Lessons learned and future directions: designing for multidisciplinarity in collaborative innovation networks (COINs)

This paper describes lessons learned through participation in the collaborative online innovation networks (COINs) seminar, a multidisciplinary collaboration involving global virtual team (GVT) projects. The paper is a narrative case study based on insights gained through four COINs seminars. Lessons learned suggest a need for explicit learning objectives that prepare students beyond the use of technical platforms and tools. Significant opportunities for learning are rooted in the multidisciplinary and multicultural context of the seminar and the interactions that occur between GVT members. The case underscores the importance of social learning as a means of identifying and understanding the mechanisms that facilitate or inhibit collaboration at the team level. Insights from the seminar have led us to think about how the linkage between social learning, collaboration, and the knowledge sharing challenges encountered by multidisciplinary global virtual teams might be integrated into a theoretical framework to guide the development of explicit learning objectives.