Collaborative Research: Improving Interdisciplinary Design Teamwork and Communication Using Boundary Negotiating Artifacts

跨学科团队合作技能对工程专业毕业生的重要性得到了广泛的认可，需要加强跨学科合作来解决当今社会面临的重大挑战。尽管其他领域的研究已经证明了检查研究和设计过程中产生的人工制品的价值，但迄今还没有关于跨学科团队在工程教育环境中的日常做法以及他们在这些做法中创造和使用的物品的人种学研究。因此，这项研究具有重要意义，因为它通过开发跨学科工程团队中边界协商人工制品(BNAs)的类型，从根本上促进了对跨学科团队合作的了解。BNA是围绕它们的构件和实践，它们协调视角，在来自不同学科的团队成员之间创建一致性，促进信息的传输，并允许团队成员在研究和设计期间学习其他学科。该项目解决了在跨学科设计项目过程中产生的关于实际实践和人工制品的知识的重大差距。通过关注工程师的日常、微观层面的实践，比基于对工程工作的采访和规范描述的沟通过程出现了更全面、更准确的描述。确定促进或阻碍协作的构件的特征最终有助于工程师作为成功的边界处理者与来自其他背景的利益相关者合作的能力。这项研究的贡献是重大的，因为它提供了第一批基于研究的教育材料，旨在通过使用人工制品类型来改进跨学科设计、团队合作和交流。这个项目的目标是：1)描述使用和不使用人工产物促进和阻碍跨学科团队合作和沟通的方式，2)开发在跨学科团队中创建和使用的人工产物模型的类型学，以及3)设计、实施和评估将BNA明确地纳入华盛顿州立大学和俄勒冈州立大学的跨学科工程课程。了解人工制品在跨学科交流中的作用和用途，需要通过长期的、具有民族志信息的方法收集数据。参与观察者正在从几个跨学科设计项目中收集人种学数据。民族志数据包括对学生和教职员工的观察和采访。根据人种学数据的结果，正在制定生物碱类及其用途的类型学。以这种方式组织数据允许其他研究人员和教师访问该项目的发现。利用研究成果，BNAs正在战略性地纳入工程课程，以优化其使用和有效性。总而言之，这些成果为未来跨学科交流过程的研究和跨学科设计课程的相关改进奠定了重要而坚实的基础。

The importance of interdisciplinary teamwork skills for engineering graduates is widely recognized, and increased interdisciplinary collaboration is needed to solve the grand challenges facing society today. Although research from other fields has demonstrated the value of examining the artifacts generated during research and design, there are as yet no ethnographic studies of the day-to-day practices of interdisciplinary teams in engineering education settings and the objects they create and use in those practices. Therefore, this study is significant because it fundamentally advances knowledge of interdisciplinary teamwork by developing a typology of boundary negotiating artifacts (BNAs) in interdisciplinary engineering teams. BNAs are artifacts and practices surrounding them that coordinate perspectives, create alignment between team members from different disciplines, facilitate transmission of information, and allow team members to learn from other disciplines during research and design. The project addresses a significant gap in knowledge about the actual practices and artifacts generated during the course of interdisciplinary design projects. By focusing on the daily, micro-level practices of engineers, a fuller, more accurate description of communication processes emerges than those based on interviews and normative descriptions of engineering work. Characterizing the artifacts that facilitate or hinder collaboration ultimately contributes to engineers' abilities to work with stakeholders from other backgrounds as successful boundary-spanners. This study's contribution is significant because it provides the first research-based educational materials that are designed to improve interdisciplinary design teamwork and communication through the use of an artifacts typology. The goals of this project are: 1) to characterize the ways in which use and non-use of artifacts facilitates and hinders interdisciplinary teamwork and communication, 2) to develop a typology of models of artifacts created and utilized in interdisciplinary teams, and 3) to design, implement, and assess explicit incorporation of BNAs into interdisciplinary engineering courses at Washington State University and Oregon State University. Understanding the roles and uses of artifacts in interdisciplinary communication requires collecting data through long term, ethnographically-informed methods. Participant observers are collecting ethnographic data from several interdisciplinary design projects. Ethnographic data include observations and interviews with students and faculty members. Based on results from the ethnographic data, a typology of BNAs and their uses is being developed. Organizing the data in this manner allows other researchers and instructors access into the project's findings. Utilizing results of the research, BNAs are being strategically incorporated into engineering curricula to optimize their use and effectiveness. Together, these outcomes build a vital and solid foundation for future research on interdisciplinary communication processes and associated improvement of interdisciplinary design courses.