Knowledge Co-creation Research Articles

Educating through commons-based pedagogical practices

This paper explores the transformative potential of primary education pedagogy to instill the logic and ethics of the commons, emphasizing a paradigm shift away from competitive or individualistic learning frameworks towards those fostering care, reciprocity, and mutual support. Through a year-long action research project in a sixth-grade classroom, this study examines the transfer of Educational commons elements into formal schooling. It argues that such integration requires pedagogical practices that cultivate distinct cognitive and operational modes, enabling students to engage in self-organization of the school classroom and collective knowledge management. The research details the development and operationalization of what is termed as “commons-based pedagogical practices”. These practices are designed to encourage a learning environment that is inclusive and collaborative, characterized by peer learning, co-creation of knowledge, assemblies. peer dialogue and peer accountability. The study juxtaposes theoretical frameworks with practical applications, providing insights into how these pedagogical approaches can be effectively implemented to transform educational settings. The emphasis is placed on creating a classroom dynamic that supports the collective exploration and negotiation of diverse educational concepts, thereby fostering an atmosphere conducive to communal learning and ethical engagement.

Bridging senses of place and mobilities scholarships to inform social-ecological systems governance: A research agenda

Uncertainty and change are increasingly commonplace as communities respond to impacts of social-ecological change including climate change, and dangerous levels of pollution. Given the extent of these crises, new approaches are needed to support responses. Here we identify challenges and discuss insights that the nexus of Senses of place (SoP) and mobilities research offers in navigating such uncertainty. We conducted a two-round Delphi, followed by a workshop, and collaborative writing process with a global network of researchers with expertise in either or both SoP and mobilities research. Participants identified five challenges at the place-mobility nexus that emerge when a social-ecological system is disrupted. We use the 2022 Odra River fish die-off to exemplify the identified challenges: 1) accounting for power dynamics, inequalities and motility; 2) doing justice to more-than human actors; 3) integrating multiple and sometimes nested spatial scales; 4) considering temporalities of place and mobilities, and 5) embracing multisensoriality. To address these challenges, we recommend drawing on diverse methods and knowledge co-creation processes that combine more-than-human perspectives, multisensoriality, and engage in the dynamic relations between places to understand people-place disruptions in the face of socio-spatial precarity. Addressing such knowledge gaps requires stronger collaboration of mobilities and place researchers.

Conceptual Model of Cross-Boundary Learning in Adventure Tourism

This theoretical study aims to provide a learning model for adventure tour guides to become effective learning facilitators for adventure tourists, who have increasingly sought self-transformation through soft-adventure activities. This objective is drowned by the increasing interest in learning from different cultures among adventure tourists and also the attention to self-transformation through pedagogy, adventure tourism, outdoor adventure education (OAE), and pedagogy are becoming increasingly capable of sharing their theories under the concept of cross-boundary learning. This paper therefore organizes this sharing by considering the applicability of OAE theories to soft adventure tourist based on literature review. It then centers on the community of practice created from interaction between guides and tourists and between tourists as a way of learning, which can lead adventure tourists towards self-transformation, and discusses how guides can create opportunities for such cooperative learning community during their service. As a result, taking a cue from the SECI model, which underlies cross-boundary learning, a conceptual model was presented to implement the facilitator role of the guide in cross-boundary learning effectively. In this conceptual model, the guide’s role extends beyond knowledge transfer. Rather, the results of the study imply that guides are required to be co-creators of knowledge to accompany adventure tourists in their cross-boundary learning. The findings also suggest that guides need to become cross-boundary learners who may also learn from their customers.

Cannabis harm reduction: perspectives of women who use and allied social and health-care providers

Background Despite the legalization of cannabis use in Canada in 2018, there remains little research on cannabis harm reduction, particularly for women. Scholarship and public health guidelines tend to focus on the risks of use, emphasizing abstinence rather than harm reduction. Additionally, harm-reduction research and guidelines often lack the perspectives of women who use cannabis and allied social and health-care professionals. Methods This community-based participatory research mixed method study explores the perspectives of women who use cannabis and service providers on the Canadian Lower Risk Cannabis Use Guidelines (LRCUG) and a synthesis of scholarship from 2015 to 2020. The research synthesis and the LRCUG were presented for review by participants in two focus groups (n = 11) and respondents to an online survey (n = 19). Results Participants described public health guidelines as judgmental in tone, ineffective in conveying useful information, and foregrounding abstinence. Participants also identified shortfalls in the research presented, which did not attend to the social context of cannabis use and cannabinoids’ possible benefits alongside risks. Conclusion Participants’ responses affirm that future LRCUGs should focus on informative rather than prescriptive content with meaningful inclusion of people who use cannabis and service professionals as co-creators of knowledge for safer use.

Creating the conditions for collaborative decision-making in co-design

ABSTRACT Research into co-designers’ experience of co-design processes is uncommon, despite expanding use of co-design to improve and innovate in healthcare. This study aimed to identify how an online co-design was experienced, how it achieved its outcomes and the implications for healthcare co-design. Eleven co-designers were interviewed about their participation in an online, lived experience co-led, co-design that aimed to improve the physical healthcare of mental health service users in primary care and mental health settings. Analysis of group and individual interviews and co-design documentation involved an initial inductive coding process, followed by a more focussed theoretical coding process and the application of an existing conceptual framework to test the analysis. Three themes were identified – generating knowledge, creating space and influencing change. Each theme was characterised by underlying interdependent tensions – individual and collective, stabilising and transforming, internal and external, which operated together to facilitate collaboration. Time was an essential resource for engaging these processes. Efforts to create the conditions for co-design in healthcare may be enhanced when attention and time is given to underlying interdependent tensions that interact to support knowledge co-creation, collaboration and change.

Deploying the Affordances of Social Media

Educational scholars have highlighted how social media platforms can be powerful sites of learning and organizing for social change. Research into informal social media learning has suggested that it promotes life-wide education, offering opportunities to learn through networks of connection, co-create knowledge with others, and foster self-directed learning. Studies of social media-based activism, for instance linked to movements like Black Lives Matter and Me Too, have demonstrated that it leads to the acquisition of subject-matter expertise, development of capabilities such as organizing for change, development of capacity for self-reflection, and personal transformation such as increased belief in one’s ability to shift political systems. However, universities are yet to fully leverage the affordances of social media for learning. Many institutions offer online classes, and many individual instructors utilize social media in their teaching. Yet, university learning has not transformed to a degree that is commensurate with the radical ways in which, in our post-digital era, learning has come to be transformed in society at large. In this context, a question to be asked is why universities, those institutions charged with educating individuals for personal and societal benefit, stake such minor claims in what has emerged as an integral learning space of our era. Universities’ slowness to embrace change means they are abdicating important spaces of learning, connection, and change to private corporations like X and Facebook, which lack both the skills and motivation to promote learning in the public interest. This presentation argues for a university-owned social media platform, which would use the media’s affordances to advance a post-classroom vision of learning; classes would continue to be part of the educational experience, but they would be decentred as the primary site of learning. Further, this presentation tells of the presenter’s work in exploring the possibility of prototyping such a platform within their own university. It builds on Networked Learning (NL) scholarship, specifically expanding Lee and Bligh’s (2023) expanded design framework for transformative NL, and drawing inductively on relevant NL literature to put forward six design principles for a university owned platform. The platform would connect formal and informal learning. It also would connect learners, staff, and faculty to each other and to the community outside the university. It would be comprised of three virtual spaces, dedicated to: (1) learning and organizing for social change; (2) student-initiated community building and learning; and (3) university-led news, events, and discussion.

Feral Experiments in CreaTures Co-Laboratory

We share insights from our practice-based experimentation with ‘feral’ ways of sensemaking in the context of creative transformational practices. Drawing on three art and design research projects, we discuss how feral ways–open-ended, spontaneous, welcoming indeterminacy – may foster more-than-human co-creation of knowledge and data, and nurture shifts from anthropocentric ‘making sense of’ to relational ‘making sense-with’ other-than-human creatures. Through our cases, we illustrate how experimenting with feralness can foreground issues of power, agency, and control in the currently human-centric discourses around data, technology, and sensemaking in eco-social transformation. Our insights may nurture critical more-than-human perspectives in creative eco-social inquiries.

Generative AI

This paper reports preliminary findings from an ongoing, campus wide research project on effective methods for generative AI applicability in pursuit of effective and engaging teaching and learning activities. Generative AI has had a tremendous adoption rate since the public release of ChatGPT 3.5 on November 30th 2022. This has necessitated that educators and administrators consider the potential opportunities and threats usage of generative AI by students and faculty may have on higher education. Recognizing the inevitability of generative AI, the researchers have proposed a university-wide research project to ascertain the changes in faculty and students perspectives when using generative AI The research project is two-fold. First, a longitudinal survey has been developed to address research questions about usage and perceptions of generative AI change over time. The second prong of this research project focuses on the implementation of new and continuing generative AI professional development workshops. These “AI Institutes” are targeted educational opportunities to provide faculty, staff, and students with hands-on experiences that model appropriate ways to teach and learn with generative AI tools. Workshops change based on audience needs, but will be designed to support such processes as introductory and advanced lessons on building learning activities which engage students with generative AI, administrative shortcuts, best practices for writing, and our university’s AI policy and principles. The longitudinal survey, thus, allows the research team to gauge changes in perspectives as the “AI Institutes'' are deployed and widespread adoption of generative AI tools become more mainstream. This paper reports on the first year of this research project, including one survey and one AI Institute. This research on integrating generative AI technologies into teaching and learning has important implications for the field of networked learning. As the paper explores, rapid advances in AI are changing how students and faculty interact with content and each other. Findings from the longitudinal survey and AI Institutes could provide insights into how to thoughtfully leverage these emerging tools to enhance connections, dialogue, collaboration, and co-creation of knowledge within digital learning networks. While further research is needed, this project takes an important first step in assessing faculty and student perceptions that can inform appropriate AI integration. Lessons learned could guide other institutions exploring the potentials and pitfalls of weaving generative AI into networked learning ecosystems.

The steady effect of knowledge co-creation with universities on business scientific impact throughout the economic cycle

Economic ups and downs condition science and innovation. The research strength of business firms and their cooperation with universities are important functions of science systems. The aim of this research is to analyse some of the links between business scientific output co-creation and impact throughout the economic cycle. Economic growth increases the probability of firms fostering both their scientific knowledge co-creation output and their scientific impact, until reaching an inflection point, after which those relationships become negative. Co-creation with universities intensifies the scientific impact of firms’ output; however, although in theory this effect should vary according to the economic phase, the evidence shows that it remains steady. In this mixed-method study, the theory is grounded through interviews with key university and firm co-authors, and an empirical test is conducted on publications from 15,000 Spanish firms between 2000 and 2016 and their citations—a period which includes the Spanish Great Recession (2008–2014). The analysis suggests that policies to promote business co-creation output with universities should be more stable throughout the economic cycle: with high growth, governments should maintain the support for co-creation that is typical with low growth; with low growth, governments should not expect co-creation with universities to have an even greater positive effect on firms’ scientific quality than it already has with high growth.

‘The Real Data Set’: A Case of Challenging Power Dynamics and Questioning the Boundaries of Research Production

While the co-production of knowledge through community-engaged research is intended to be a reciprocally beneficial process, academic institutions have often devalued community expertise by treating community organizations as subjects rather than co-creators of knowledge. Drawing from ethnographic work with a community-based organization (CBO), Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN), this paper shows how one CBO is challenging and critiquing these long-standing power dynamics between community and their university partners. LA CAN centered community expertise and formed long-term mutual relationships based on shared values, primarily an abolitionist framework and connection to Black Radical Thought. Drawing from LA CAN’s partnerships and their definition of power, we discuss how shifting power dynamics and centering community expertise leads to a different form of knowledge production, resulting in “the real data set”. This case shows how CBOs are movement researchers who are central to creating and interpreting theory.

Students as Engaged Partners in Directed Research Courses

This report from the field reflects on the authors’ experiences in a directed research course on the topic of youth civic engagement in Canada. A literature review was co-written as part of a directed research course where the instructor was a visiting professor from the United States and the student was an undergraduate student in Canada. The content of this report was gathered during various stages of the directed research course and is informed by literature focused on students as engaged partners in teaching and learning in higher education. Specifically, we reflect on the ways viewing students as engaged partners can leverage their knowledge and lived experiences when engaging in directed research courses, especially when the student and faculty member may be coming from different countries in North America. In addition, we reflect on how designing a directed research course that views students as engaged partners can provide a rich ground for the redistribution of power in higher education and strengthen the quality of research through the co-creation of new knowledge and ideas.

Remote Online Collaborative Learning for Knowledge Co-Creation Through WhatsApp in an ODL Programme

Remote Online Collaborative Learning for Knowledge Co-Creation Through WhatsApp in an ODL Programme

A typology of urban knowledge sharing: from a systematic literature review to an integrated model

Abstract This paper provides insight into how the conceptualization of urban knowledge sharing has developed. Based on a structured review and categorization of the literature, we identify three forms of knowledge sharing in and between cities that are distinctly different: knowledge transfer, knowledge exchange, and knowledge co-creation. We find that the three forms have different boosts and barriers, whereby the complexities of knowledge sharing and hence the capacities required of the actors are lowest for knowledge transfer and highest for knowledge co-creation. We would therefore like to qualify the recent emphasis given in literature to co-creation; with its complexities and required capacities, it is not to be considered a panacea for solving all urban problems. We propose a model within which knowledge transfer and exchange are more suitable for less wicked problems and may sometimes fruitfully reduce complexities.

“We don’t separate out these things. Everything is related”: Partnerships with Indigenous Communities to Design, Implement, and Evaluate Multilevel Interventions to Reduce Health Disparities

Multilevel interventions (MLIs) are appropriate to reduce health disparities among Indigenous peoples because of their ability to address these communities’ diverse histories, dynamics, cultures, politics, and environments. Intervention science has highlighted the importance of context-sensitive MLIs in Indigenous communities that can prioritize Indigenous and local knowledge systems and emphasize the collective versus the individual. This paradigm shift away from individual-level focus interventions to community-level focus interventions underscores the need for community engagement and diverse partnerships in MLI design, implementation, and evaluation. In this paper, we discuss three case studies addressing how Indigenous partners collaborated with researchers in each stage of the design, implementation, and evaluation of MLIs to reduce health disparities impacting their communities. We highlight the following: (1) collaborations with multiple, diverse tribal partners to carry out MLIs which require iterative, consistent conversations over time; (2) inclusion of qualitative and Indigenous research methods in MLIs as a way to honor Indigenous and local knowledge systems as well as a way to understand a health disparity phenomenon in a community; and (3) relationship building, maintenance, and mutual respect among MLI partners to reconcile past research abuses, prevent extractive research practices, decolonize research processes, and generate co-created knowledge between Indigenous and academic communities.

Evaluation of the Effects of Different Sowing and Weed Control Methods on the Physiological Performance of NERICA 4 Rice Variety in Upland Ecology of Japan

The experiment was established to determine the most yield enhancing combination of sowing method and weed control measure for the selected rice variety- NERICA 4. The experiment was conducted from March to November 2023, at the upland research field of JICA’s Tsukuba International Center (TBIC), Japan. The experiment forms part of the fulfilment for the completion of a rice research technique fellowship in the Knowledge Co-Creation Program (KCCP) organized and funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). It consists of two sowing methods; Drilling (S1) and Dibling (S2)) as well as three methods of weed control; Chemical Weeding only at Sowing (CW), Chemical Weeding at sowing with once Hand Weeding at 60 DAS (CWHW) and Chemical Weeding at Sowing with Twice Hand Weeding at 60 and 90 DAS (CW2HW) which were combined to form six treatments. Treatments were laid in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications of eighteen (18) plots. 8.9 g/plot of pendimethalin 2% (G0-G0-SAN) was used. Amaranthaceae, Cyperaceae and Poaceae were the prevalence weeds family identified. The treatment assigned to drilling and twice hand weeding in addition to chemical weeding at sowing (S1CW2HW) had the highest yield (3.95 tons/ha) while the treatment assigned to dibbling with the weeding control plot of only chemical weeding at sowing (S2CW) gave the lowest yield (2.5 tons/ha). There was significant difference at (P<0.05) amongst the mean yield values of all treatment combinations. However, the treatment assigned to same drilling but with once hand weeding (S1CWHW) had the highest profitability rank. This study concludes that sowing with drilling and weed management by pendimethalin and once hand weeding may be productively viable for the variety. This outcome may serve as a benchmark for further research within same thematic framework for increased productivity of rice farmers in the west African sub-region from where the first two authors were sent for the experiment in Japan.

Operationalising the Capability Approach for Healthy Child Growth via a Participatory Method: An Illustrative Case in Haor Areas of Bangladesh

ABSTRACT The Task Force “Towards a Multidimensional Index to Child Growth”, within the International Union of Nutritional Sciences, developed a capability framework for child growth (CFCG). This framework aims to redefine child growth monitoring, expanding beyond weight and height to encompass parental capabilities. We further operationalised the CFCG in hard-to-reach haor areas of Bangladesh, resulting in the publication of a list outlining parental capabilities for child growth. This paper details the methodology and participatory process employed, offering reflections on how our research followed the criteria proposed by Robeyns for identifying capabilities. First, we built a contextualised list of capabilities for child growth based on discussions with local experts. This list underwent further adaptation for haor regions in two rounds. Initially, we used a doxastic interviewing methodology to create a draft emic list of capabilities for child growth. Subsequently, utilising an epistemic methodology, we refined the list. The doxastic interviews focused on “understanding” the interviewees; the epistemic interviews facilitated equal communication between interviewer and interviewee, promoting knowledge co-creation. This rigorous approach validates the findings with the affected communities and supports implementation of the CFCG in policy and practice. This methodology could be extended to other pertinent research areas for capability scholars.

From transfer to co-creation: action research perspectives in knowledge transfer partnership (KTP) projects

Action Research (AR) is about practitioners and academics interacting to generate knowledge. Using the University-Industry Collaboration (UIC) literature, we investigate the knowledge generation process through AR and whether this process can achieve the dual objective of practical relevance and theoretical novelty. Our study explores this through an examination of the utilisation of AR within UICs facilitated by the UK government’s Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) programme. Through an inductive, qualitative, multiple case study research design, we analysed three KTP projects, each lasting two years. We observed an evolution in the dynamics of the relationship between practitioners and academics, signifying a transition from mere knowledge transfer to a more participatory process of knowledge co-creation. We found that as the KTP project progresses through successive cycles of the AR spiral, there emerges a shift from single loop to double loop or multi loop learning, resulting in unplanned and emergent benefits and outcomes. This transition signifies a deeper exploration of underlying assumptions and strategies in AR projects, enabling the generation of novel knowledge. We offer a new framework by introducing the collaborative entanglement and linear knowledge enhancement arguments to explain the interaction patterns between researchers and practitioners in AR.

Design science research and the co-creation of project management knowledge

The selection of an appropriate research design that provides a balance between rigor and relevance is a critical decision for scholars. The objective of this paper is to discuss the Design Science Research approach in project management research. The paper introduces the theoretical foundations of Design Science Research, its potential for co-creating new knowledge with practitioners, its rigor and relevance, and its challenges. It then provides examples of successful Design Science Research papers in project management research and implications for project management scholars who consider using this approach in their research.

Using social learning theories to explore the role of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) in collaborative learning

This opinion piece highlights the integral role of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) in learning within Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Employing social learning theories, this opinion piece aims to explore generative AI as a stakeholder in learning. By weaving in social constructivist and learning theories, this opinion paper aims to uncover the capacity of generative AI to facilitate and enhance the learning process. Central to this opinion piece proposition is cultivating a learning community that leverages AI's potential as a new learning stakeholder. This opinion piece aims to contribute to ongoing discussions in the field of learning development by offering a fresh outlook on how AI can be an asset in knowledge co-creation and collaborative learning. The paper does this in the following ways: (1) highlights how generative AI can effectively contribute to learning and knowledge co-creation, and (2) provides some guidance for integrating generative AI in collaborative learning.

Co-creation of socio-ecological systems knowledge to adopt an Ecosystem-based Approach and Land-Sea Interactions in maritime spatial planning

The European Union (EU) Directive on maritime spatial planning (MSP) (2014/89/EU) requires EU coastal states to design maritime spatial plans to coordinate maritime actions in a sustainable manner. In Finland, MSP is the joint responsibility of authorities at the regional level with differing development visions and operating environments. To support the adoptation of the planning concepts of an Ecosystem-based Approach (EBA) and Land-Sea Interactions (LSI) in MSP, they have been embedded into planning work through adopting the social-ecological systems (SES) approach in a co-creation process, which has been open to anyone interested, including sectoral representatives as well as experts at all national to local levels. This research examines the co-creation of shared knowledge among MSP authorities and stakeholders, as well as the ways in which the utilized SES approach has helped to generate consensus on the sustainable use of natural resources. We examined the co-creation of systemic thinking among four maritime sectors: fishing, fish farming, offshore wind energy, and tourism. Results indicate that the co-creation process helped evolve shared knowledge and deeper systemic understanding on the direct and indirect links between the good state of the marine environment and human wellbeing, as well as which actions support sustainable development and sustainable blue economy at the local and regional levels. However, the level of advancement varies among sectors. Nonetheless, evolved systemic thinking has supported the adoptation of the concepts of EBA and LSI in the bottom-up MSP approach and resilient adaptive governance in MSP.