Abstract :
Interdisciplinary collaboration has become of particular
interest as science and social science research increasingly
crosses traditional boundaries, raising issues
about what kinds of information and knowledge exchange
occurs, and thus what to support. Research on
interdisciplinarity, learning, and knowledge management
suggest the benefits of collaboration are achieved
when individuals pool knowledge toward a common
goal. Yet, it is not sufficient to say that knowledge exchange
must take place; instead, we need to ask what
kinds of exchanges form the basis of collaboration in
these groups. To explore this, members of three distributed,
interdisciplinary teams (one science and two social
science teams) were asked what they learned from
the five to eight others with whom they worked most
closely, and what they thought those others learned
from them. Results show the exchange of factual knowledge
to be only one of a number of learning exchanges
that support the team. Important exchanges also include
learning the process of doing something, learning about
methods, engaging jointly in research, learning about
technology, generating new ideas, socialization into the
profession, accessing a network of contacts, and administration
work. Distributions of these relations show that
there is more sharing of similar than different kinds
knowledge, suggesting that knowledge may flow across
disciplinary boundaries along lines of practice.
