Fostering interdisciplinary collaboration: A longitudinal social network analysis of the NIH mHealth Training Institutes.
Team science
communications
gender homophily
longitudinal network analysis
mHTI
program evaluation
team homophily
Journal
Journal of clinical and translational science
ISSN: 2059-8661
Titre abrégé: J Clin Transl Sci
Pays: England
ID NLM: 101689953
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
2021
2021
Historique:
received:
26
06
2021
revised:
13
09
2021
accepted:
14
09
2021
entrez:
1
12
2021
pubmed:
2
12
2021
medline:
2
12
2021
Statut:
epublish
Résumé
Growing recognition that collaboration among scientists from diverse disciplines fosters the emergence of solutions to complex scientific problems has spurred initiatives to train researchers to collaborate in interdisciplinary teams. Evaluations of collaboration patterns in these initiatives have tended to be cross-sectional, rather than clarifying temporal changes in collaborative dynamics. Mobile health (mHealth), the science of using mobile, wireless devices to improve health outcomes, is a field whose advancement needs interdisciplinary collaboration. The NIH-supported annual mHealth Training Institute (mHTI) was developed to meet that need and provides a unique testbed. In this study, we applied a longitudinal social network analysis technique to evaluate how well the program fostered communication among the disciplinarily diverse scholars participating in the 2017-2019 mHTIs. By applying separable temporal exponential random graph models, we investigated the formation and persistence of project-based and fun conversations during the mHTIs. We found that conversations between scholars of different disciplines were just as likely as conversations within disciplines to form or persist in the 2018 and 2019 mHTI, suggesting that the mHTI achieved its goal of fostering interdisciplinary conversations and could be a model for other team science initiatives; this finding is also true for scholars from different career stages. The presence of team and gender homophily effects in certain years suggested that scholars tended to communicate within the same team or gender. Our results demonstrate the usefulness of longitudinal network models in evaluating team science initiatives while clarifying the processes driving interdisciplinary communications during the mHTIs.
Sections du résumé
BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVE
OBJECTIVE
Growing recognition that collaboration among scientists from diverse disciplines fosters the emergence of solutions to complex scientific problems has spurred initiatives to train researchers to collaborate in interdisciplinary teams. Evaluations of collaboration patterns in these initiatives have tended to be cross-sectional, rather than clarifying temporal changes in collaborative dynamics. Mobile health (mHealth), the science of using mobile, wireless devices to improve health outcomes, is a field whose advancement needs interdisciplinary collaboration. The NIH-supported annual mHealth Training Institute (mHTI) was developed to meet that need and provides a unique testbed.
METHODS
METHODS
In this study, we applied a longitudinal social network analysis technique to evaluate how well the program fostered communication among the disciplinarily diverse scholars participating in the 2017-2019 mHTIs. By applying separable temporal exponential random graph models, we investigated the formation and persistence of project-based and fun conversations during the mHTIs.
RESULTS
RESULTS
We found that conversations between scholars of different disciplines were just as likely as conversations within disciplines to form or persist in the 2018 and 2019 mHTI, suggesting that the mHTI achieved its goal of fostering interdisciplinary conversations and could be a model for other team science initiatives; this finding is also true for scholars from different career stages. The presence of team and gender homophily effects in certain years suggested that scholars tended to communicate within the same team or gender.
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSIONS
Our results demonstrate the usefulness of longitudinal network models in evaluating team science initiatives while clarifying the processes driving interdisciplinary communications during the mHTIs.
Identifiants
pubmed: 34849265
doi: 10.1017/cts.2021.859
pii: S2059866121008591
pmc: PMC8596066
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Pagination
e191Subventions
Organisme : NIBIB NIH HHS
ID : P41 EB028242
Pays : United States
Organisme : NCATS NIH HHS
ID : UL1 TR001422
Pays : United States
Informations de copyright
© The Author(s) 2021.
Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts
The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
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