Conceptual clarification in the context of CISSTO

This elucidation is joined to the Ibero-American Congress of Systemic Solutions for the Transformation of Organisations (CISSTO) as a means to facilitate interdisciplinary communication and, as a consequence, to leaverage knowledge co-creation accross the different disciplines gathered.

Motivation

In a scientific congress, as the present one, we exchange the findings and advances of our respective investigations and projects as a way to build up a larger common space of knowledge. Commonly, we find through the discussions of our approaches better ways to orient our further steps and to avoid errors or inefficiencies we made before. In a theoretical level, this process is essential in the common endeavour to achieve truths; in practical matters, this is the way to improve our common capacity to address the problems we are facing. Of course, there are also administrative and economic reasons, which are moving our individual actions, but if the scientific gatherings ultimately exist is because it is by these means how the set of individual contributions build up a shared body of knowledge that makes the system of science –to which we belong– worth it. In other words, this is the way to co-create knowledge beyond the much more limited and fallible capacities of the individuals.

Building-up efficient interdisciplinarity

However, a major barrier in this process of knowledge co-creation is created by the misunderstandings arisen from the utilisation of concepts we did not explicitly define. This is because our own work is actually erected upon the shoulders provided by the concepts, metaphors and theories we assume as shared with our pairs. Otherwise, we could not speak with them to tell them our findings. That is the reason of disciplinary knowledge: having a common body of knowledge upon which the members within a discipline can solve problems separately in a common endeavour to tackle them. But what happen when we come to interdisciplinary settings as the present one? We cannot take for granted that our peers understand the same when we say ‘information’, ‘sustainability’, ‘intelligence’, ‘innovation’ –to mention just a few words that will show up frequently in this conference– and many other terms we use to describe our works. As the matter of fact, we all have different ideas in mind when we use these words and this very fact can be an impassable barrier in knowledge co-creation. Indeed, this is a means to make the interdisciplinary communication completely worthless; simply because it is in the meaning of the concepts we use where the meaning of our communication lives on.

Invitation to elucidate your concepts in glosaLAB

Therefore, we need clarifying what we understand by the key concepts we are using. GlossaLAB is at your disposal to this purpose, including a section for the clarifications done within this congress.

Creating a user

The first simply step to do is creating a user, identified by your full name and providing a brief research profile of yourself (condensed in a paragraph). Since we will measure the diversity and integration of disciplines when your user has been created, you should go to your user page (e.g. User:Modestos Stavrakis) and select -at the bottom of the edition page- the categories corresponding to the knowledge domains of your expertise (the set of categories organised in 9 trunks contain more than 60 which are derived from the Universal Decimal Classification of disciplines).

Making contributions

Right after you can just go to start clarifying what you understand by the key concepts you use. Check first whether the term is already open.

If it is, review the content and see if some of the given understandings fit yours (feel free to improve it if you think you can) and add yourself to the list of supporters of such understanding.
If the term is not open, you can create a new article using the link ‘Create a new page’ on the left menu, identifying right after the voice the name of the congress between brackets, e.g., diversity index (CISSTO).

Suppose you are clarifying 'concept' and your user name is Anne Smith, this is the way you should code your contribution within the page 'Concept':

'''Concept''' can be understood as ... <br>
Supporters of this understanding: [[User:Anne Smith]]

If you wish clarifying some of the following concepts you can just click on any of the links and start editing, otherwise, you can open a new page as referred above: