Collaborative Philosophy Research Articles

Innovation through collaboration: scaling up solutions for sustainable development

The open collaborative philosophy employed in the success of open source (OS) software can be applied to hardware design. Specifically, the development of OS appropriate technologies (OSAT) can improve sustainable development efforts worldwide. Yet, widespread OSAT use is far from ubiquitous. Given that lack of communication, access to information and poor collaboration are among the largest barriers to a more effective OSAT dissemination, this paper explores opportunities to overcome such obstacles using four techniques: (1) collaborative online platforms, (2) crowd-sourcing, (3) the concept of knowledge commons, and (4) enabled educational institutions through service learning and applied research. The results are analyzed, and conclusions are drawn that outline paths to higher multiuser collaboration for OSAT deployment.

So Long, Silos

So Long, Silos

“Acute caring” in the emergency department

The aim of this essay was to discuss the ways in which the dynamics of interprofessional communication and collaboration among healthcare providers ultimately affect patient quality of care in the acute setting. Interprofessionalism describes a care model whereby health providers use complementary skills, knowledge and competencies to provide quality care to a group of patients. These interactions are characterized by trust, respect and an understanding of each other's skill and knowledge. At its best, the interprofessional care model has made great strides in the amelioration of patient outcomes, including reduction in negative outcomes, decreased health access needs and increased patient satisfaction. However, challenges with regard to communication and implementation have translated to a steep learning curve for healthcare providers. As such, a new-found emphasis has been placed on interprofessional education for today's healthcare students with the goal of promoting a more efficient and collaborative philosophy for tomorrow's healthcare teams.

The Church and National Development: Towards a Philosophy of Collaboration

In many parts of Nigeria, many Christian Dioceses are celebrating their centenary- hundred years of evangelization within the particular area. As this has been the tag of several diocesan celebrations in the past five years, it has become relevant to examine the contribution of the Church to Nigeria's national development. The present study, using Catholic Church as a point of reference examines the contribution of the Catholic Church in the area of social justice, humanitarian services, education, morality, economic development and peace and her role as a prophet and the conscience of the nation. The result of this study will hopefully unveil the enormous contribution of the Catholic Church to national development. The paper further observes the need of the Church to constantly renew herself and her objectives as an institution. It recommends the inevitable need for the government to fully support the Church for an enhanced and sustainable national development.Keywords: Church, National, Development, Philosophy, Collaboration

Biochemistry meets biology: Key findings for bone calcification and a lifetime philosophy of collaboration

This ‘Biochemical Journal Classic’ paper reflects a remarkable example of how a biochemist and a biologist came together in the 1920s to solve a biological problem that set the stage for bone and cartilage research today, and demonstrates the great strengths and importance of interdisciplinary collaborations.

Biochemistry meets biology: key findings for bone calcification and a lifetime philosophy of collaboration

Biochemistry meets biology: key findings for bone calcification and a lifetime philosophy of collaboration

<i>Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance</i> (review)

Reviewed by: Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance José Medina Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance. Edited by Shannon Sullivan and Nancy Tuana. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007. Pp. 276. $28.95 pbk. 978-0-7914-7102-9. Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance is collaborative philosophy at its very best. The essays that the editors have assembled constitute a very successful critical intervention in philosophy through a set of challenging dialogues on race and epistemic practices. This critical intervention raises exciting questions for future generations of scholars in epistemology, race theory, political philosophy, and philosophy more generally. Drawing on the pioneering work of Charles Mills and standpoint epistemologists (e.g., Marilyn Frye and Sandra Harding), the essays in this volume identify problematic limitations and assumptions in traditional ways of philosophizing that have been pervasive. They delineate the contours of blind spots that operate both in academia and in the social world outside it, tracing their origins and their consequences. They identify questions that have gone not only unanswered but unasked for too long. The critical work that this volume does is innovative and at the same time firmly grounded in rich theoretical traditions that have been marginalized by the philosophical establishment (race theory, feminist theory, and—more recently—queer theory). In this sense, Lorraine Code calls attention to the philosophical excavations of Michèle Le Doeuff, who uncovers a forgotten critical tradition of women philosophers (such as Gabrielle Suchon in the seventeenth century) who offered critical reflections on the exclusions and distortions of masculine knowledge, providing critical tools to develop alternative epistemic practices. On the other hand, in African American philosophy there has been a long and important tradition of critical discourses that identify and diagnose racially motivated forms of ignorance. From DuBois to contemporary race theorists, racial ignorance has been shown to involve entrenched habits and attitudes that go well beyond a mere absence of true belief or a mere presence of false belief; racial ignorance has been shown to be based on a lack of interest to know and a lack of opportunities to explore social realities pertaining to race. As Elizabeth Spelman points out, this is the centerpiece of James Baldwin's powerful indictment of white America: "that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it" (119). This ignorance is based on a deeply seated epistemic resistance to know. It is a very active and resilient form of not-knowing, not a mere unwillingness to believe, not a mere casual neglect or a simple form of self-deception. It is an ignorance that requires a carefully orchestrated and laboriously maintained form of epistemic neglect, an unknowingness carefully [End Page 313] generated and supported by an entire range of institutions, practices, habits, and attitudes. This ignorance does not bear the mark of passivity but actually takes a lot of agency. As Spelman puts it, this form of ignorance is "an appalling achievement" that requires "grotesquely prodigious effort" (120); it is an ignorance that needs management. Spelman's analysis of epistemic management sketches a "route to undoing such ignorance" through an understanding of "the labor it takes to create and sustain it" (123). As many of the essays in this volume show, the proactive lack of epistemic concern for racial others is also a lack of concern for oneself in relation to these others, that is, an ignorance of one's racial positionality and responsibility. This ignorance—far from being a mere ideological excrescence, an accidental side effect of relations of oppression—is actually a fundamental cultural mechanism for safeguarding privilege and domination. Relations of oppression are protected by being erased from the minds of those who perpetrate them and sometimes (when possible) from the minds of those who suffer them. Sarah Hoagland offers an analysis of racial ignorance as based on a denial of meaningful relationality, which simultenously produces a lack of understanding of oneself and a lack of understanding of others with whom one is constitutively related. Paul Taylor and Shannon Sullivan illustrate this relational ignorance and its consequences by showing how U.S. citizens' ignorance of Haiti and Puerto Rico...

Legal consequences of data reporting and public perception: pitfalls of the regulatory system in municipal wastewater treatment facilities' pursuit of environmental advancement

Municipal wastewater treatment facilities undertake the challenge of furthering governmental and public policy objectives of protecting human health and minimizing negative impacts on the environment by treating wastewater gathered from municipal sewer systems. Current regulations and public opinion often fail to realize that these facilities are not polluters, but rather are treaters of pollution. Municipalities and treatment facilities are completely different creatures than for-profit industries yet broad and general application of environmental legislation often does not acknowledge their unique purpose. Required by law to engage in regular data reporting to regulators, facilities do not receive protection from civil proceedings or prosecution in exchange for this mandatory reporting. Facility operators are reasonably hesitant to volunteer any information at the risk of it later being used against them as an adversarial climate persistently shadows the relationship between facilities and regulators. Internationally recognized principles and practical realities must be considered in developing a regulatory scheme which fosters a philosophy of collaboration between every level of government and municipal wastewater treatment facilities.

Play with the Slinky®

How can training develop the philosophical commitment that library staff members need to successfully lead collaborative projects? How do conversation as a training model and play as an activity shape the collaborative learning process? How do we stimulate libraries and library staff to assume leadership roles in community building? This article is a study of a statewide training process designed to create opportunities for librarians to learn to lead collaborative community projects. It highlights the content, exercises, and methods used to stimulate learning. The workshops were facilitated as models of collaboration, and play, as well as sites of conversation about collaborative philosophy and techniques.

Student Academic Services: An Integrated Approach (review)

Reviewed by: Student Academic Services: An Integrated Approach James W. Kelley Student Academic Services: An Integrated Approach Gary L. Kramer & Associates San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003, 446 pages, $42.00 (hardcover) Student Academic Services is a collection of 20 chapters written by some of the profession's best thinkers and doers, offering an examination of current cutting edge practices and trends in student service. It also offers a challenge to the profession to create even more effective student academic services for the future. The book is divided into three parts. Part 1, "Taking a Strategic Approach to Student Development," reviews the evolution of student academic services in higher education. Part 2, "Profiles of Student Academic Services," describes the individual units typically associated with student affairs and discusses the process of "unifying staff members, simplifying services, enhancing systems and . . . providing students with better services." And part 3, "New Directions for Practice," demonstrates how collaborative efforts can ensure success in the development and delivery of effective academic support services. Briefly, the chapters are as follows: In chapter 1, "Stimulating and Supporting Student Learning," Roger B. Winston Jr. explores the overall concept of academic services within higher education with a commentary on the role of the "student-centric" institution and a thoughtful discussion of the development of integrated approaches to the delivery of student academic services. Chapter 2, "Student Academic Services," by Darlene Burnett and Diana Oblinger, presents a number of excellent examples of academic service models, including current practices and trends—with a particular emphasis on those represented in web-based models. In chapter 3, John Schuh focuses on "The Interrelationship of Student Academic Services," and discusses the potential role of student academic services in the development of a comprehensive enrollment management and retention program. Among the topics he considers are student retention efforts, examples of partnerships between academic and student affairs and recommendations for practice. Jim Black's presentation in chapter 4, "Enrollment Management and Conceptual Underpinnings," provides an excellent overview of enrollment management concepts and how they relate to student academic services. He also describes how the institution can change dramatically when these concepts are integrated with a philosophy of collaboration. In chapter 5, authors Gary W. Peterson, Janet G. Lenz, and James P. Sampson, Jr. discuss "The Assessment of Readiness for Student Learning in College." The authors propose a model to enhance the opportunities for student success by way of a point-of-entry comprehensive readiness assessment program. With this strategy students would have access to information to diagnose their individual readiness for college and then develop a plan for how their needs would be met within the campus community. In chapter 6, "New Student Orientation [End Page 357] in the Twenty-First Century," Bonita Jacobs reviews "traditional" new student orientation programs as they have existed. She then proceeds to highlight a variety of newer student orientation delivery options focusing on the integration of programs and services into a collaborative system. In addition, the author has provided an extensive bibliography. Chapter 7, "Course Planning and Registration," by Louise Lonabocker and J. James Wager, gives insight into issues with which many student affairs professionals have very little contact—course planning and student registration. If one is hoping to muster support for an integrated "academic" support system, then some of the detail in this chapter will be of great value even if it is not necessarily a part of the more traditional business of student affairs. Chapter 8, "Career Interventions: Facilitating Strategic Academic and Career Planning," by Robert C. Reardon and Jill A. Lumsden, explores "the varied ways in which career planning services operate on college campuses." Of particular note is the discussion of the student-centered career portfolio system. By making use of the Internet and campus-based information systems students can create a personal information base intended to help them prepare for long term career and life roles. In chapter 9, "Supporting Student Planning," Virginia Gordon and Gary Kramer focus on the integration of academic, career, and financial planning to support the concept of graduation planning. Persons seeking a solid understanding of the relevance good academic advising has to a student's overall personal and academic success will find...

The Harvard Joint Center for Radiation Therapy, 1968–1999: a unique concept and its relationship to the prevailing times in academic medicine

Purpose: Institutional structure, function, and philosophy reflect the organizational needs, and tend to mirror societal values of the times. For many years, the field of radiation oncology had among its major academic centers, an organization that served as a model for collaboration among health care institutions in an effort to serve the common good of its patients, hospitals, professional colleagues, and community. For over three decades, the Joint Center for Radiation Therapy (JCRT) was a leader in developing new organizational approaches for academic and clinical radiation oncology through the philosophy of collaboration in patient care, education, and research. Methods and Results: In tracing the development and changes in organizational philosophy and structure of the JCRT, one can see the impact on academic oncology and cancer care through the emergence of both radiation and medical oncology as independent subspecialties, the importance of the National Cancer Act of 1971 accompanied by the growth of the NIH research and training programs and, more recently, the effect of the changing attitudes and approaches of hospitals, academicians, practitioners, and policy makers to health care delivery, structures, and cooperation. Conclusion: Lessons learned from the 31-year history of the JCRT may help provide organizational insight useful in guiding academic oncology and academic medical centers through periods of change.

Reform across the border

Although the reorganisation of the health services in Scotland and Wales have the same broad intentions as in England, it will be carried out very differently. The general aim of the health plans are the same for all three countries. Broadly these are replacing the internal market with a system of long term agreements and a philosophy of collaboration. They also seek to design services around the needs of the patient and this includes moving decisions over what services should be provided to primary care level.

Organizational Communication and Leadership: A Collaborative Philosophy Toward Teaching Leadership with Syllabus

Basic elements of leading include serving, being a part of a team, going beyond human differences, and providing answers to difficult questions often under difficult circumstances. Progress and growth are dependent on effective leadership. In part, this is true because effective leaders provide vision. Through their vision leaders are able to influence, not only individuals, but organizations and often nations. Leadership is essential in organizations. Given the principle that everyone has the potential to be a leader, it is important for educators to provide courses designed to promote effective leadership and communication behavior in organizations.

College of pharmacy-teaching hospital relationships: Building strength

Perhaps the most important factor to focus on is that organizations work because of the people in them; also, they don't work because of the people in them. Perhaps some people in some of our organizations need changing. Hospitals and colleges face similar issues that need to be worked on together. The philosophy of collaboration needs adopting because competition will not provide the success desired by the college or the hospital. Without a strong commitment on the part of decision makers, time and effort will be wasted. There must be an active process. It can't be talked about only once a year. There should also be an ongoing, active process at the national level. We must build on our mutual needs. We must use positive approaches rather than developing more negative arguments. The key to success is to concentrate more heavily on communications, visibility, and accountability. F. Scott Fitzgerald put it this way: The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. We have three ideas that at times are in opposition. Service, education, and research can be integrated by applying the intelligence found in every teaching hospital and college of pharmacy.