literature

In our research project we are highly influenced by the Dutch researcher Sanne F. Akkerman and her colleagues and their research on boundary crossing and boundary objects in (vocational) education. Like many others in the field, we have benefited greatly from Akkerman & Bakker’s (2011) excellent review entitled Boundary Crossing and Boundary Objects, and I’ll return to this in future posts.

Nonetheless, other researchers have been studying these concepts from other perspectives, and I recently came across what turns out to be a PhD study (Marheineke, 2016) on the use of boundary objects in virtual collaboration, which seems very promising in relation to our current focus on ICT-mediated boundary objects.

In this study, Marheineke provides an interesting literature review on the use of different types of virtual boundary objects. In his work, Marheineke is inspired by Carlile’s (2004, 2002) typology, which we have been studying as well. However, as Marheineke states “emerging interest in the phenomenon of boundary object(s) has led to many definitions in the literature” (p. 80).

I have yet to study Marheineke’s research in detail, but so far I’m delighted to find many interesting and relevant tables e.g.:

Part of table 3: Selected definitions on the term “boundary object”
(Marheineke, 2016, p. 80-81)

Part of table 7: Boundary objects structuring collaboration
(Marheineke, 2016, p. 95-96)

/Mariis

References

Carlile, P.R. (2004). Transferring, Translating, and Transforming: An Integrative Framework for Managing Knowledge Across Boundaries.

Carlile, P.R. (2002). A Pragmatic View of Knowledge and Boundaries: Boundary Objects in New Product Development.

Over on Designs4Learning, my friend* Roland Hachmann has recently started blogging about his PhD-project, which is part of the research program Designing for Situated Knowledge in a World of Change at the University of Southern Denmark. Roland explains that his project

… focuses on how designs for learning at the teacher education, that embrace practice (contexts) as a core element, can support transformation of knowledge. The project investigates a group of students, who move across educational and professional contexts to resituate and transform their academic knowledge and put it into use as they teach fifth graders. The project uses design based research as a methodological approach and furthermore draws upon theories from the situated and socio cultural domain, where learning is seen as a result of participation and use of artefacts situated in specific contexts.

In his project, Roland is also investigating the concept of transfer, and he recently published a very interesting post entitled Concepts of transfer and transformation in designing for situated knowledge across contexts. In this post, you’ll find some valuable ressources Roland created in collaboration with fellow PhD-student, Lea Tilde Rosenlund: a map of different transfer concepts, a presentation on transfer, and not least a bibliography of transfer literature. It’s really worth checking out!

Given that we clearly share research interests and that we, in our research project, are inspired by theories in the socio-cultural domain as well (e.g. we have used Activity Theory and boundary crossing theory for our analyses), Roland and I have discussed the possibility of sharing knowledge and perhaps collaborating in the future. For now, I’m just delighted that Roland has started blogging and sharing his thoughts with the rest of us.

/Mariis

*) Disclaimer.
Roland and I have known each other for years. We initially met at The Master Programme on ICT and Learning (MIL) at Aalborg University, where Roland first attended one of my courses in Second Life, and later I invited him to co-facilitate in another course as part of my research. Since then we have stayed in contact, and I’m happy to call him my friend :-)

Roland aka Mew Aeon in Second Life.