Browsing by Author "Correia, Zita"
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- Building a collaboratory in an engineering R&D organizationPublication . Correia, Zita; Egreja, Catarina; Barrulas, Maria Joaquina; Gil, Rui; Ferreira, Diogo R.This paper presents the results achieved throughout the process of preparing the ground to develop a collaboratory in an Engineering R&D organization. This case study is part of a broader research project engaged in building a collaboratory in order to share knowledge and resources among the Portuguese State laboratories. In the process of preparing the ground to develop the collaboratory in the first of the laboratories studied, an information audit was conducted and an online survey was launched. The survey targeted 241 people, including mainly professional researchers, but also research trainees and some technical staff integrating the research teams. The questionnaire was designed so as to collect data on the organization’s information management and information culture, and on the information flows taking place, and their relationship with the objectives of the organization. The questionnaire comprised two distinct and independent parts. The first (on the organization’s information culture and information management) obtained seventy nine responses, while the second (information flows) achieved ninety two, corresponding to 32,8% and 38,2% of the total population, respectively. The work carried out provided the basic requirements for the task of developing a software infrastructure to support the collaboratory, addressing the various aspects of collaborative tools, information archiving, hierarchical tag classification, search, transparent integration of the user local environment with the platform and remote control of scientific instruments.
- Building a collaboratory in an engineering R&D organizationPublication . Correia, Zita; Egreja, Catarina; Barrulas, Maria Joaquina; Gil, Rui; Ferreira, Diogo R.; Cunha, Luís Arriaga daThis paper presents the results achieved so far in the process of preparing the ground to develop a collaboratory in an Engineering R&D organization. This case study is part of a broader research project engaged in building a collaboratory in order to share knowledge and resources among the Portuguese State Laboratories. In the process of preparing the ground to develop the collaboratory in the first of the State Laboratories studied, an information audit was conducted and an online survey was launched. The survey targeted 240 people, including mainly professional researchers (c. 160), but also research trainees and some technical staff integrating the research teams. The questionnaire was designed so as to collect data on the information management and information culture of the organization, on the researchers’ information needs and information seeking, and on the information flows taking place, and was composed of two distinct and independent parts. The first obtained seventy nine responses, while the second achieved ninety two, corresponding to 33% and 38% of the total sample, respectively. The work carried out will provide the basic requirements for the task of developing an infrastructure and tools for the collaboratory, addressing the various aspects of collaborative software tools, information archiving and intelligent search, remote control of scientific instruments and multi-channel access to the services.
- Scientific collaboration within and accross research teamsPublication . Correia, Zita; Cera, Rosália; Egreja, CatarinaThis paper presents part of the results achieved to date in the process of developing a collaboratory in two R&D organizations. A collaboratory corresponds to a laboratory without walls, in which scientists are connected to each other, to scientific instruments and to information, independently of time and location. These two cases are part of a broader research project engaged in building a collaboratory in order to share knowledge and resources among the Portuguese State Laboratories. The building of the collaboratory is anchored on three main tasks: a) information audits carried out in each of the organizations, in order to map the main information flows, entities, repositories and systems; b) information behaviour research, in order to gain insight into the organizational information culture and the researchers' information use; c) implementation of the appropriate infrastructure and tools, in order to accommodate information archiving and intelligent search, collaborative software, remote control of scientific instruments, and multi-channel access to the services. The case study strategy was adopted because it is particularly amenable to the triangulation of methods (namely document analysis, survey and interviewing) thus providing rich ingredients to characterize a specific context. Discourse analysis was the technique used to analyse the interview transcripts. The research sites are two government R&D institutions operating in the Civil Engineering and in the Nuclear Technology fields, respectively. In the process of preparing the ground to develop the collaboratory, interviews were carried out with researchers of those two organizations in order to understand what collaboration means for them, and how collaboration actually happens within specific research project teams, and on their organizational daily routine. Attention was also paid to the socio-professional networks of these researchers, in order to understand the role played by these networks in their lives. This paper focuses on the interpretative repertoires emerging in the course of the interviewing process. We expect that our understanding of the researchers' collaboration framework and the meaning they assign to it may help us shape the collaboratory.