Making Mosaic

Strategies for Team Science Success: Handbook of Evidence-Based Principles for Cross-Disciplinary Science and Practical Lessons Learned from Health Researchers, 2019

The study of team assembly is a crucial area of research for the team science community. Not only are teams an essential component of the scientific enterprise (Falk-Krzesinski et al. 2010; Katz and Martin 1997), but there are now more observational data available to help understand the team assembly process (Pentland 2012). As a result, there is currently a convergence of social science theory, readily available digital data traces, and web-based technologies that leverage theories and insights from multiple domains to better understand and enable team assembly (Contractor 2013). The convergence could not have come at a better time. With the uncertainty surrounding scientific research funding, providing researchers with insights into the assembly of effective teams will aid them in maximizing their chances for scientific success and innovation. Much scientific achievement relies on wellfunctioning and effective teams (Kozlowski and Bell 2019; Kozlowski and Ilgen 2006; Mathieu et al. 2008; National Research Council 2015; Shneiderman 2016). Science teams are required to effectively combine knowledge to produce novel, high-impact products (Uzzi et al. 2013). Facilitating such high-impact scientific research requires the allocation and coordination of many resources, including people, samples, equipment, and computational facilities (Shrum et al. 2007). Leveraging these scarce and needed resources makes collaboration a necessity, distributed teams more common, and interdisciplinary research essential in the current science environment (Cummings and Kiesler 2014). The prevalence of multi-university science teams who publish high-impact research is indicative of the need to assemble qualified teams despite such constraints (Jones et al. 2008). Additionally, international collaborations have become key for scientific growth (Coccia and Wang 2016). Unfortunately, science teams collaborating in Team Assembly Marlon Twyman and Noshir Contractor M. Twyman University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA N. Contractor (*) Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA e-mail: [email protected] 17 Contents 17.1 Introduction 217 17.2 Chapter Roadmap 219 17.3 Types of Team Assembly 220 17.4 Perspectives on Team Assembly 222 17.5 Technology, Data, and Recommendation Algorithms in Team Assembly 230 17.6 Conclusion 233 References 233 218 these situations may report less productive outcomes and face higher coordination costs (Cummings and Kiesler 2007). In addition to the move towards multiuniversity, geographically distributed teams, science is increasingly turning to interdisciplinary teams. Interdisciplinary research is valuable because taking a problem-based perspective for conducting research focuses on addressing a problem while not being confined within the traditions of a single discipline (Jacobs and Frickel 2009). However, most organizations still maintain disciplinary foci and rely on individuals and teams to span the necessary boundaries to conduct scientific research involving multiple disciplines (Ancona and Caldwell 1992a; Dahlander and McFarland 2013). The organizational structure influences the performance of interdisciplinary teams because locating people with needed knowledge is often the responsibility of people who already have cross-disciplinary and interdepartmental connections (Burt 2004, 2009; Hansen 1999; Reagans and McEvily 2003; Singh et al. 2010). The creation of interdisciplinary research centers is a solution that has been enacted to alleviate some knowledge transfer issues that occur within research organizations (Dahlander and McFarland 2013; Jacobs and Frickel 2009). The presence of such centers is an example of the commitment made to assembling productive interdisciplinary research teams, but coordination challenges still arise due to distance when different center-affiliated departments are not in close physical proximity (Birnholtz et al. 2012; Nomura et al. 2008). Clearly, assembling interdisciplinary teams is critical for, but not a guarantee of, success. The demand to assemble interdisciplinary teams is stimulated by the increase in interdisciplinary initiatives by funding agencies. Analyses of National Science Foundation (NSF) project proposals for two interdisciplinary initiatives show that researchers who win highly competitive research awards and grants have successful prior collaboration records with team members but cite different bodies of knowledge increasing the odds for offering new insights based on novel combination of ideas (Lungeanu et al. 2014). Collaboration is not the only requirement for success, but assembling a team of people who have demonstrated the ability to work well together and provide different perspectives is essential for winning a research grant. However, even the grant-winning research teams face challenges. One such challenge is the productivity penalty encountered by interdisciplinary researchers. The complexity in navigating across multiple scientific communities results in some researchers having lower productivity (Leahey et al. 2016). Because specific combinations of people affect performance, developing an understanding of the factors that impact team assembly is crucial. Collaboration in teams has long been an important component of many work tasks in scientific research (Hagstrom 1964; Leahey 2016). Effectively managing relationships within a team plays a key role in team performance, and simply put, assembling the wrong people into a team can derail a project from its beginning (Gewin 2015). To avoid such derailment, developing and openly communicating expectations before beginning a collaborative project is a useful strategy to help increase the chances of having a productive collaboration (Gadlin and Jessar 2002). Considering factors other than expertise when assembling a team is a necessity given the recent empirical evidence showing trends of increasing collaboration (Leahey 2016; Wuchty et al. 2007). As an example, the team size in scientific fields has been increasing over time (Guimerà et al. 2005; Lee et al. 2015; Milojević 2014; Valderas 2007). Additionally, incorporating new team members when assembling teams promotes new ideas and perspectives since performance suffers with repeated collaborations (Guimerà et al. 2005; Reagans et al. 2004; Rink et al. 2013; Skilton and Dooley 2010). We conceptualize team assembly to be broader than the related concept of team composition because we consider not only the individual and team characteristics but also the impact of broader social networks and the organizing processes within which these teams assemble (Humphrey and Aime 2014). Specifically, we delineate the factors influencing team assembly into perspectives operating at M. Twyman and N. Contractor 219 three levels: a compositional perspective, relational perspective, and an ecosystem perspective. Our goal for this chapter is to provide a review of the team assembly literature when teams are either staffed or self-assembled. Additionally, we highlight the potential role that technology plays in assembling and studying the team assembly process. The key concepts associated with this chapter are listed and defined in Table 17.1

Clinical and Translational Science, 2010

The

American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2008

The science of team science encompasses an amalgam of conceptual and methodologic strategies aimed at understanding and enhancing the outcomes of large-scale collaborative research and training programs. This field has emerged rapidly in recent years, largely in response to growing concerns about the cost effectiveness of public-and private-sector investments in team-based science and training initiatives. The distinctive boundaries and substantive concerns of this field, however, have remained difficult to discern. An important challenge for the field is to characterize the science of team science more clearly in terms of its major theoretical, methodologic, and translational concerns. The articles in this supplement address this challenge, especially in the context of designing, implementing, and evaluating cross-disciplinary research initiatives. This introductory article summarizes the major goals and organizing themes of the supplement, draws links between the constituent articles, and identifies new areas of study within the science of team science. (Am J Prev Med 2008;35(2S):S77-S89)

2008

ABSTRACT: The science of team science encompasses an amalgam of conceptual and methodologic strategies aimed at understanding and enhancing the outcomes of large-scale collaborative research and training programs. This field has emerged rapidly in recent years, largely in response to growing concerns about the cost effectiveness of public-and private-sector investments in team-based science and training initiatives. The distinctive boundaries and substantive concerns of this field, however, have remained difficult to discern.

Social, economic, technological, health, and environmental problems impacting our world are complex, but we are able to increasingly address them through scientific pursuit. The sophistication of these challenges necessitates cross-disciplinary engagement and collaboration, and the longer-term interaction of groups of investigators-team science (TS). The emerging field of the science of team science (SciTS; pronounced "sights") encompasses conceptual and methodological strategies aimed at understanding and enhancing the processes and outcomes of collaborative, team-based research, and the evaluation of TS. Its principal units of analysis are research, training, and community-based team science initiatives. SciTS focuses on antecedent conditions, collaborative processes, and outcomes associated with initiatives rooted in TS, including scientific discoveries, educational outcomes, and translations of research findings into new practices, patents, products, technical advances, and policies. This white paper describes recent research progress in the study of TS via SciTS. It proposes a systems perspective that incorporates a mixed-methods approach to SciTS commensurate with the conceptual, methodological, and translational complexities addressed within the SciTS field. This theoretically grounded and practically useful framework is intended to integrate lines of SciTS research to facilitate the field's evolution as it addresses key TS challenges spanning macro, meso, and micro levels of analysis.

American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2008

Teams of scientists representing diverse disciplines are often brought together for purposes of better understanding and, ultimately, resolving urgent public health and environmental problems. Likewise, the emerging field of the science of team science draws on diverse disciplinary perspectives to better understand and enhance the processes and outcomes of scientific collaboration. In this supplement to the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, leading scholars in the nascent field of team science have come together with a common goal of advancing the field with new models, methods, and measures. This summary article highlights key themes reflected in the supplement and identifies several promising directions for future research organized around the following broad challenges: (1) operationalizing cross-disciplinary team science and training more clearly;

American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2013

Proceedings of the 4th Joint Symposium on Computational Aesthetics, Non-Photorealistic Animation and Rendering, and Sketch-Based Interfaces and Modeling, 2014

Figure 1: Creative workflow in Mosaic: (a) Two mosaic tile pieces of different size and shape are sketched. The first and second tiles are laid out along sketched paths to create part of the body and head respectively, the pieces placed and deformed automatically, to maintain a uniform grout. (b) More tiles are cloned to complete the mosaic. (c) Sketch strokes are then used to color the tiles and the grout area. (d) A peacock, created in 40 min.

Science Translational Medicine, 2010