A daring experienceTime is one of the themes most referred to by authors writing about collaborative experiences. Tom, Fingeret, Niks, Dawson, Dyer, Harper, Lee, Mc Cue and Morley (1994) describe the press of time as a challenge in collaborative research. Collaborative research takes more time than other types of research because discussing and looking for consensus on decisions by all partners takes time.
Some authors describe the challenges of completing collaborative projects on time. While Gibson (1985) describes the time she spent encouraging and training team members and reaching consensus, she also refers to the time she dedicated as a director of the project dealing with administrative matters. Tom et. al. (1994) also refer to what they call "role overload," the resulting challenge of extended responsibilities in terms of administrative and training tasks as well as general management in collaborative research. Other authors discuss the disparity in the time community groups and academics spend in various research tasks (Strong-Boag, 1994; Wolf, 1996) pointing at that in some cases university-based researchers take longer to write proposals, do data analyses and write reports while community groups are pressured by the need to find solutions to their problems (Greenwood and Levin, 2000, Hubbard, 1996). Andrea Cornwall and Rachel Jewkes (1995) point that in projects which involve collaboration not everyone will be able to participate, not only because of interest but also because of time concerns. Participation in these kinds of projects is time consuming, they argue, and potential participants are busy earning a living and living their lives. This is a point echoed by other researchers (Mercier & Murphy, 1991; Tom, 1996; Tom et. al, 1994). |
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