The Center for Collaboration Science has made great strides in all three of its mission areas.
Research
Center faculty members have acquired over $8 million in grants. USSTRATCOM, for example, provided $250,000 to a team from the Center to help reduce military decision cycles.
Collaboration science researchers also were awarded a $2.4 million grant to develop the next generation of collaboration technology for the Department of Defense. QA3, a fast-growing local company in the Financial Services industry, funded a full-time researcher to apply the concepts of Collaboration Engineering to wealth management teams.
Other Center researchers supported Woodmen of the World Life Insurance to execute a collaborative organizational redesign effort. Faculty and student members of the Center have published over 40 peer-reviewed journal articles on collaboration science.
Education
Center faculty members are working toward a cross-disciplinary graduate and undergraduate collaboration curriculum. The Center’s initial collaboration courses have been fully subscribed each semester. With the assistance of private funding, a Distinguished Lecture Series has brought thought leaders from many collaboration-related disciplines to the University, where students, faculty, and community members fill lecture halls for their presentations. For example:
- Dr. Jay F. Nunamaker Jr., one of the pioneers of collaboration technology development and research, addressed the methodology, history, lessons learned, and future directions for structured collaboration research.
- Dr. Neal Ashkanasy, a world-renowned Industrial/Organizational Psychology researcher, lectured on emotions in different levels of collaboration between individuals and groups.
- Dr. Eduardo Salas, a leader in collaboration-related psychology research, provided an overview of the past 25 years of team research.
- Finally, the Center has organized nine annual campuswide research seminars, the most recent of which was attended by 80 participants from within and outside the university.
Service
The Center has provided voluntary services and has subsidized fees for its expertise for various UNO programs like public conversations. This endeavor involved all stakeholders of UNO in a discussion on the skill and knowledge requirements. The Center designed the repeatable process to facilitate these conversations.
Many faculty and students were trained as practitioners to lead the process. These trainings also enabled the creation of a self-sustaining work practice to solicit campuswide feedback on institutional issues. It has also offered services to the community in the form of facilitating meetings for subsidized fees to organizations like Westside high school, the Learning Community, among others.