What's in a move?: normal disruption and a design challenge

  • Authors:
  • Reza B. Zadeh;Aruna D. Balakrishnan;Sara Kiesler;Jonathon N. Cummings

  • Affiliations:
  • Carnegie Mellon, PIttsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA;Carnegie Mellon, PIttsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA;Carnegie Mellon, PIttsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA;Duke University, Durham, N. Carolina, USA

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
  • Year:
  • 2011

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Abstract

The CHI community has led efforts to support teamwork, but has neglected team disruption, as may occur if team members relocate to another institution. We studied moves in 548 interdisciplinary research projects with 2691 researchers (PIs). Moves, and thus disruptions, were not rare, especially in large distributed projects. Overall, one-third of all projects experienced at least one member relocating but most moves reflected churn across high-ranking institutions. When collaborators moved, the project was disrupted. Our data suggest that moves exemplify normal disruptions. A design challenge is to help projects adapt to disruption.