Slides from my talk at Web Science 2013 Workshop: Harnessing the Power of Social Theory for Web Science: https://sites.google.com/site/webscitheoryworkshop/

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Towards a Model of
Interdisciplinary Teamwork:
What can Social Theory
Contribute
Peter Kraker
Sebastian Dennerlein
WSWT Workshop
Websci‘13

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My Background
Web Science
and Information Science
, TEAM, and CODE

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Introduction
Each scientific disciplines has its own culture  Kuhn:
“paradigm“
 At times, new problems arise that cannot be answered
with the standard paradigm of a single discipline:
Interdisciplinary fields such as Web Science emerge
In Web Science, social scientists need to work with
computer scientists
Researchers often do not build on each other’s strengths
but they are rather suspiciously looking at each other’s
results.
• Social scientists tend to disregard computer scientists‘
results because they are not grounded in theory.
• Computer scientists tend to disregard social scientists‘
results because they are not based on big datasets.

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Computer Science Approach to Research
Fayyad et al. (1996)
This is when computer scientists turn to social scientists!

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Social Science Approach to Research
Dodigovic (1998)
This is when social scientists
turn to computer scientists!
model

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The Models vs. Patterns Problem
Computer scientists cannot test social scientists’ models
because they often do not have the data in the form that is
required by these models
Social scientists on the other hand have a hard time interpreting
computer scientists’ patterns because they are too specific to
be covered by traditional theories and models
This is what we call the patterns vs. models problem

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Interdisciplinary Teamwork and Social Theory
Web Science should close the gap that results from the
patterns vs. models problem:
• On the more pattern-oriented side, it would be important to
understand that theories are more than just castles in the sky
• On the more theory-oriented side, researchers need to
understand that data mining methods can be useful to evaluate
models, but their properties need already be considered when
building the models
But:
Such an understanding cannot be reached, when work is simply
divided between parties and then brought together in the end.
 In our view, Web Science requires “interdisciplinary
teamwork” among the disciplines involved.

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Interdisciplinary Teamwork and Social Theory
In the following, we present two theoretical strains which we
see as relevant to achieving interdisciplinary teamwork and
overcoming the patterns vs. models problem:
• Dillenbourg’s and Roschelle & Teasley’s understanding
of
Collaboration vs. cooperation
• Bronstein’s
“Model for Interdisciplinary Collaboration”

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Cooperation vs. Collaboration
Cooperation Collaboration
Interdisciplinary teamwork in Web Science requires
not only cooperative but also collaborative efforts.

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Bronstein’s Model of Interdisciplinary
Collaboration
Problem:
Interplay between collaboration and cooperation is not modeled

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Model Sketch
Interdependence:
 collaborate to establish a shared meaning
 cooperate to make use of the competencies of each
discipline
 assembling the partial achievements, making sense of them
and planning how to further progress
Newly created professional activities: collaborative
paradigms

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Model Sketch
Understanding of collaboration and cooperation as
phases of the overall construct of “interdisciplinary
teamwork”.
 These phases are alternating with respect to
Bronstein’s components and the progress of
achieving the common goal.

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Outlook
• Draft a formal model
• Understand other influences on interdisciplinary
teamwork such as:
• power (Foucault) and
• authority (Bourdieu)
• Evaluate the model in an interdisciplinary way!

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Thank you for your
attention!
pkraker@know-center.at
sdennerlein@know-center.at
http://science20.wordpress.com
http://twitter.com/PeterKraker
http://twitter.com/SDennerlein
WSWT Workshop
Websci‘13