Collaborative Context Research Articles

Typing speed and fluency as cues to uncertainty in the real-time production of written messages.

In spoken communicative contexts, speakers often convey uncertainty via intonation and through paralinguistic behaviours such as speech rate and gesture-and addressees can use these behaviours to generate inferences about the speaker's epistemic state. In text-based contexts, however, cues of this sort are more restricted. In this study, we examine the expression and reception of epistemic information in the context of real-time written message production. We hypothesised that real-time typing dynamics (like those available in text-based collaborative contexts, such as Google Docs) can function as a rich paralinguistic cue about a partner's epistemic state. In Experiment 1, we collected production data showing that manipulations of typist certainty, instantiated through both the ease of message formulation and repeated experience with the task, are reflected in measures of typing fluency and speed. Then, in Experiment 2, we presented select screen recordings of the typing behaviours from Experiment 1 to a group of independent observers who made epistemic judgements about the typist. Our results show that observable differences in typing speed and fluency contribute to perceptions of typist knowledge and confidence, which has implications for interfaces that enable real-time text-based collaboration.

How multiple levels of metacognitive awareness operate in collaborative problem solving

Metacognitive awareness is knowing about learners’ own thinking and learning, facilitated by introspection and self-evaluation. Although metacognitive functions are personal, they cannot be explained simply by individual conceptions, especially in a collaborative group learning context. This study considers metacognitive awareness on multiple levels. It investigates how metacognitive awareness at the individual, social, and environmental levels are associated with collaborative problem solving (CPS). Seventy-seven higher education students collaborated in triads on a computer-based simulation about running a fictional company for 12 simulated months. The individual level of metacognitive awareness was measured using the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory. The social level of metacognitive awareness was measured multiple times during CPS through situated self-reports, that is, metacognitive judgements and task difficulty. The environmental level of metacognitive awareness was measured via a complex CPS process so that group members’ interactions were video recorded and facial expression data were created by post-processing video-recorded data. Perceived individual and group performance were measured with self-reports at the end of the CPS task. In the analysis, structural equation modelling was conducted to observe the relationships between multiple levels of metacognitive awareness and CPS task performance. Three-level multilevel modelling was also used to understand the effect of environmental-level metacognitive awareness. The results reveal that facial expression recognition makes metacognitive awareness visible in a collaborative context. This study contributes to research on metacognition by displaying both the relatively static and dynamic aspects of metacognitive awareness in CPS.

Exploring the diffusion of digital fashion and influencers' social roles in the Metaverse: an analysis of Twitter hashtag networks

PurposeThe study aims to explore the digital fashion trend within the Metaverse, characterized by non-fungible tokens (NFTs), across Twitter networks. Integrating theories of diffusion of innovation, two-step flow of communication and self-efficacy, the authors aimed to uncover the diffusion structure and the influencer's social roles undertaken by social entities in fostering communication and collaboration for the advancement of Metaverse fashion.Design/methodology/approachSocial network analysis examined the critical graph metrics to profile, visualize, and cluster the unstructured network data. The authors used the NodeXL program to analyze two hashtag keyword networks, “#metaverse fashion” and “#metawear,” using Twitter API data. Cluster, semantic, and time series analyses were performed to visualize the contents and contexts of communication and collaboration in the diffusion of Metaverse fashion.FindingsThe results unraveled the “broadcast network” structure and the influencers' social roles of opinion leaders and market mavens within Twitter's “#metaverse fashion” diffusion. The roles of innovators and early adopters among influencers were comparable in collaborating within the competition venues, promoting awareness and participation in digital fashion diffusion during specific “fad” periods, particularly when digital fashion NFTs and cryptocurrencies became intertwined with the competition in the Metaverse.Originality/valueThe study contributed to theory building by integrating three theories, emphasizing effective communication and collaboration among influencers, organizations, and competition venues in broadcasting digital fashion within shared networks. The validation of multi-faceted Social Network Analysis was crucial for timely insights, highlighting the critical digital fashion equity in capturing consumers' attention and driving engagement and ownership of Metaverse fashion.

Dyadic cooperation with human and artificial agents: Event-related potentials trace dynamic role taking during an interactive game.

Humans are highly co-operative and thus cognitively, affectively, and motivationally tuned to pursue shared goals. Yet, cooperative tasks typically require people to constantly take and switch individual roles. Task relevance is dictated by these roles and thereby dynamically changing. Here, we designed a dyadic game to test whether the family of P3 components can trace this dynamic allocation of task relevance. We demonstrate that late positive event-related potential (ERP) modulations not only reflect predictable asymmetries between receiving and sending information but also differentiate whether the receiver's role is related to correct decision making or action monitoring. Furthermore, similar results were observed when playing the game with a computer, suggesting that experimental games may motivate humans to similarly cooperate with an artificial agent. Overall, late positive ERP waves provide a real-time measure of how role taking dynamically shapes the meaning and relevance of stimuli within collaborative contexts. Our results, therefore, shed light on how the processes of mutual coordination unfold during dyadic cooperation.

Who's the winner? Children's math learning in competitive and collaborative scenarios.

Games are frequently used to promote math learning, yet the competitive and collaborative contexts introduced by games may exacerbate gender differences. In this study, 1st and 2nd grade children in the U.S. (ages 5-8; N = 274; 70% White, 15% Asian, 2% Black, 1% Native American, 14% mixed or other race; 17% Hispanic) played either a competitive, collaborative, or solo game to learn about a challenging novel math concept: proportion. Overall, both social contexts boosted perseverance and task attitudes. However, analyses revealed the competitive condition yielded gender differences in attention to proportion in the presence of competing cues, with older boys underperforming in the competition condition. Potential explanations for these findings, as well as implications for classroom math learning, are discussed.

Understanding university enterprise collaboration for disaster resilience in South-East Asia

Purpose This paper is part of the ERASMUS+-funded Strengthening University Enterprise Collaboration for Resilient Communities in Asia (SECRA) project. This study aims to map collaborative architecture between partner universities and the public/private sectors to provide a contextualised collaboration framework for disaster resilience (DR) in South-East Asia. Design/methodology/approach Documentary reviews were conducted in partner countries to establish the current context of university enterprise collaborations (UEC) in South-East Asia. A concept-centric approach permitted the synthesis of concepts from each country review, allowing for comparisons between collaborative practices that impact the success of DR collaborations. Findings The review identified that funding, continuity, long-term strategic plans and practical implementation are lacking in partner countries. However, each country demonstrated good practices and identified enablers and barriers that impact DR collaborations. Research limitations/implications The synthesis revealed a lack of a practical understanding of real-world barriers. Further research is needed to understand real-world experiences in DR collaborations and to provide insights into barriers, enablers and good practices in DR collaborations. Gaining an “on-the-ground” perspective will provide detailed insights and the feasibility of implementation. Practical implications The findings provide the foundations for developing a heuristic UEC framework that can inform policies and practices for DR in partner countries. Social implications The findings can inform various stakeholder policies and practices and promote the exchange of ideas between stakeholders to enhance DR in South-East Asia. Originality/value The results are relevant within the South-East Asian, as governments have intensified the adoption of measures to encourage UEC for DR.

Designing interagency responses to wicked problems: A viable system model board game

Government agencies struggle to address wicked problems because they are open-ended, highly interdependent issues that cross agency, stakeholder, jurisdictional, and geopolitical boundaries. While both quantitative modelling and qualitative problem structuring methodologies have been used to support interagency decision making in the past, co-designing an effective interagency organization to collaboratively tackle wicked problems is more challenging. Few approaches have been developed to enable such efforts. This paper explains how the viable system model (VSM) was implemented through a board game, which was employed to co-design an interagency meta-organization that would be capable of more effectively collaborating to jointly address a wicked problem: international organized drug crime and its interface with local gangs in Chicago, USA. The board game was developed to make the VSM easier for the participants to learn, given that the cybernetic language and engineering-influenced diagrams in the original literature can be off-putting to leaders and managers. The board game was used as the final stage of a multi-method, systemic approach, which involved boundary critique and problem structuring as well as deployment of the VSM. The research findings indicate that the VSM board game, used as part of a larger mixed-methods systemic intervention, contributes to building trust in the value of systems thinking amongst the participants, and sets up a rich context for collaboration on multi-agency co-design. The game therefore offers significant promise as part of the co-design of interagency responses to wicked problems because it creates an embodied process for stakeholders to learn about the VSM. It also reduces the work involved in this learning. Thus, the game enables an effective appropriation of the VSM language and criteria.

Self-efficacy for learning beliefs in collaborative contexts: relations to pre-service early childhood teachers’ vicarious teaching self-efficacy

The importance of academic self-efficacy generally outweighs social self-efficacy in teacher training in academia. Given the teaching profession is collaborative career, social self-efficacy should play a significant role in the success of teacher training within and outside of academia. Students taking an early childhood teacher training program in a tertiary institute in Hong Kong (N = 513) responded to survey items concerning three personal self-efficacy for learning variables (academic self-efficacy, social self-efficacy and control of learning) and vicarious experiences as a source of teaching self-efficacy. Academic self-efficacy, social self-efficacy and control of learning were found to be (1) related but distinctive to one another, and (2) positively related to vicarious experiences as a source of teaching self-efficacy. Practicum experience was found to have no significant impact on any of the personal self-efficacy for learning variables and the social-oriented vicarious source of teaching self-efficacy. This study suggested that as a source of teaching self-efficacy for pre-service teachers, vicarious experiences could be as important as experiences of teaching skills mastery. Moreover, practicum that does not optimize the interplay of personal self-efficacy for learning variables with vicarious experiences as a source of teaching self-efficacy, and does not fully consider cultural sensitivities, would not contribute significantly to teachers’ learning and social competence. The development of different domains of self-efficacy is not only affected by different sources of teaching self-efficacy but also varies between pre-service and experienced teachers. This study renewed the existing understanding of the reciprocal influences of personal self-efficacy for learning and vicarious experiences as a source of teaching efficacy, which can be fostered by teacher education programs. Future studies will be required to explore the culturalization of sources of teaching self-efficacy, how different components of personal self-efficacy for learning change over career stages and time, and how the transfer of learning between practicum and academia can be further enhanced.

Perspectives of Speech-Language Pathologists and Students on Providing Care to People Living With Dementia: A Scoping Review.

This scoping review aimed to explore the extant literature on the experiences and views of speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and SLP students regarding the provision of care to people living with dementia (PLWD). A systematic search was conducted using 10 databases for sources published in English from January 2000 through January 2022. Sources were included if participants were practicing SLPs and/or students enrolled in undergraduate communicative disorders or graduate SLP programs and if the concepts of experiences or views on the provision of SLP services to PLWD were explored in the context of any clinical or educational setting. Included sources were systematically extracted for pertinent study characteristics, including SLP roles and settings, concept domains, measures utilized, and facilitators/barriers to effective dementia care. The majority of the 29 included sources were published in either academic journals (n = 20) or professional organization publications (n = 5) and used a cross-sectional study design (n = 19). Participants included SLPs (n = 22 studies) and graduate (n = 6 studies), undergraduate (n = 3 studies), and doctoral students (n = 1 study). The included studies addressed five primary conceptual domains: experiences, attitudes, roles, knowledge, and confidence. The most commonly addressed barriers and facilitators of effective dementia care were education and training. Mapping and analysis of the current body of knowledge within this scoping review illuminated several knowledge gaps that we propose need to be addressed to meet the education and training needs of SLPs to provide optimal care to PLWD. These include systematically measuring access to and outcomes of evidence-based education and training programs both within and outside of an interprofessional collaborative context.

Can you see Orion?: knowledge construction and collaborative discourse while problem solving with virtual reality

ABSTRACT Immersive technologies have the potential to play unique roles in the collaborative problem-solving process. To advance research in these contexts, new methods of documenting group collaboration with technology are necessary. The goal of this paper is to develop and utilize a coding scheme that enables investigation of the nature of collaborative interactions within the context of a shared virtual reality (VR) and tablet computer astronomy simulation. This multi-device environment was integrated into the laboratory learning of an undergraduate introductory astronomy course. Two exemplar groups were identified and reviewed for diversity of collaboration and technology interactions. Informed by existing coding practices for collaborative learning, these observations were then used to generate the coding scheme. Coding results reveal that task complexity contributed to an increase in diverse collaboration, and users who switched between technology platforms showed marked differences in their interactions with group members. Moments of discourse when group members were sharing the same simulation view were typically oriented around the acquisition of new knowledge and were often followed by bursts of productive discourse. We discuss the utility of our coding scheme alongside implications of this work via insight into what constitutes understanding in collaborative contexts augmented by immersive and networked technologies.

Leadership shaping social comparison to improve performance: A field experiment

We analyze a fundamental, but so far unaddressed, aspect of leadership and social comparison: how leadership can influence the employee social comparison processes inherent to performance contexts such that they are more conducive to subsequent performance. Based on the observation that people tend to compare in counterproductive ways, which detracts from future performance, we advance and test theory on how leaders can improve employee performance by influencing the social comparison processes between them. Results from a randomized field experiment in a contact center with objective performance data from 290 employees show that leadership focused on influencing assimilative social comparison improved performance in the five months after the intervention. As hypothesized, this effect was mediated by employee assimilative social comparison and was only obtained when leaders created a collaborative context in which to influence the assimilative social comparison. Our theory and findings have important implications for both leadership and social comparison research.

Supporting Collaboration in Rehabilitation Trajectories With Information and Communication Technologies: Scoping Review.

Despite a surge in health information and communication technology (ICT), there is little evidence of lowered cost or increased quality of care. ICT may support patients, health care providers, and other stakeholders through complex rehabilitation trajectories by offering digital platforms for collaboration, shared decision-making, and safe storage of data. Yet, the questions on how ICT can become a useful tool and how the complex intersection between producers and users of ICT should be solved are challenging. This study aims to review the literature on how ICTs are used to foster collaboration among the patient, the provider, and other stakeholders. This scoping review follows the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews) guidelines. Studies were identified by searching MEDLINE (OVID), Embase (OVID), CINAHL (EBSCOhost), AMED (EBSCOhost), and Scopus. Unpublished studies were extracted from OAIster, Bielefeld Academic Search Engine, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, NARIC, and Google Scholar. Eligible papers addressed or described a remote dialogue between stakeholders using ICT to address goals and means, provide decision support, or evaluate certain treatment modalities within a rehabilitation context. Due to the rapid development of ICTs, searches included studies published in the period of 2018-2022. In total, 3206 papers (excluding duplicates) were screened. Three papers met all inclusion criteria. The papers varied in design, key findings, and key challenges. These 3 studies reported outcomes such as improvements in activity performance, participation, frequency of leaving the house, improved self-efficacy, change in patients' perspective on possibilities, and change in professionals' understanding of patients' priorities. However, a misfit between the participants' needs and the technology offered, complexity and lack of availability of the technology, difficulties with implementation and uptake, and lack of flexibility in setup and maintenance reduced the value of ICT for those involved in the studies. The low number of included papers is probably due to the complexity of remote collaboration with ICT. ICT has the potential to facilitate communication among stakeholders in the complex and collaborative context of rehabilitation trajectories. This scoping review indicates that there is a paucity of research considering remote ICT-supported collaboration in health care and rehabilitation trajectories. Furthermore, current ICT builds on eHealth literacy, which may differ among stakeholders, and the lack of sufficient eHealth literacy and ICT knowledge creates barriers for access to health care and rehabilitation. Lastly, the aim and results of this review are probably most relevant in high-income countries.

Re-centring and recovering knowledge about climate-friendly agriculture: Learning from a woman African indigenous knowledge holder

abstract Patriarchal capitalist colonisation has bestowed on the world civilisational crises, including climate change and the spread of virulent pandemics. The agri-food model, which has been moulded by the contours of the modern capitalist enterprise, is a key source of chemical pollution from artificial fertilisers, and air pollution from greenhouse gases. The consequent killing of soil and water biomes, and the warming of the planet from these pollutants, increases vulnerability of those who bear the brunt of socio-economic, gender and cultural inequity. We departed from the focus on vulnerable populations in climate change disasters, and adopted a feminist critical approach, by casting our gaze towards geo-epistemic Southern regions. In our qualitative research project, we sought intersectional solutions to climate change in the form of educational interventions. We tapped into the knowledge repository of one purposively selected woman African indigenous knowledge holder, who taught fifteen practising science teachers who were enrolled in an Honours degree about climate friendly agriculture. Bringing the voice of a woman African indigenous knowledge holder to the centre repositioned the locus of enunciation and generated a fertile Southern feminist context for collaboration. Teachers experienced hands-on learning under the guidance of the indigenous knowledge holder. Among other practices they used animal waste, which they worked into the soil, and hoes to manually turn soil, thereby limiting disturbance to the soil ecosystem. Teachers documented their learning in portfolios of evidence, and written reflections, which were subjected to content analysis. The careful use of manure from animals and limiting the use of fossil fuels in creating food gardens, were insights gained by the teachers. Hegemonic rules about who qualifies as a legitimate teacher in higher education and what can be admitted as legitimate scientific knowledge, were blurred. The woman who taught about how African indigenous knowledge can inform sustainable food production, contributed towards the building of epistemic justice within the broader social justice context. Through this intercultural dialogue teachers learned to teach about African medicinal plants, the advantages of crop rotation, as well as preparing soil for garden beds. Teachers embraced knowledge from the South and transcended curriculum boundaries.

Student Versus Expert Outlines in Reading Comprehension: The Effect of Collaborative Construction

Reading comprehension is a basic skill that influences the outcomes of language learning. The role played by using different cognitive organizers and collaboration as well in the improvement of reading comprehension of academic texts has been a subject of recent literature. Hence, this study employed the experimental 2 × 2 factorial design to identify the difference in effect of two types of outlines, student-constructed versus expert-constructed, on EFL learners’ reading comprehension across two modes of learning, collaborative and individual. Participants were 161 English majors from a reading intact English course at a Saudi university. They were randomly assigned into four treatment groups, two student-constructed and two expert-constructed outlines groups. After ensuring a homogenous level of the four groups in reading comprehension, the groups had the reading comprehension test on one mode of application; collaborative student-constructed, collaborative expert-constructed, individual student-constructed, and individual expert-constructed outlines. The findings revealed that there was a significant main effect among the four groups in reading comprehension scores favoring the student-constructed outlines groups. Besides that, the findings indicated that the collaborative student-constructed outlining is the most effective mode. The implications are discussed in terms of the efficacy of student-construction of outlines in a collaborative context and recommend its significance in supporting EFL learners’ reading comprehension of academic texts.

Enhancing Teachers’ Questioning Skills to Improve Children’s Learning and Thinking in Pacific Island Early Childhood Centres

As we move from a teacher-led mode of teaching and learning to more child-initiated approaches, questions rather than answers are imperative in shaping the socio-cognitive development of learners as they explore and make meaning in collaborative contexts. This paper outlines an action research study with 20 Pacific Island teachers held in 6 different Pacific Island early childhood centres. The participants of the study were trained on a modified model of ‘Questioning and Understanding Improves Learning and Thinking’ (QUILT) that focused on different teacher behaviours and skills in the process of questioning. Important changes in beliefs and practices were found after the intervention particularly in relation to the fostering of divergent thinking through the type of questions teachers asked and how they undertook the questioning episodes. This paper concludes that it is important to focus on promoting novice teachers’ knowledge and skills in questioning so that they can support children’s higher levels of thinking. This is especially relevant for teachers in Pacific Island early childhood centres.

Community Collaboration with Tourism Stakeholders: Issues and Challenges to Promote Sustainable Community Development in Annapurna Sanctuary Trail, Nepal

Community participation and collaboration among tourism stakeholders are considered key to promote sustainable tourism planning and development in the destinations. This study aims to critically analyse the role and context of community collaboration with tourism stakeholders to promote sustainable community development in the case of Annapurna Sanctuary Trail (AST) in the Annapurna Conservation Area of Nepal. It has adopted multiple tools of data collection such as household’s survey, key informants interview, participant observation, informal discussion with local residents and archival research for examining the role and context of community collaboration with tourism stakeholders in settlements around AST. The survey results revealed that the current approach of ecotourism development is tenuous and does not truly satisfy the key objectives of ecotourism i.e. fostering inclusive participation and stakeholder’s collaboration. Although tourism has brought significant impacts on the local communities; the extent of these impacts is usually different with difference in the location of households, their level of interaction and exposure with tourists, their capacity and power to involve and influence the participation and collaboration process, and their education, skills, and financial resources. Overall, the existing approach to ecotourism planning is not able to implement the effective and efficient form of collaboration, and hence local community specifically farmers receive minimal benefits from the tourism. It is suggested to empower and enhance the collaborative capacity of local residents to actively participate and influence the planning process for receiving maximum benefits and promoting sustainable community development.

Strategi Lobi dan Negosiasi Awardee BSI Scholarship Inspirasi UNJ Dalam Menjalin Kerjasama Pada Program SIBERKASIH di Kampung Pure Bali Rawamangun

Lobbying and negotiation are the strategic aspects used to construct reassurance and agreement on a common goal. Therefore, it is aligned with the collaboration context carried out by the UNJ BSI Scholarship Inspiration Awardee in creating a SIBERKASIH program with the residents of Kampung Pure Bali Rawamangun. BSI Scholarship Inspiration UNJ is an association of Jakarta State University students who received scholarship from the BSI Scholarship Inspiration program under Bank Syariah Indonesia and BSI Maslahat. SIBERKASIH (Smart, Inspirasi, Penuh kasih) was created to offer free English Language course using fun-learning method to develop the children's English knowledge and skills. This research used a descriptive qualitative approach using interview to collect the accurate data stated by particular people who performed the lobbying and negotiation technique. This study found that there are several lobbying and negotiation strategies that took place in the cooperation. Those are direct lobbying strategy and the negotiation strategy that prioritizes the benefits of both parties.

Evaluation of Federated Learning in Phishing Email Detection.

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) to detect phishing emails is primarily dependent on large-scale centralized datasets, which has opened it up to a myriad of privacy, trust, and legal issues. Moreover, organizations have been loath to share emails, given the risk of leaking commercially sensitive information. Consequently, it has been difficult to obtain sufficient emails to train a global AI model efficiently. Accordingly, privacy-preserving distributed and collaborative machine learning, particularly federated learning (FL), is a desideratum. As it is already prevalent in the healthcare sector, questions remain regarding the effectiveness and efficacy of FL-based phishing detection within the context of multi-organization collaborations. To the best of our knowledge, the work herein was the first to investigate the use of FL in phishing email detection. This study focused on building upon a deep neural network model, particularly recurrent convolutional neural network (RNN) and bidirectional encoder representations from transformers (BERT), for phishing email detection. We analyzed the FL-entangled learning performance in various settings, including (i) a balanced and asymmetrical data distribution among organizations and (ii) scalability. Our results corroborated the comparable performance statistics of FL in phishing email detection to centralized learning for balanced datasets and low organizational counts. Moreover, we observed a variation in performance when increasing the organizational counts. For a fixed total email dataset, the global RNN-based model had a 1.8% accuracy decrease when the organizational counts were increased from 2 to 10. In contrast, BERT accuracy increased by 0.6% when increasing organizational counts from 2 to 5. However, if we increased the overall email dataset by introducing new organizations in the FL framework, the organizational level performance improved by achieving a faster convergence speed. In addition, FL suffered in its overall global model performance due to highly unstable outputs if the email dataset distribution was highly asymmetric.

Chronotope, technology affordances, and task design: using WeChat to facilitate Chinese learning in the classroom

AbstractThis paper makes a case for the Bakhtinian concept of “chronotope” in explaining the space–time affordances of technology in second language pedagogy. It examines the production of space–time that intersects online/offline, formal/informal and local/translocal activities in task-based language teaching. Drawing on an example of instructional design using WeChat to facilitate the learning of business Chinese, this paper illustrates that the chronotopic affordances of mobile apps such as WeChat, when creatively integrated with task-based language pedagogy, can significantly expand the learning mobility and opportunities defined by the classroom in its traditional sense. This chronotopic expansion enables learners to be positioned in digitally mediated and simulated scenarios and roles that transcend the space–time of the classroom, closely resembling real-world communication in the globalising world. It is suggested that language task design, taking into account the chronotopic affordances of technology, can facilitate authentic and networked space–time of learning by embedding it in mobile, hybrid, individualised and collaborative contexts. The chronotope concept helps us not only critically understand the complexity of mobile-assisted language learning but also theoretically reimagine the classroom chronotopes and the roles, relationships and processes of learning in an increasingly technology-based knowledge economy in post-pandemic education.

Guiding the Lean Design of a Hospital's New Laboratory: A Case Study.

To present the process used by a clinical laboratory to guide the design of their new facility, part of a major campus expansion at a pediatric hospital. The primary objective was to generate information about arrangement and allocation of laboratory space and functional flows in the early phases of the expansion project. Seattle Children's Hospital has increased the capacity of their primary campus in response to growing demand for specialized services. The clinical laboratory was identified as one of the functional groups that would move their operations to the new building. The clinical laboratory team agreed on a three-stage process to guide the development of their initial design specifications: formulate the concept, develop design alternatives, and evaluate those alternatives. The different tasks were executed successfully. The process defined-based on Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA)-provided a context for collaboration among sections of the clinical laboratory, reducing silo thinking, so common in the specialized sections within a large clinical laboratory. The process was developed to guide the lean design efforts, even when initial space and location parameters had not yet been decided and was sufficiently flexible to accommodate changes in the project constraints and emergent information generated by the concurrent design activities of other hospital functional groups to be included in the campus expansion. The three-stage process allowed the team to review each laboratory section's complexity, create multiple conceptual designs for review, and ultimately increase the likelihood of an efficient physical configuration that would satisfy a diverse group of stakeholders.