two writing projects

The process for the first quarterly report was that the project manager collected information (verbally) from each group then wrote the report. There were 7 catagories in the first quarterly report. In the second quarterly report, specific sections were assigned to specific group members. Again, there were seven categories, but the titles were somewhat modified.

The process for writing the Technology Based training section of the quarterly report ended up being members of the Instructional Technology group working on the project giving bullet points to a department writer, who then compiled these into a summary. According to the department writer, these bullet points in the first quarterly report were then passed on to the project manager to integrate into paragraph form for the quarterly report. However, in the second report, the IT Director asked the department writer to prepare a report using written paragraphs. This necessitated members from the IT staff to write up a brief summary in paragraph form. In addition to the IT department, the department writer was also asked to collect information from the video production staff and integrate it into the third section.

There was not a second final copy of the quarterly report available to the group online via their project management software, and according to the project manager, there was not a copy of the second quarterly report available on file. After the second quarterly report was written by the project manager, the report had to be approved by both the IT director and the new Project Director. Changes were sent back to both the project manager and the IT department writer.

The third quarterly report used the same categories as the first quarterly report. However, the tasks were assigned differently. For the third quarterly report, each employee of the IT staff submitted a paragraph of their activities to the IT director. She then passes this on to the IT writer who rewrote a draft of the Technology section. This was then sent back to the IT director who asked for revisions from the IT writer. Once these revisions were made, the Project Manager added the Technology section without making any revisions. This reflected the changes in the position of the IT director and Project Manager within the powerstructure of the project. The IT director’s position was given more responsibility equal to the Project Director, while the Project Manager no longer was overseeing any of the technology work. Rather, his position became more of a coordinator between the two Directors.

The second document created collaboratively by the project group was described by the original author on the project management site as follows:

I expect over the next several weeks to be uploading content files regarding [healthcare counseling] learning objects. I recognize that in so doing, I am inviting the comments of many people. Consequently, I urge you to comment with brevity and clarity. I am looking forward to your suggestions. I urge you to comment within one week of my posting. (R, project management posting).

Within the learning object itself, she described it as:

This learning object is designed to encourage a learner to figure out the plainspoken message embedded in the formal guidelines. The task is for the learner to write the caption for an addict or other person in recovery group, then compare their answer to the answer suggested below in red. This object requires no audio or video, although it would be great if we could deliver the ten guidelines with some experts a la David Letterman’s top 10.

However, the process and even what the document truly was varied from person to person’s perception. In addition, the role of what many perceived as the final form of that document became a very important document to all of the group members.

The antecedents of the document was a white board chart outlining the components of the curriculum from the stand up trainers, developed for planning purposes. R. was part of the planning some of the time, although the purpose of this planning process and R.’s role was perceived differently between departments. Using one of the pieces of the chart, R. developed a learning object as a prototype of what the elearning would look like. Part of this document included the “elearning interface.”

This document became a focal point of discussion within the power structure. The face to face training department contributed to edits using word’s tracking and comment functions. One project member of the face to face training group made edits, which was then modified by a second, then a third. In some cases, edits were made to edits. For the most part, however, edits were made to the original document. In reviewing these edits by the face to face project group members, who were perceived as being the content experts, many of the changes were based on terminology and language use rather than content or grammatical structure. In other words, the edits were based on the discourse community expectations and standards of the target audience.

A few days after the learning object was posted, the Project Director posted a comment asking that all discussion come to a close and the elearning group move on to another task. In other words, the time for discussion of this document was over, whether the group had come to a mutual understanding of the document or not. The curriculum writers felt that they were left with an incomplete understanding of how the elearning piece would fit into the overall training goals. The project group then found alternative ways to discuss this document, including in bi-weekly project meetings, in one on one visits to the others offices (which were physically located in two different buildings across town), or via their own project management space outside of the official online site.

The Top Ten List learning object changed drastically as the content and concept was reformulated. However, one piece of this document was the document interface which was a map of the learning made to look like a subway map. On each “line” of the subway, there were learning stops. It was described by Ronda in the following way during the group meeting:

V: So…as you reconceptualize this, do you… will you end up with an actual document or will this become a different… Is it just a basically a discussion? You had your top ten. So is that no longer the format that you’ll have? Or are you coming up with a new way in which you are communicating those lear…those content elements?
R: Well, what formally…I think the … for the classroom trainers, they have a document. Module 1 contains X number of elements. Module 2 contains X number of elements. Eh…for me, there’s a sort of isomorphic mapping of those content elements onto a schema that reflects those same strains and tho…and that same order. Uh…And I’ll give you a copy of this subway map which talks about where those elements are.

However, not everyone perceived the creation of the “subway map” document as an extension of the original learning object.

H: …The overall was developed in a room upstairs with the four of us…Now I think R. was there sometimes. She wasn’t there all the time. But when we had the old curriculum, we laid out what they had, and then we thought about…the process and overlaid that. Kind of did a crosswalk and saw where the gaps were in the old curriculum and that their flow wasn’t linear at all. Do you know what I mean? But, these…these [points to top ten list] are the rational of why we’re doing this [points to stop on the line]. It’s not…and I can’t even…This [top ten list] did not generate this [subway document]. In my opinion, that is not where it came from! [She laughs].

The document seemed to have an influence on their work. Even the video department, who did not seem to feel connected to the Quarterly Report, placed value on the “Subway” document as a vital road map to their work. They received the “subway” document after it had been completed, but were part of the meetings that discussed its content.

Analysis of the processes and effects on the process

When comparing the two written projects, it is clear that the design of the quarterly report, the format being developed by the funders’ and upper management/organizational’s heuristics or practices, falls into the category of what is. As a result, the organization’s power structure, values, and processes are more transparent. The group members were expected to conform to the document’s content, contributing their “knowledge” and individual know-how, but not design. In other words, they were not expected to create knowledge with the quarterly report.

Therefore, very little effort and communication went into the development of the quarterly report within the group. In fact, many of the group members were unaware of what the final document looked like. They wrote their piece, submitted it, made changes when asked, then forgot about the document. They also gave authorship of the document to those at the top of the organizational power structure, even though all of the core members wrote sections of the report. It appears that they ascribed authorship of the document to the person that designed the document format.

In addition to having a set format, the quarterly report had deadlines and specific information that had to be reported to the funders. In some cases, this information had to be gathered from multiple sources, and in other cases, the information was held by one member of the group. This document also had importance to stakeholders outside of the group which meant that those at the top of the power structure placed great importance on the quarterly report, more so than those in the middle or the bottom of the power structure. Therefore, the processes became more structured, with more oversight from those in positions of power with each subsequent report. As the individual with the expertise was not perceived as being the author of the report, it was sufficient for individuals to contribute to the report without interacting with other group members.

In effect, the perceived knowledge used to collaboratively write the quarterly report was expertise used as currency: withholding, contributing, and prioritizing expertise and who to please. Some of the group members, in fact, felt that too much expertise was provided compared to what the funders were looking for. As such, they felt this expertise should have been withheld as it would not be appreciated by the funders. The group members made certain assumptions about the funders and what expertise they were interested in. Based on the direction of their managers and their perceptions of what the funders valued, they created processes that would result in expertise that could be used as currency for the current job and future jobs.

As one of the group members commented:

They’re not asking us to report this much information. So why have it? We have plenty to do. I don’t need busy work. I’m not doing it. Now that’s just me. I’m not doing i…if there’s a good reason why I need to do it, tell me. But…it’s way too time consuming for what they need for the project. Reporting for the project. I said, “ you thin…you really think people at the sponsor are reading this?” …They’re not asking for that. Why would they read it? I wouldn’t. We’re not the only contract this woman manages.

The second document’s creation falls into the same category as Rittel's concept of wicked problems in design. “Wicked problems are a "class of social system problems which are ill-formulated, where the information is confusing, where there are many clients and decision makers with conflicting values, and where the ramifications in the whole system are thoroughly confusing.(Rittel as quoted by Buchanan, p. 15).”

In fact, this has been an area of interest within the design literature for decades (Buchanan, 1992). In preparing the second document, it was obvious that there was conflicting values between departments, by both the funders and the target audience, and within the organizational and group power structures. To a certain extent, this was caused by differences in the professional values and standards within which each member had been trained.

For example, one of the instructional designers was dissatisfied with the way in which the subway stop document was used.

Well, because each one…each one of those ah nodes on the map, they’re a full fledged course rather than, you know, back then it was just supposed to be a s…you know, one stop, one node. You know, you get a little tidbit. A top ten this and a top ten that. So, you know, they’re now…each one is a course with 4 lessons. 4-5 lessons in each one. Sometimes 6 less…I mean, 4-6 lessons in each one. And each lesson would contain, you know, about 10-12 pages. And what you’ll find, too, is there’s a lot of redundancy, between each unit in a module. Why is that? It’s because, really, we don’t need 4 courses in a module. A module is just really one course. I mean, it’s trained in one day. But because…. the new bosses didn’t really….unders…you know, they…they weren’t there when we were designing, um… conceptualizing the elearning. They thought that these nodes were going to be courses. [pause] So we had to dev…del…deliver courses.

Because the document and processes created to develop the document were flexible with no format provided by the upper management or funders, there was opportunity to interpret how the document would be used and the final product that would be designed. In other words, what can be. A result of this lack of imposed structure from outside was that the document was created and designed by the group. Group members did identify the primary author of the first draft entitled “Top Ten List” as the author of that document. However, they perceived other renditions of that original document as new documents rather than edits or different drafts. Even subsequent versions of the “Subway Map” document were referred to as versions, rather than drafts. This indicates the perception that each update created a unique document. The authorship of the Subway Map was then claimed by multiple members of the group, as a group document.

It would appear that because the document was developed more collaboratively, outside of the power structure but within the group structure, there is a closer personal tie by group members and a higher claim to authorship within the group. This document also appears to influence as well as be influenced by the group. As such, it appears to be more visceral in its interpretation rather than becoming a permanent record for the group.

The role that the document took was that of a planning document and a touch point for discussing the format of the learning across the departments. It also allowed those with decision making power to reconceptualize the project while maintaining the document’s format. Unlike the quarterly report, the negotiation of meaning and understanding happened outside of the written format. In fact, when those in authority declared the document complete and tried to discontinue further discussion, the group found other channels outside of the formal power structure in which to negotiate meaning around the Top Ten List and Subway Map. This discussion continued throughout the course of the study, resulting in subsequent versions of the Subway Map and the scrapping of the Top Ten List.

Another factor that influenced the process for the writing the second document was the physical location of the group members. This document became a planning document for group members that were not physically available for discussion about a complex product. During the second week of the study, the elearning department was relocated across town into the same building as the Video department. However, the video department’s office had a totally separate entrance into the building. In other words, they were virtually located in another building. The project group used a number of different tools and strategies to try to negotiate meaning, and create and revise this complex document. This included regular face to face meetings with minutes and/or the use of a whiteboard, notes, and drawings. They also posted drafts and ideas for comments in both organizational and project spaces online using the organization’s project software. The elearning group also developed its own programming to help create the document.

Finally, as there was more pressure by those in authority to move on from the document creation, the project group found more means of communicating outside of the scope of the power structure. This included having a desk designated for use by the curriculum developers (located in southern office) in the elearning department (located in the northern office). This allowed group members to work together on a regular basis. Interestingly enough, there was not a reciprocal desk in the southern office, which happened to be where most of the organizational and project management was located. When working in the southern office, the elearning and video groups used public conference rooms, forcing them always to share resources with the stand up trainers and curriculum developers.

Implications

One of the implications in looking at these two collaborative writing tasks and processes is that different workplace writing tasks will access different types of expertise and develop different types of knowledge. This means that more mindful assignment of writing tasks might result in better development of workers’ and teams’ capacity. This would be especially important when the organization’s product is knowledge.

In the case of the standard report, in which the design of the writing task is imposed on the group, team members would be able to better understand the organization’s structure, culture, and stakeholders’ needs through the collaborative writing of the report. This would be a good training and/or team building tool, especially if there is a need to change organizational culture. This is especially true with a newly created distributed group. Often these groups have cognitive trust issues or are under time pressure to produce work. A standardized collaborative report will help to prioritize tasks, make explicit an organizational power structure within which the group will work, and identify expertise/information that is important to stakeholders.

However, it is also important that the organization recognizes the role of a standard report. This means that the design of the report be done in a more conscious manner in order to reflect the organizational culture and the image that they want to project internally and externally. At a minimum, those responsible for communication either organizationally or departmentally, should contribute to the creation of standard report formats. In addition, upper management should be involved in the creation of processes for the collaborative writing of these standard reports to ensure that there is a clear understanding of the lines of authority for a distributed team.

In the case of the second document, the collaborative writing process became a mechanism to negotiate meaning, share information, create shared mental models, and create group “knowledge.” The document produced was not as important to the group’s work as the process was in creating the document. The document then became a record of this group knowledge. In other words, the creation of this second unformatted document helped to document the perceived group knowledge as opposed to the first document which documented the organizational culture and power structure. However, the intent of the first document was to document the group knowledge for the funder. Since knowledge for the first document was perceived as being currency, the organizational power structure, in fact documented group knowledge those in authority felt was valuable to the funders, thus impeding group knowledge creation.

One of the implications from studying the second document is that there should be design time for newly created distributed groups to develop collaboratively written documents in order to help define the group’s values and processes. The outcome of this might be an increase in group generated knowledge, as members negotiate meaning and understanding, drawing from both professional and departmental discourse communities. Discourse communities not only represent the communication structures within a community, including language choice, rhetorical style, and genres, but also the shared knowledge that underpins those communication structures. As group members are exposed to different discourse communities, they contribute new communication structures that the group then may incorporate into their group processes. This was seen, for example, in the group renaming their learning object to content object as learning object had a different meaning within the various group members’ discourse communities. The group agreed on the meaning of content object, thus creating their own terminology for discussion about the document.

More than just the definition of values and processes, however, an unstructured document allows for different perceptive taking, the building of new mental models, and the development of shared cognition. This allows for communities of practice which members can take back to their own departments. In fact, many in the stand up training mentioned how working with the elearning department on the learning object and interface, they had a new perspective of how to develop the curriculum to make it easier to create a content object. Likewise, those in the elearning department commented on how they had a new perspective on the content and target audience through the designing of the top ten list and other learning objects.

In looking at the two documents, there is also a need for common tools and workplaces for unstructured documents. These places and tools need to allow different members to interact, both verbally and visually, both in “public” and “private” places. The public places are used to solicit feedback, while the private places create a safe environment to resolve conflict, negotiate design and meaning, and show works/designs in progress. These private places are needed so that group members do not feel intimidated by showing incomplete work or admitting to gaps in knowledge or understanding. It also helps allow for information overload with critiques from multiple parties to be minimized. As evidenced by the creation of the second document, group members might feel intimidated or pressured to publicly present drafts which conform to a format or knowledge upon which their position in the group or power structure will be determined.

Some questions I am still wrestling with are:

1. Can group know how be equated with discourse communities or communities of practice?
2. What is happening to the individual’s perception of knowledge as the group addresses a “wicked problem” such as the second collaborative writing task? (Hopefully my analysis of the data for the third question will help to address this question)
3. Is there a difference between versions and drafts?

Reference: Wicked Problems in Design Thinking Author(s): Richard Buchanan Source: Design Issues, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Spring, 1992), pp. 5-21

Knowledge creation in distributed group collaborative writing projects: Methodology

As promised, below is an outline of the methodology I used to study indepth a distributed group as they worked on two collaborative writing projects.

METHODOLOGY

The original data collection was based on the research questions: How do individual members interpret the experience of a collaborative writing process within distrubted workplace groups? What factors influence the interpretation of experience that individuals take with them outside of the group as a result of participating in the collaborative writing process? The purpose in answering these questions was to gain a deeper understanding of what the individual perspective is and the various factors, including group dynamics, context, the role of writing and technology, culture, organizational structure (including agency and power structures), and types of learning, that influence the individual in creating his or her own knowledge, contributing to the group’s shared knowledge, and contributing to organizational knowledge and learning.

Due to the complexity of each of these factors that might influence the individual, it was necessary to have a deeper understanding of the individual, group, and organizational processes and contexts in which collaborative writing takes place. Therefore, qualitative methods, specifically grounded theory and ethnomethodology, were used (Charmaz, 2006; Clancey, 2006; Garfinkel, 1967; Patten, 2002).

After the data was collected, it was apparent that there were many directions in which the data could be analyzed. There were three areas that could be analyzed based on the literature review: the effect of group communication, the impact of organizational structures, and/or the effects and affects of written formats on the collaborative writing process. As a result, as often happens in grounded theory research (Charmaz, 2006), the research questions were rewritten to address the emerging themes and concepts found in the data. I decided to focus on the impact of the collaborative writing process from an organizational learning perspective. The questions still were used to gain a deeper understanding of what the individual perspective is and the various factors, including group dynamics, context, the role of writing and technology, culture, organizational structure (including agency and power structures), and types of learning, that influence the individual in creating his or her own knowledge, contributing to the group’s shared knowledge, and contributing to organizational knowledge and learning. However, the questions were more focused on the methods of common understanding created through individual and group practices located within the organizational social and knowledge structures (Garfinkel, 1967).

The questions were then changed to: What knowledge do members of a distributed workplace group identify as being important when creating a group product? What factors influence the choice of what knowledge is important?
The subquestions included:

• How do individuals define “knowledge”?

• What process or processes does a distributed group in the workplace use to create shared meaning and understanding during collaborative writing projects? What factors do they identify as shaping that process or processes?

• What patterns of work activity are maintained and changed at the individual, group, and organizational level within a distributed group? Who do workers identify with in maintaining or changing work patterns in different contexts?

Methodology Framework

While there are many qualitative methods from which to choose, ethnomethodology allows researchers to look at how the individual and social system (the collaborative writing group, organization, clients, and sponsers in this case) influence each other (Brandt, 2005; Schneider, 2002). Ethnomethodology, with its roots in sociology, looks at the effect that a social system has on individual behavior, which behavior in turn informs the development of the social system either by modifying the structure or reinforcing the social dynamics, assumptions, and power structures (Brandt; Schnieder). Researchers using ethnomethodology (as opposed to ethnography) look at everyday practices as coconstructed social activities based on the perspective of the individual (Clancey, 2006; Garfinkel, 1967). Thus, data is analyzed through the lens of both the individual and the organization through the interaction ritual chains (Hilbert, 1992).

According to Brandt, who has looked at workplace literacy practices using ethnomethodology, this approach not only looks at how an individual’s writing is influenced by the social context in which the writing takes place, but also how the individual then becomes the part of the social context by justifying his or her choices and helping to reinforce organizational writing formats. The context and the individual cannot be separated since the internal processes of the individual helps to create the social context.

Therefore, ethnomethodology will require that I look at the individual as a co-creator of the context for the group and the organization. However, rather than looking at it from an organizational or group perspective (thus separating the individual from the context), ethnomethodology allows me to look at it from the individual’s perspective through the interaction with the social context, however complex that might be (Clancey, 2006). In using this methodology, therefore, the influences on individual and distributed group outcomes in a collaborative writing project in the workplace may be both internal and external to the individual, but their location will not be as important as the impact on the individual’s perception of the collaborative writing process and outcomes.

It is important, therefore, that this study includes:
• a complete description of the perceived contexts by group members at the organizational, individual, and group level;

• individual member epistemologies;

• the perceived social structures and discourse communities in which individuals and the group as a whole work;

• a description of the process the group uses to achieve their task and understanding of each other’s position in order to describe the context of their work;

• individual perceptions of what they should and what they actually bring into the collaborative writing process;

• individual perceptions of the effect members have on the collaborative writing process and their group members, and how they themselves are affected by the collaborative writing process and the other group members;

• perceived learning and knowledge creation due to the collaborative writing process; and

• perceived value of the collaboration at the individual, group, and organizational level.

While ethnomethodology will help inform the type of data that is collected and impact how data is analyzed, grounded theory, especially constructed grounded theory, will guide the research process. Constructed grounded theory uses the identified themes emerging from the data to construct theory. It differs from classic grounded theory in that it interprets the data in developing theory rather than looking for explicit codes initially (Charmaz, 2006).

Group Selection

A major criticism of research on group dynamics and processes in the past is that studies created groups and group tasks in an artificial environment, therefore, minimizing the complexities of group work. More recently, research on groups have studied naturally occurring groups in their own environment, so as to look at the relationship between members in a more authentic environment and capture the dynamics that are the result of organizational structure, shared culture, organizational politics, and shared past experience (Gersick, 1988; Jehn & Mannix, 2001; Jehn et al., 1999; McGrath et al., 2000). As I am trying to understand the external, as well as the internal factors that influence an individual’s experience, it was important that the group I study is a naturally occurring group that would normally collaborate together on a written document.

The first step in recruiting a natural occurring distributed work group was to identify organizations that would allow the study to be conducted, as required by research protocols laid out by the University’s Institutional Review Board. Groups were chosen from organizations dealing in “knowledge” as part of their business. Brandt (2005) identifies this knowledge as the intangible tacit knowledge that adds to the value of a product. Because a large part of services are the intangible product, capturing knowledge and codifying it through writing to make it more tangible is very important to service organizations. There may also be strong external pressures to a group collaborative writing process such as government regulations, organizational quality control to standardize processes, and the demand for knowledge in a tangible format (such as a book, webpage, prototype, or software). As a result, sites were chosen from organizations whose products do not fall into the first three categories of the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS product codes for: 1. Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting, 2. Mining, and 3. Manufacturing). Possible service industries included government organizations, economic development, advertising, education, consulting, financial services, transportation and travel, retail, healthcare services, legal services, or software development (United States Census Bureau, 2002).

Organizations were identified through trade organizations (i.e. Capital District Trade Organization), listservs (Communication Faculty listserv), and other professional groups and contacts. I made contact with management within the organization, gave them an overview of the project (based on the application made to the Institutional Review Board) and identified two organizations that worked with distributed work teams.

I then needed to work with an organization in identifying pre-existing distributed groups that would be interested in participating in this study. The group as a whole would need to agree to the study, meaning that if one member did not want to participate, the group would be excluded, rather than replacing that member with someone new that would agree to participate.

In identifying possible groups, potential teams needed to meet the following criteria:

• the group or team should be distributed during some part of the process,

• use technology to support their collaboration,

• and have a core group of between 3 and 7 members.

Groups that are “distributed” do not work within the same physical space on a daily basis. They may be distributed by department, by location (e.g. field office and home office, US based and foreign based) or by speciality (e.g. sales, support, management). The group or team may include face-to-face interaction, but part of the collaboration process should include interaction supported by technology (i.e. telecommunications, internet or e-mail, video conferencing, or shareware). This would help inform the study as to how enforced structure (including the limitations technology might place on interaction) and conflicting contexts (local and group due to distributed team) might affect the collaborative writing process. Finally, research has identified the optimal size of groups at 3-7 members (Moreland & Levine, 2001).

In order to limit the effect that group size might have on the collaborative process, optimal size of the study group would have been 3-5 members. However, in many naturally occurring groups, there are peripheral members that would also have an effect on the group process and at any given time more than 5 members may have been working on the project. It was important, therefore, to include these peripheral members in the study. As a result, the group studied was a core group of 4-5 members working on the collaborative writing project, with the input of 2-3 additional members at any given time during the study, all of which gave their consent for the study.

The first site organization was chosen because of its international distributed work teams. Two groups were identified as potential study participants and I contacted each group member directly with an overview of the project. It soon became clear that because of cultural differences and work pressures, that international members of the group were reluctant to participate. So I changed the site (and organization) of the study. The recruitment of the participants for the second site was modified somewhat. I gave a presentation that was an overview of the study to potential participants. They then gave feedback as to whether they would be willing to participate in the project. Based on this, groups were identified as potential study subjects.

I chose the group that met the criteria for the study. Many of the groups had been working together for a while. The final group chosen had never worked together, was at the beginning of their project, and were distributed in three different locations. In addition, the group used email and a project management software, Basecamp, to communicate.

Initially, I monitored the group’s work through Basecamp, after receiving their signed consent to participate forms. I identified two collaborative writing projects that the core group was working on simultaneously and decided to include both projects in the study. Because of the complexity of the phenomenon of collaborative writing, it is important that in-depth data be collected on both individual perceptions and group perceptions. Since one of the things that I would like to understand is how the dynamics of individuals and groups affect the creation of knowledge at the individual level, the question of agency and enforced structure (from the context) is very important. In order to understand the contexts, group dynamics, and individual perceptions, I studied the one group in-depth before, during, and after collaborating on these common documents. Looking at the two documents gave two contexts in which to study the same group.

Data Collection

This study was divided into three phases. The first phase, pre-task and collaboration consisted of a group of interviews looking at what an individual perceives he or she brings into the collaborative writing process and the perceived context in which he or she was collaborating. In addition to the interviews, data was collected on group interaction in Basecamp, meetings through meeting minutes, and additional documents such as email, document drafts, and planning documents.

The second set of individual interviews were conducted 3 months after the first set of interviews and the group interview. This had the unanticipated advantage of being able to collect examples of other documents, work, and group processes that were the result of those documents created during the collaborative process in the first set of interviews. In addition, it allowed me to explore group member perceptions of the organization, project, group, and knowledge creation over a longer time period.

I personally transcribed all interviews. The average length of these interviews was 45 minutes, the shortest being 38 minutes and the longest being 72 minutes long. In total, 15 interviews were conducted. With one exception, all transcriptions were verbatim from the audio taped recording. The one exception, due to malfunction of the recording equipment, had to be pieced together with partial recordings and notes from the interview. In addition, 40 documents were collected, including background information on the project, postings by group members on basecamp, drafts and final copies of documents studied, and additional documents that were the result of the documents studied.

Data Analysis

Using Charmaz’s (2006) process for coding in constructed grounded theory, each transcribed interview was initially coded at the line level using action words. Starting with an interview from each department, initial codes interpreting the interviews were developed using action words. After the fourth interview, codes were reviewed and common terms were written on index cards. Using constant comparison within the interviews and between interviews some codes were combined, others were dropped, and new ones were created (Glasser & Strass as quoted in Charmaz, 2006, p. 54) based on the analysis of the remaining interview transcripts. Once it was obvious that there was a theoretical saturation in coding the data (Charmaz, Patten, 2002), these codes were then used to develop themes.

Looking at each question, codes were combined that developed themes/concepts or “relational statements” (Glasser & Strass as quoted in Patten, 2002, p. 490) that could be used to analyze the data and begin to develop theory.

References

Brandt, D. (2005). Writing for a living: Literacy and the knowledge economy. Written Communication, 22(2), 166-197.

Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide Through Qualitative Analysis. London: Sage Publications.

Clancy, W. (2006) Observation of Work Practices in Natural Settings. A. Ericsson, N. Charness, P. Feltovich & R. Hoffman (Eds.), Cambridge Handbook on Expertise and Expert Performance. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 127-145. Available at http://homepage.mac.com/wjclancey/~WJClancey/
WJCWorkPracticeObsCUP.pdf

Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Gersick, C. (1988). Time and transition in work teams: Toward a new model of group development. Academy of Management Journal, 31(1), 9-31.

Hilbert, R. (1992). The classical roots of Ethnomethodology. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.

Jehn, K., & Mannix, E. (2001). The dynamic nature of conflict: A longitudinal study of intragroup conflict and group performance. Academy of Management Journal, 44(2), 238-251.

Jehn, K., Northcraft, G., & Neale, M. (1999). Why differences make a difference: A field study of diversity, conflict, and performance in workgroups. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44, 741-763.

McGrath, J., Arrow, H., & Berdahl, J. (2000). The study of groups: Past, present, and future. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 4(1), 95-105.

Moreland, R., & Levine, J. (2001). Socialization in organizations and work groups. In M. E. Turner (Ed.), Groups at work: Theory and research (pp. 69-112). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erbaum Associates.

Patten, M. (2002). Qualitative Research & Evaluation Methods, 3rd Edition. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

Schneider, B. (2002). Theorizing structure and agency in workplace writing: An ethnomethodological approach. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 16, 196-214.

United States Census Bureau. (2002). North American industry classification system (NAICS): United States Government.

Dumbing down in the World? Defining "smart"

Let me start with a question to reflect on. Make sure you think of this before you read on. Think of the teacher that had the greatest impact on your learning throughout your life. How did they influence you? What did they do to influence your learning? What characteristics did they have?

Now read on.

I recently had a conversation with my adviser about "good teachers." He begins his introduction to teaching course asking his students to reflect on these questions. This conversation came back as I read a post by Ken Allen on "Is the world dumbing down?".

In the post, he has a clip of Branford Marsailis who speaks about what he has learned from his students. Basically, he says he has not learned anything, as his students just want to be told they are good, and don't want to work hard to learn. My adviser also mentioned how one of his students felt that much of teaching education focuses on the "touchy-feely stuff" and not on the learning outcomes.

This got me to thinking about which teachers had influenced me the most. There were four teachers who had the greatest impact on my learning. One thing that they had in common was they challenged me, but always let me know that they had confidence that I would meet any challenge.

Miss Relation was my reading and 3rd grade teacher. I can still remember when she was so impressed with how well I did with multiple digit multiplication and complex math concepts (such as sets). As I learned to read, she would always re-enforce it with, "I knew you could do it. See?" But she would never take, "I can't" as an excuse. She was in it with me, guiding me, having confidence that I could do it.

Miss McDonough was one of the toughest teachers I had (5th grade), but when I accomplished something, she would let me know how proud she was that I stuck with it and was able to master it. At no time would she give up on any student. You would achieve her high standards or she (and possibly you) would die trying. Her utter confidence in every student (I never heard her say a negative thing about a student...they weren't smart, they were lazy, what were they thinking?) made you want to show her you could do it.

My middle school math teacher was the first to let me know that I was really good in math...during a time when women were not expected to be good in math. Everything that we did, he would point out the good job I did. This confidence in me, made me confident in myself and I excelled in math as a result.

Finally, one of my professors in graduate school, allowed us to co-create our own curriculum. I loved this class as the students found the readings, presented the content, but were guided by very insightful questions from the professor. He treated us (master and Ph.d students) as knowledgeable students that he could learn from. Some of his questions would make you stop and think (and sweat if you weren't prepared). He was very low key and respectful of the students, which made you want to do the best you could. I still remember many of the discussions we had in the class, and the project I worked on (tariffs and counter-tariffs for the Steel Industry).

Another trait that all of these teachers had was that they knew ME and what I needed to learn. They did not use a cookie cutter approach to teaching and took time out to know what I knew and how I thought. They then used this to help me learn better.

What I learned from poor teachers

Likewise, the teachers that I look on with humiliation and anger, even to this day, taught me what a good teacher does not do.

As I mentioned in my comment to Ken:

"Dumbing down" is in the eyes of the beholder though. What is important is that in the US at any rate, we have begun to classified "smart" or "knowledgeable" as being able to take standardized tests about basic facts (i.e. math formulas, defining terms, and writing in a standard format regardless of audience or purpose). We have also relegated anything outside of math, science, and technology as "fluff" and not real knowledge.

The teachers that impeded by learning only looked at the standards and never bothered to look at what I actually knew. They also had a very narrow view of what "learning" and "knwoledge" was, then labeled those outside of those norms as "not quite smart". I can remember being moved from the "smart" reading group to the "slow" reading group in 1st grade. The major problem was that the teacher taught reading in one way only, and those that did not learn that way were then labeled "slow". It was humiliating for me and I lost all confidence in my studies. She always made it know who the "good" students were and who the "bad" students were.

These teachers also tended to have only the curriculum and book learning, with no abstract or creative activities in the classroom. Students did what the teacher wanted them to do ONLY or else you were a poor student. I remember a home economics teacher telling me how disappointed she was in my cooking class because I didn't follow the recipe exactly. My classmates all liked my changes (for the most part, sometimes they ended in disaster though), but I did not "follow directions."

Finally, the most difficult teachers that really turned me off to learning were those that seemed to exert their power over me as a student. They always had a way of making sure I knew they were in control and knew more than I did, so I should not ask questions of them or interrupt their class flow. In fact, years later, I realized that they did not like me to ask questions because they probably did not know how to answer them.

Dumbing down the World? Or a new way to assess learning?

In some ways, I do think that we are "dumbing down" in the world. But not in the traditional sense. I don't think that a grade these days is complex enough to assess a student's learning. I don't think that many of the teachers from which I learned the most (I still can remember many of the lessons 30-45 years later) would be able to keep up with the "testing". In fact, some of my daughter's teachers that had the qualities I look for in a good teacher were considered "poor" by some parents because their students enjoyed school and the kids did not have enough homework at night! (Even though their students tested high on standardized tests).

The new educational reforms in the US still focus on these simplistic quantitative tests and pitting teachers against students and parents. I have just read about community schools, however, which I hope with create a new educational environment that is based less on numbers and more on learning.