Collective learning

You can view this document on one page(78k) or by sections as follows:

• Background and Introduction
• Conflict between Computerised Collective Memory and the Prescriptive Organisation
• Organizational Memory as Process not Object
• Collective decision making and knowledge management in oncology
• Cooperative work conditions in a satellite control room.
• READ MY LIPS....BUT ALSO THE REST
• Collective memory from the everyday work.
• Visualised co-ordination support in distributed decision making
• Knowledge Management for Collective Learning and Organisational Memory
• Knowledge graphs
• Shifting Perspectives on Organizational Memory
• General discussion

The need for coping with dynamic complex situations cuts through most modern life. Examples of such situations are emergency management, military command and control, traffic control (air, rail, road, water), rescue services, grid control, intensive care and industrial plant control. Consequences of failures in such situations include uncontrolled releases, injuries, poisoning and single deaths, all of which are highly desirable to prevent.

Efficient performance in coping with dynamic situations is dependent on people's ability to notice, diagnose and react appropriately to the situation as well as their ability to combine and coordinate their perceptions, interpretations and actions. People are most efficient when their actions are so well trained that they can be performed automatically. People also have the ability to draw upon similar experiences and to reconfigure actions, in short, to be flexible and creative. (By creative is here meant the ability to come up with new and relevant solutions). This ability is related to their reflective actions, which are slow in comparison to

the automated ones. Efficiency and creativity are both needed in complex dynamic situations. Both rely upon experience, skill and knowledge. The present workshop aims at discussing how efficiency and creativity in collaborative coping with complex dynamic situations can be learnt and trained as well as supported by information technology.

This workshop was proposed by a group of European researchers, working on a project under COST 14, Cooperation Technology. We wanted to share our problems and ideas with other people, both within and outside of Europe.

Objectives

The objectives of the workshop were the following:

• Identifying key features of collective learning in coping with dynamic complex situations
• Identifying critical needs related to collective learning and training in such situations
• Identifying and analyzing opportunities for supporting collective memory

The participants are presented at their introduction.

Introduction

Yvonne Waern introduced the workshop by an overview of concepts proposed by the participants and their possible interpretations.

Figure 1 shows a general overview of the process of collective transition of knowledge and memory during the processing of one "case".

A "case" may consist for instance in a patient, an emergency situation or an incoming aeroplane. During the time this case is actual for the people involved, it will get treated in meetings (temporary collective memory) and related to other cases or principles (lasting collective memory). The case proceeds through several actions, some of which are discontinued, others are started during the life of the case. These actions are influenced by and in turn affect both the temporary collective memory and the lasting collective memory.

The lasting as well as the temporary collective memory can be regarded as "rescources", which are used during the processing of the case. To the extent that the resources are externally represented (as in case records or formal institutional rules), people can refer to them. However, it should not be expected that the interpretation of the data in these resources is unanimous or over individuals, or even consequent within the same individual in different contexts.

Within the lasting collective memory there are two kinds of memories, which have traditionally been differentiated, i.e. the episodic one and the semantic one. The episodic memory is related to "cases" and consists in "stories" or "narratives" relating to these cases. The "semantic" memory or the "abstract" memory relates to the general propositions that may be formulated as to general rules about events, or as to general characteristics of objects. The lasting memory develops through abstractions and generalizations from cases as well as from application of general semantic memory to specific cases.

The temporary collective memory evolves through on the one hand the case itself, which in a dynamic situation lives a life of its own, and the actions taken upon this case, and, on the other hand through the discussions about it at meetings. These discussions are often noted in case records (such as in the "flight strips" in ATC, the patient records in medicine or the emergency records in emergency centers).

Now, we can see that the notion of "collective memory" is difficult to tackle by several reasons, related to this figure. First, we must distinguish between a lasting collective memory (which changes slowly) and a temporary collective memory which changes less slowly. Secondly, the interpretation and use of the collective memory varies between people and contexts, which means that the collective memory has not got the same meaning for everybody involved in using it. Thirdly, it may even be questioned if collective memory is an entity (a repository) or rather a process. We shall see this issue being further discussed below.

The terms and concepts offered by the participants could to some extent be related to the distinction of temporary and lasting memory, and to some extent this distinction was not applicable.

First, it was found that the distinction was most easily applied to artifacts in the following way:

At least one artifact was difficult to classify as the idea of "Questions, Options and Criteria, QOC") which might serve both as a temporary artifact (the space of options) or as a lasting artifact, once the object was designed.

As to concepts, these were much more difficult to handle. A preliminary classification is attempted in Table 2 below

After some discussion around these concepts, the participants started presenting their position papers, and the group discussed issues as they came up.