Abstract:

Research-oriented learning often takes place in the surrounding of a research association in a university environment. Here it is important to provide the research association members, as research master students or PhDs, a working environment supporting them in their learning and research process.

In several cases talent and performance are presumed and that learning happens just somehow, but especially in difficult situations it needs a reasonable evaluation of the maturity in the working and learning surrounding [1].

A transdisciplinary research association with different universities and companies starts somehow under complicated circumstances, as it is not just a huge project. Rather it consists of different single projects, which concentrate on a unique aim and result. Furthermore the hierarchy levels are not well-defined, as several university and company employees are interacting with each other [2].

The quality of the collaboration and the provided environment in a research association influences directly the outcome and the development of the research association employees. For that reason it is relevant within a research association to evaluate and improve steadily the collaboration and management processes. An appropriate instrument for assessing this is a maturity model. This paper presents a modified evaluation based on the Collaboration Maturity Model (Col-MM) developed by Imed Boughzala and Gert-Jan de Vreede [3] of the collaboration and management of a research association. To measure the maturity an online questionnaire was developed based on the Col-MM. The aim of the online survey carried out with the members of a research association was to evaluate the collaboration and environment in the research association and to measure the development of the research association management according four steps in the maturity model.

This research is still in progress, as the aim is to measure the maturity development during a whole research project duration of three years. A further approach is to evaluate the start conditions of the students and PhDs at the beginning of a research association and to see if their performance level can be kept constant or improved until the end of the project. For that reason the model of Thiel and Böttcher for assessing university students’ research competences might be considered in future [4].

References:
[1] Bernd Schmid: Systemische Organisationsentwicklung; Stuttgart, 2014; Page 26 - 27
[2] Defila R., Di Giulio A., Scheuermann M.: Forschungsverbundmanagement. Handbuch
für die Gestaltung inter- und transdisziplinärer Projekte; Zürich, 2006; Page 34-35
[3] Imed Boughzala and Gert-Jan de Vreede: Evaluating Team Collaboration Quality: The Development and Field Application of a Collaboration Maturity Model, Article in Journal of Management Information Systems; 2015
[4] Franziska Böttcher and Felicitas Thiel: Evaluating research-oriented teaching: a new instrument to assess university students’ research competences, Article in Higher Education; 2017

Keywords:

Collaboration maturity model, research association, research oriented learning.