Collaborative: VOSS: Understanding and enabling network dynamics in virtual communities

为了解决最关键的智力和社会问题，团队需要由最好的人组成，并与最好的资源联系在一起。虽然人们越来越意识到团队合作的社会经济后果，但对团队如何组成或特定的组装模式如何影响其有效性的社会技术理解很少。该项目旨在通过开发一个理论框架来理解虚拟社区中形成团队的社会技术动态，从而解决这一限制。这些多维网络包括各种各样的链接，这些链接不仅存在于个人之间，而且存在于文档、数据集、工作流、分析工具和概念之间。考虑到这些新的配置，该项目解决了两个主要的研究问题：首先，解释虚拟社区中团队聚集的社会技术动机是什么？第二，团队的组装机制在多大程度上影响了团队的有效性？对这些模型进行实证检验带来了巨大的数据收集挑战。然而，这个项目可以访问6个主要的项目，它们服务于不同的科学虚拟社区，包括纳米科学、环境工程、地震工程、化学科学、媒体研究和烟草研究。智力价值：这项工作的独特之处在于引领新一代的理论和方法，这些理论和方法专注于解释所有合作的重要先驱——用于在虚拟社区中产生有效团队的社会技术组装机制。在方法上，该项目将显著扩展网络分析技术，用于高维多模态网络的统计建模。更广泛的影响：拟议的研究将对三个利益相关者社区产生广泛的影响。首先，个别研究人员，特别是学生和非精英机构的研究人员，将学习在虚拟社区中组建有效团队的策略。其次，虚拟社区的领导者将获得一个仪表板来评估和指导他们的计划中的策略。第三，资助机构将在评估它们的投资组合和指导科学政策方面获得新的见解。

To solve the most critical intellectual and social problems, teams need to be made up of the best possible people, linked to the best possible resources. While there is growing awareness of the socio-economic consequences of team collaborations, there is little socio-technical understanding of how teams are assembled or how a given mode of assembly impacts its effectiveness. This project seeks to address this limitation by developing a theoretical framework to understand the socio-technical dynamics shaping the assembly of teams in virtual communities. These multidimensional networks include a variety of links that exist not only among individuals, but also with documents, datasets, workflows, analytic tools, and concepts. With these new configurations in mind, this project addresses two main research questions: First, what are the socio-technical motivations that explain the assembly of teams in virtual communities? Second, to what extent do the assembly mechanisms of teams influence their effectiveness? Empirically testing such models poses formidable data collection challenges. However, this project has access to six major initiatives serving diverse scientific virtual communities including nanoscience, environmental engineering, earthquake engineering, chemical sciences, media research and tobacco research.Intellectual merit: This effort is uniquely positioned to usher a new generation of theories and methods focused on explaining an important precursor to all collaborations - the socio-technical assembly mechanisms used to generate effective teams in virtual communities. Methodologically, this project will significantly extend network analytic techniques for statistically modeling high-dimensionality multimodal networks. Broader impacts: The proposed research will have broad impacts on three stakeholder communities. First, individual researchers, especially students and those not in elite institutions will learn strategies to assemble effective teams in virtual communities. Second, leaders of virtual communities will gain a dashboard to assess and steer strategies within their initiatives. Third, funding agencies will get new insights in assessing their portfolios and directing science policy.