From The Theme
CONTEXTUAL FUTURES FOR SMART PERSONAL DEVICES

WHAT IF?
What if ubiquitous wearable sensors and smart devices could be leveraged to augment global team interaction, improve team dynamics, and unlock new team potential?

WHAT WE SET OUT TO DO
We proposed Arche, a concept-proving project aimed at uncovering interaction archetypes in global teamwork in a project-based learning context that educates the next generation workforce. The Arche project set out to integrate team members’ biometrics and psycho-physiological sensor data in order to formalize interaction archetypes and improve team dynamics and well-being. Statistical analysis and machine learning algorithms were used to detect patterns and uncover better ways to quantify and analyze interactions in global teamwork.

WHAT WE FOUND
We leveraged quantitative and qualitative data from global project team meetings to explore and develop innovative analytics, indicators, visualizations and feedback mechanisms. We also identified and visualized mood, arousal, valence, movement and temper at individual and group levels. On the basis of this multifaceted data, we developed performance indicators for productive, disruptive, and less effective interaction archetypes.

These powerful interaction archetypes provide a fresh lens through which researchers and educators can examine distributed education programs and distributed knowledge work settings. These investigations can serve to improve collaborative distance-learning and knowledge work, and provide recommendations for further developments of smart devices, applications, and workspaces to improve learning, teamwork, and productivity.

LEARN MORE
mediaX Research Update, Fall 2016

PBL Lab

Frank, M., Fruchter, R., and Leinikka, M. (2016) “Global Teamwork: Components of Engaging and Productive Meetings” ICCCBE-XVI 16th International Conference on Computing in Civil and Building Engineering, Osaka, July 2016

Frank, Maria & Tofighi, Ghassem & Gu, Haisong & Fruchter, Renate. (2016). “Engagement Detection in Meetings.” International Conference on Computing in Civil and Building Engineering, ICCCBE 2016

Fruchter, R. & Medlock, L. (2015) “A Journey from Islands of Knowledge to Mutual Understanding in Global Business Meetings,” AI & Soc. 2015. 30:4. 477-419. doi:10.1007/s00146-014-0558-3

PEOPLE BEHIND THE PROJECT
Kincho Law is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Structural Engineering and Engineering Informatics. Professor Law’s professional and research interests focus on the applications of computational and information science in engineering. His work has dealt with various aspects of computational science and engineering, computer aided design, legal and engineering informatics, engineering enterprise integration, web services and Internet computing.

Renate Fruchter is the founding director of the Project Based Learning Laboratory (PBL Lab), lecturer in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Senior Research Engineer thrust leader of “Collaboration Technologies” at the Center for Integrated Facilities Engineering (CIFE), at Stanford. She leads a research effort to develop collaboration technologies for multidisciplinary, geographically distributed teamwork, and e-Learning.

Flavia Grey is a Ph.D. Candidate in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University, where she got her Master’s degree in Sustainable Design and Construction. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Mechatronics Engineering from Universidad Panamericana in Mexico City. Her research leverages the latest sensor technologies to address the need to raise occupant awareness of their psycho-physiological state towards enhancing well-being and improving knowledge work productivity, and for buildings to dynamically support this effort in a sustainable manner.

Yael Cohen is a MA student in Learning Design and Technology at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education. She served as a Research Assistant in the PBL from 2016-2017.