Learning about Collaborative Design for Learning in a Multi-Surface Design Studio

This paper fuses research on CSCL and collaborative design for learning. It reports a study located in a novel multi-surface environment, configured to support small teams who are designing for other people’s learning. Despite growing awareness in the CSCL community of the importance of design in teachers’ work, there has been very little empirical research on how such design is carried out, or how design for CSCL can be supported and improved through the provision of better design tools and design methods. The paper offers an analysis of the work of four pairs of designers in our Multi-Surface Design Studio. These four dyads were completing a design task we set them, while simultaneously learning how to make good use of the various personal and shared digital tools, display surfaces and other resources in the studio. From observational and interview data, we show how collaborative design for learning needs to be understood as a complex, multiply-situated activity, in which design problem-solving, tools and space usage depend on the fluent deployment of intuitive knowledge about mutual awareness, shared perception, information persistence and movement.

Institutions and Incentives in Knowledge Production and Diffusion: From Science to Innovation

Charles Chadi Ayoubi

This thesis presents four essays providing novel empirical and theoretical insights on the incentives and institutional structures that favor knowledge production and diffusion. The first two studies analyze these processes in the realm of scientific research, while the last two essays evaluate broader applications with vast social welfare implications. The first essay (chapter 2) of this dissertation, in collaboration with Michele Pezzoni and Fabiana Visentin, exploits a dataset on all applicants to a prestigious Swiss grant to explore a central process in academic life: the application for funds. The results suggest that scientists applying to a grant significantly increase their publicationsâ quality and quantity, learn more, and extend their collaboration network. Beyond the effect of applying, receiving the research funds increases the probability of co-authoring with co-applicants, but it does not have any additional effect on other scientific outcomes. These results justified the title of the chapter since, as it is the case in the Olympics, in research grants, âthe important thing is not to win, it is to take part.â The second essay (chapter 3), also in collaboration with Michele Pezzoni and Fabiana Visentin, uses the same empirical context to explore the determinants of knowledge flows among collaborating scientists. The chapter proposes a novel methodology based on journal references to track knowledge flows among researchers working together. The results suggest that geographical distance does not significantly affect the knowledge flows between team members, but the cognitive distance separating two members does. More specifically, there is an inverted U-curve effect of cognitive distance on the learning among team members: the higher the distance between two scientists in terms of subjects studied, the more they exchange knowledge, up to the point when the distance becomes detrimental because they have too little common ground to communicate. The third essay (chapter 4), in collaboration with Boris Thurm, goes beyond the exploration of the determinants for scientistsâ knowledge production and diffusion to delve into the incentives of all individuals to exchange knowledge. The chapter has two major contributions. First, it acts as a literature review of the empirical evidence on non-financial incentives for knowledge diffusion, such as social recognition, career prospects, and moral considerations. Second, the chapter proposes a simple economic model with heterogeneous agents holding both selfish and moral motives to derive some novel policy implications. The last essay (chapter 5), in collaboration with Dominique Foray, delves into a specific case of knowledge diffusion, the integration of machine learning technologies in healthcare. The analysis suggests that machine learning has the potential for spurring innovation in healthcare but faces several institutional levers. Collecting quantitative data on patents and publications, and qualitative data on hospitals, the results show that machine learning affects healthcare in different ways than older information and communication technologies. The apparition of new business models encourages tech giants to enter the healthcare sector. These patterns have the potential to increase social welfare by reducing externalities in terms of innovation complementarities, but they pose new challenges such as competition policy and human capital formation.

EPFL2020

Tangible Interfaces for Learning

Sébastien Cuendet

There have been many claims that Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) can have a positive impact on learning. Alleged benefits include increasing usability, improving engagement and collaboration of students, and providing a better perception of the task, especially spatial ones. However, there exists little empirical data to back up these claims. Moreover, for all their potential benefits for learning, TUIs are still scarcely used in schools. This thesis explores these two issues in the specific context of vocational education and training of carpenter apprentices. The learning objectives concern spatial skills and in particular, the mapping between 2D and 3D representations. We study (1) whether TUIs can support the training of spatial skills, and if so what features allow them to do so, and (2) what kinds of classroom pedagogical scenarios TUIs can support. We follow a design-based research approach and run empirical studies, mostly in classrooms. The contributions of this thesis touch on three research domains:

Spatial skills. Our results show that TUIs can help teach spatial skills to carpenter apprentices. The tangible nature of TUIs can help the learner relate multiple representations of an object, especially for difficult problems. It can also lower the barrier to entry into a learning domain for beginners.
Learning with TUIs. According to our results, TUIs can benefit learning, but the mere fact of using TUIs does not guarantee learning. Instead, special attention needs to be given to the design of the TUI. Small design variations, such as the physical correspondence between the tangible object and its virtual representations, or the type and timing of feedback given to the user, can have a significant impact on learning.
Classroom technologies and orchestration. We explore several classroom pedagogical scenarios that TUIs can support. The most promising one is to use a TUI as part of a hybrid classroom learning activity that includes both TUI and non TUI steps. Additionally, we devise two ways to promote the integration of TUIs in classroom. First, we introduce 5 design principles that reduce the classroom orchestration load. Second, we show how new web technologies can be used to deploy TUIs in schools at a lower cost.

EPFL2013

The R&D Kiss of Death: Empirical Evidences on Failed Cooperation

Stéphane Lhuillery

This paper studies failure to R&D cooperation embracing all research ties, those carried out with research organizations (universities, laboratories and research centers) and/or industrial partners, controlling for firms’ characteristics and sample selection thanks to the French Community Innovation Survey. Using a cross-section model on 2375 innovating firms, we address two questions that are still of interest thanks to the scarcity of empirical evidences: the first one is with whom an R&D cooperation failure is more likely to occur. Secondly, is there any learning effect emerging from previous collaboration? Findings show that failures are more likely to occur when partners are customers, public research organizations or competitors. The likelihood to fail is high and similar for R&D partnerships with competitors or PROs. Further investigation suggests that foreign partners are harder to deals with than national ones and those difficulties are centered on R&D cooperation with foreign universities. Regarding learning to cooperate, our results suggest that former R&D links do not lower the probability to fail with a category of partner even if it boosts the likelihood to cooperate. A stronger appropriation regime influences the likelihood to R&D cooperate but also the probability not to fail. We also provide evidences that large firms, especially belonging to groups, and R&D intensive firms are more likely not to encounter a failure in their R&D alliances. Government support is also found negatively correlated with failure likelihood. Firms with activities in high tech industries or with strong appropriation regimes are also found less likely to fail in their R&D partnerships. Finally, we show that cooperation failures cannot be considered independent from the decision to collaborate in R&D.

2006