Dennerlein Sebastian, Rella Matthias, Tomberg Vladimir, Theiler Dieter, Treasure-Jones Tamsin, Kerr Micky, Ley Tobias, Al-Smadi Mohammad, Trattner Christoph
2015
Sensemaking at the workplace and in educational contexts has beenextensively studied for decades. Interestingly, making sense out of the own wealthof learning experiences at the workplace has been widely ignored. To tackle thisissue, we have implemented a novel sensemaking interface for healthcare professionalsto support learning at the workplace. The proposed prototype supportsremembering of informal experiences from episodic memory followed by sensemakingin semantic memory. Results from an initial study conducted as part ofan iterative co-design process reveal the prototype is being perceived as usefuland supportive for informal sensemaking by study participants from the healthcaredomain. Furthermore, we find first evidence that re-evaluation of collectedinformation is a potentially necessary process that needs further exploration tofully understand and support sensemaking of informal learning experiences.
Ruiz-Calleja Adolfo, Dennerlein Sebastian, Tomberg Vladimir , Pata Kai, Ley Tobias, Theiler Dieter, Lex Elisabeth
2015
This paper presents the potential of a social semantic infrastructure that implements an Actor Artifact Network (AAN) with the final goal of supporting learning analytics at the workplace. Two applications were built on top of such infrastructure and make use of the emerging relations of such a AAN. A preliminary evaluation shows that an AAN can be created out of the usage of both applications, thus opening the possibility to implement learning analytics at the workplace.
Ruiz-Calleja Adolfo, Dennerlein Sebastian, Tomberg Vladimir , Ley Tobias , Theiler Dieter, Lex Elisabeth
2015
This paper presents our experiences using a social semantic infrastructure that implements a semantically-enriched Actor Artifact Network (AAN) to support informal learning at the workplace. Our previous research led us to define the Model of Scaling Informal Learning, to identify several common practices when learning happens at the workplace, and to propose a social semantic infrastructure able to support them. This paper shows this support by means of two illustrative examples where practitioners employed several applications integrated into the infrastructure. Thus, this paper clarifies how workplace learning processes can be supported with such infrastructure according to the aforementioned model. The initial analysis of these experiences gives promising results since it shows how the infrastructure mediates in the sharing of contextualized learning artifacts and how it builds up an AAN that makes explicit the relationships between actors and artifacts when learning at the workplace.
Cook John, Ley Tobias, Maier Ronald, Mor Yishay, Santos Patricia, Lex Elisabeth, Dennerlein Sebastian, Trattner Christoph, Holley Debbie
2015
In this paper we define the notion of the Hybrid Social Learning Network. We propose mechanisms for interlinking and enhancing both the practice of professional learning and theories on informal learning. Our approach shows how we employ empirical and design work and a participatory pattern workshop to move from (kernel) theories via Design Principles and prototypes to social machines articulating the notion of a HSLN. We illustrate this approach with the example of Help Seeking for healthcare professionals.
Dennerlein Sebastian, Kowald Dominik, Lex Elisabeth, Lacic Emanuel, Theiler Dieter, Ley Tobias
2015
Informal learning at the workplace includes a multitude of processes. Respective activities can be categorized into multiple perspectives on informal learning, such as reflection, sensemaking, help seeking and maturing of collective knowledge. Each perspective raises requirements with respect to the technical support, this is why an integrated solution relying on social, adaptive and semantic technologies is needed. In this paper, we present the Social Semantic Server, an extensible, open-source application server that equips clientside tools with services to support and scale informal learning at the workplace. More specifically, the Social Semantic Server semantically enriches social data that is created at the workplace in the context of user-to-user or user-artifact interactions. This enriched data can then in turn be exploited in informal learning scenarios to, e.g., foster help seeking by recommending collaborators, resources, or experts. Following the design-based research paradigm, the Social Semantic Server has been implemented based on design principles, which were derived from theories such as Distributed Cognition and Meaning Making. We illustrate the applicability and efficacy of the Social Semantic Server in the light of three real-world applications that have been developed using its social semantic services. Furthermore, we report preliminary results of two user studies that have been carried out recently.
Dennerlein Sebastian, Theiler Dieter, Marton Peter, Lindstaedt Stefanie , Lex Elisabeth, Santos Patricia, Cook John
2015
We present KnowBrain (KB), an open source Dropbox-like knowledge repository with social features for informal workplace learning. KB enables users (i) to share and collaboratively structure knowledge, (ii) to access knowledge via sophisticated content- and metadatabased search and recommendation, and (iii) to discuss artefacts by means of multimedia-enriched Q&A. As such, KB can support, integrate and foster various collaborative learning processes related to daily work-tasks.
Dennerlein Sebastian, Treasure-Jones Tamsin, Tomberg Vladimir, Theiler Dieter, Lex Elisabeth, Ley Tobias
2015
Sensemaking at the workplace and in educational contexts has been extensively studied for decades. Interestingly, making sense out of the own wealth of learning experiences at the workplace has been widely ignored. To tackle this issue, we have implemented a novel sensemaking interface for healthcare professionals to support learning at the workplace. The proposed prototype supports remembering of informal experiences from episodic memory followed by sensemaking in semantic memory. Results from an initial study conducted as part of an iterative co-design process reveal the prototype is being perceived as useful and supportive for informal sensemaking by study participants from the healthcare domain. Furthermore, we find first evidence that re-evaluation of collected information is a potentially necessary process that needs further exploration to fully understand and support sensemaking of informal learning experiences.
Dennerlein Sebastian, Kaiser Rene_DB, Barreiros Carla, Gutounig Robert , Rauter Romana
2015
Barcamps are events for open knowledge exchange. They are generally open to everyone, irrespective of background or discipline, and request no attendance fee. Barcamps are structured by only a small set of common rules and invite participants to an interactive and interdisciplinary discourse on an equal footing. In contrast to scientific conferences, the program is decided by the participants themselves on-site. Barcamps are often called un-conferences or ad-hoc conferences. Since barcamps are typically attended by people in their spare time, their motivation to actively engage and benefit from participating is very high. This paper presents a case study conducted at the annual Barcamp Graz in Austria. Within the case study, two field studies (quantitative and qualitative) and a parallel participant observation were carried out between 2010 and 2014. In these investigations we elaborated on the differences of the barcamp to scientific conferences, inferred characteristics of barcamps for knowledge generation, sharing and transfer in organizations and propose three usages of barcamps in organizations: further education of employees, internal knowledge transfer and getting outside knowledge in. Barcamps can be used as further education for employees enabling not only knowledge sharing, generation and transfer via the participating employees, but also for informally promoting a company’s competences. With respect to internal knowledge transfer, hierarchical boundaries can be temporarily broken by allowing informal and interactive discussion. This can lead to the elicitation of ‘hidden’ knowledge, knowledge transfer resulting in more efficient teamwork and interdepartmental cooperation. Finally, external stakeholders such as customers and partners can be included in this process to get outside knowledge in and identify customer needs, sketch first solutions and to start concrete projects. As a result of the case study, we hypothesise as a step towards further research that organisations can benefit from utilising this format as knowledge strategy.
Lex Elisabeth, Dennerlein Sebastian
2015
Today's complex scientific problems often require interdisciplinary, team-oriented approaches: the expertise of researchers from different disciplines is needed to collaboratively reach a solution. Interdisciplinary teams yet face many challenges such as differences in research practice, terminology, communication , and in the usage of tools. In this paper, we therefore study concrete mechanisms and tools of two real-world scientific projects with the aim to examine their efficacy and influence on interdisciplinary teamwork. For our study, we draw upon Bronstein's model of interdisciplinary collaboration. We found that it is key to use suitable environments for communication and collaboration, especially when teams are geographically distributed. Plus, the willingness to share (domain) knowledge is not a given and requires strong common goals and incentives. Besides, structural barriers such as financial aspects can hinder interdisciplinary work, especially in applied, industry funded research. Furthermore, we observed a kind of cold-start problem in interdisciplinary collaboration, when there is no work history and when the disciplines are rather different, e.g. in terms of wording. HowTo: Scientific Work in Interdisciplinary and Distributed Teams (PDF Download Available). Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282813815_HowTo_Scientific_Work_in_Interdisciplinary_and_Distributed_Teams [accessed Jul 13, 2017].