Faces of informed research: Enabling research collaboration

Abstract

This paper presents the Faces of Informed Research, an information literacy (IL) framework that aims to enhance researchers’ capacity to participate productively in collaborative interdisciplinary partnerships. Universities and funding bodies increasingly require collaborative approaches to research initiatives. Beneficial for advancing shared research interests, collaboration often requires overcoming significant variation in disciplinary approaches, including how researchers use information to conduct research, to transition unfamiliar researchers into working relationships. A conceptual development process was undertaken to expand on the Seven Faces of Informed Learning to further adapt the framework to collaborative and interdisciplinary research contexts. Embodying critical components of working together, Informed Research especially supports researchers’ collective enablement and enactment of different experiences of using information. Drawing from the pedagogic model Informed Learning Design, an ‘informing narrative' illustrates how the recognition of variations in information experience may be used to enrich researchers’ collaborative capacity. Future investigation will focus on the role of Informed Research in relationship to 1) research training in higher education, 2) group collaboration ‘efficacy,’ 3) research, research management and research collaboration leadership, and 4) the importance of information experiences for successful research, collaboration, and writing.