The document discusses the importance of multidisciplinary collaboration in research, as nature and societal problems are complex and benefit from multiple perspectives. It outlines the steps in collaborative writing such as brainstorming ideas, dividing work, and providing feedback through drafting and revision. Successful collaboration requires overcoming challenges like poor communication through mutual understanding and treating each other as integral parts of the research team.

1. COLLABORATIVE
RESEARCH WORK
WEEK 2

2. By the end of this lecture, students
should be able to,
• Identify the importance of multidisciplinary
collaboration work
• Identify the steps needed in collaborative
writing
• Suggest ways to minimize challenges

3. “For 2000 years, the advancement of knowledge in
western civilization has taken a path of increasing
specialization. We have approached understanding our
world by deconstructing it into smaller and smaller
fragments creating the disciplines and subdisciplines in
order to be able to predict, or at least to explain,
behaviour in nature, individuals, and society. In today’s
knowledge landscape there are powerful drivers for
multidisciplinary research. Through simple
collaboration, researchers from different disciplines can
accomplish more by teaming. .”

4. “Interdisciplinary research moves beyond simple
collaboration and teaming to integrate data,
methodologies, perspectives, and concepts from
multiple disciplines in order to advance fundamental
understanding or to solve real world
problems. Interdisciplinary research requires either that
an individual researcher gains a depth of understanding
two or more than one discipline and be fluent in their
languages and methodologies, or more frequently that
multidisciplinary teams assemble and create a common
language and framework for discovery and innovation.”

5.  “The drivers for interdisciplinary research are varied.
 In the first instance, nature and society are complex,
and our innate curiosity to understand the elements
and forces within them requires examination from the
perspective of multiple disciplines.
 Importantly, we have a critical need to solve societal
problems in a world that is subject to many forces:
 The example most urgently felt at this time is the
consequence of failing to fully understand all of the
forces unleashed by the free movement of capital and
globalization.”
.”

6. “Finally, we know that the tools that we have available to
examine our world are most often transformational
when drawn from outside the discipline that developed
them; such as the discovery of X-rays by physicists and
their impact on medicine, or the creation of the internet
by the military and its impact on communication in
society at large..”
Professor Jill Trewhella
Professor of Molecular and Microbial Bioscience and a former Director of
Bioscience at America’s top nuclear research facility
http://globalhighered.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/multidisciplinary-research-an-
essential-driver-for-innovation/

7. COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH WORK
• WATCH THIS VIDEO on multidisciplinary team

8. COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH WORK
• http://www.addiesolutions.com/people.teamwork.htm

9. COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH WORK
• http://genevievetaylor.com/2010/09/23/4-keys-to-building-high-performance-teamwork/

10. STAGES OF COLLABORATIVE
WRITING
REVISION
CLARITY
COHERENCE
CORRECT
COMPLETE
DRAFTING
DIVISION OF WORK
USE OF
TECHNOLOGY
INVENTION
BRAINSTORM ON
IDEAS
SHARED INTEREST
Some of the
CHALLENGES can be:
• Poor listening skills
• Poor time management
• Monopoly
• Difference in opinion and
Interpretation
• Unequal division of tasks
• Lack of commitment shown by team
members.

11. BUT REMEMBER THAT…
The strength of the Muslim community lies in its unity. Allah says in the Noble
Quran:
{And hold fast all together by the rope which Allah (stretches out for you) and
be not divided among yourselves; and remember with gratitude Allah's favor on
you; for ye were enemies and He joined your hearts in love so that by His grace
ye became brethren; and ye were on the brink of the pit of fire and He saved
you from it. Thus doth Allah make his signs clear to you: that ye may be
guided.} (Al-Imran 3:103)
And in a hadith:
“Faithful believers are to each other as the bricks of a wall, supporting and
reinforcing each other. So saying, the Prophet Muhammad clasped his hands
by interlocking his fingers.” (Al-Bukhari)
Video 1- Teamwork in Islam
• /

12. AND COLLABORATION CAN BE
REWARDING AS…
• It can enrich your reading and writing.
• It can be thought provoking as you take an evaluative
and analytical stance as you read.
• It can foster good intellectual and ethical development
• You can “make a crucial contribution to the whole of
intellectual activity” ( Zeiger, 1985, p. 457)
• The end.

13. Questions:
• Why is multidisciplinary collaboration work
important?
• What are the steps involved in the
collaborative research writing?
• Can you identify any possible common
research areas to work on?
• What would you do to minimize the possible
challenges?
• What can you gain from collaborative work?