Advisory Groups for Research Projects
Forming an advisory group can be a valuable asset for any project, providing diverse perspectives, strategic insights, and expertise to guide important decisions. It is particularly important for the Freelance Advisor project because it is interdisciplinary in nature, and because it centres a particular community who may not otherwise be directly involved in project design (creative freelancers). However, as someone who has focused on solo research over the last few years, and before that included only academics in project planning, the thought of lots of people giving advice on my beloved brainchild is quite daunting! In this blog post, I will outline my thinking on some of the key elements involved in forming an advisory group for such a research-informed development project, including selecting the right people, promoting an inclusive culture, scheduling meetings, and ensuring accountability.
Selecting the Right People
When assembling an advisory group, it is crucial to select individuals who bring diverse and appropriate skills, experiences, and perspectives to the table. It is commonly suggested to look for candidates who are passionate about the project’s mission and values, have experience in the type of project and who possess a track record of sound judgement and strategic thinking. It can also be important to select individuals who can offer expertise in functional areas such as finance, marketing, technology, legal matters, or specific industry knowledge, depending on the needs of the project.
In the case of Freelance Advisor, one of our key first steps was to map our stakeholders, to ensure that we understood all of those who have interest in, and influence over, the project. We used Mural to allow us to undertake this collectively and remotely, and to give us a live stakeholder map which we still return to and update. I currently have a list of 7 passionate, knowledgeable and appropriately skilled stakeholders who could potentially join the advisory group. Within this group I have 2 freelance experts, 3 academics (tech development; art school; design-based), and 2 people from key industry bodies. Currently I haven’t approached anyone from a trade union, and this is potentially a gap I will need to consider. My only problem is that I am failing the diversity test on one count as 6 of them are women!
Promoting an Inclusive Culture
Creating an inclusive culture within the advisory group is essential for fostering open communication and collaboration. It is important for the Chair to emphasise the importance of respecting diverse viewpoints and to actively encourage active participation from all members. There are some functional steps that I have been considering regarding inclusive access. I am guided by the wise words of one of my research participants, who told me it is not enough to talk about accessibility and inclusivity, you have to actually structure your activities in a way that encourages everyone to feel comfortable in sharing their views.
Of course, making sure the meeting location is accessible to everyone is key. Since COVID there have been a lot of debates over the benefits of holding meetings online - particularly weighing up the convenience of online meetings versus the ways in which the affordances of video-conferencing might shape discussions. Given that the members of the advisory group may never have met in person, this is a particular concern. Another way I am seeking to make the group more inclusive is to have initial one-to-ones with all members to clarify the rationale and structure of meetings, and by providing an agenda and papers well in advance so that all members have time to prepare their thoughts in advance.
Of course, another key element of being inclusive is in finding a way to enable the participation of those who would not otherwise be able to take part. In the case of Freelance Advisor, this means budgeting to recompense the freelancers on the group for their time.
Scheduling Meetings
Establishing a regular meeting schedule is crucial to maintaining momentum and ensuring that the advisory group remains engaged and productive. Considering the availability of all members when setting meeting times will help to maximise attendance and participation. Whether meetings are held monthly, quarterly, or on another cadence, consistency is key. I am thinking of holding quarterly meetings of the advisory group at present, scaling up if and when we receive additional funding.
I am always aware of the importance of other peoples’ time, and making the most of the time that they give to the advisory group. My focus is on finding ways to maximise a limited amount of face time, rather than finding additional items to fill a longer slot. However, I am also very aware that having a busy agenda and a quick paced discussion can be exclusionary. As such, I am planning to utilise technology to facilitate ongoing communication and collaboration among group members. Using a communications and document sharing portal such as MS Teams can help streamline communication and keep the group connected between meetings.
Ensuring Accountability
To ensure that the advisory group remains effective and impactful, it's essential to establish clear expectations and mechanisms for accountability. Developing a framework for setting and achieving goals, tracking progress, and evaluating and explaining performance against the goals is key. However, as someone who has generally only ever previously been accountable in my research to myself and perhaps to 1 or 2 co-authors and my line manager, it is quite a leap to consider making myself accountable to a more diverse group. Although I am very comfortable with the practical matters of chairing and clerking a strategic group, opening up priorities setting, goal determination and progress reviews to a broader range of people (some of whom may not be familiar with academic timescales) is something which I am less comfortable with. As such, I will need to supplement accountability processes with an enquiring and non-threatened mindset to get the most out of the group.
In conclusion, forming an advisory group requires careful consideration and deliberate planning. By selecting the right people, promoting an inclusive culture, scheduling regular meetings, and ensuring accountability, we can create a valuable resource for our projects that offers diverse perspectives and strategic guidance. However, I am very new to this area and I would encourage anyone with view or suggestions to send them on. I am in the process of holding initial conversations and inviting people onto the advisory group at the moment, with a view to holding out first meeting in April.
HiFi Prototype Design Complete
Figure 1 - Research Process
Rationale
Freelancers are vital part of the Creative Industries, comprising over 30% of the total workforce, and c.70% of the workforce in certain sectors (Easton and Beckett, 2021). Freelance workers frequently have less access to training than their employed counterparts, and as a result they tend to rely on non-formal and informal routes to build knowledge and develop skills (Henry et al, 2021). Such routes are likely to be reliant on existing connections and as the Creative Industries has a high levels of social closure (Brook et al, 2020), which is likely to lead to inequalities in access to training opportunities.
Our research shows that there is a prominent knowledge gap in the freelance community, with 56.5% of freelancers recently surveyed responding that they were not well informed of their rights, 68.5% having issues with late or non-payment, and 57.1% relying on peer advice to solve issues such as contract negotiations, rates setting, payments, boundary setting, and soft skills around communicating clients (Connell et al, 2022). Online forums play an important role in enabling knowledge sharing and informal training in creative occupations (Patrick- Thomson and Kranert, 2020). Members of the forum studied in this research would regularly pose questions involving similar contractual situations (e.g. pricing work, contractual issues, and late payments), and forum users offered advice. However, there was some frustration at the lack of a better way to address these recurring, highly similar questions. This recurrence of similar questions suggests that there is a high demand for peer advice, and that forums are a relatively inefficient way of providing this.
To look at how this peer advice system could be developed using advanced technologies, a project team was established involving academics working in the Business and Computing areas of Edinburgh Napier University. In particular, we sought to investigate the potential of an AI powered advisor to provide a system-based solution to the recurring questions and answers of freelancers working in the Creative Industries (aka creative freelancers). The team comprised Dr Holly Patrick-Thomson (Lecturer, Business School), Dr Paul Lapok (Research Fellow, SCEBE) and Associate Professor Alistair Lawson (SCEBE).
The Project
Figure 1 outlines the research process followed in developing a Hi-Fi prototype of the Freelance Advisor system. The 8 initial stakeholder analysis interviews showed that setting rates was the most common contractual issue encountered by our sample of creative freelancers (other, less common, issues included protecting IP, securing a contract, and under/late payment). The interviews also uncovered that although freelancers do use the Facebook groups mentioned earlier for advice, they more commonly turn to their peers because of the trusted and reliable nature of peer advice. However, a desire for anonymity often impedes their ability to access advice from colleagues who are not direct friends. There was also a recognition that the advice required was often advice around the soft skill of negotiating rates, rather than the concrete knowledge of how much to charge. As such, we derived certain parameters for the system:
· A recommendations system that not only derived rates advice from the internet but also actively procured peer advice, using;
· The ability to ask questions and make recommendations anonymously, however;
· Profiles would need to include sufficient information to contextualise the questions asked and recommendations given (without identifying the peer), and;
· The ability to rate (i.e. give a review) on the advice given would be key to allowing the system to improve via understanding which rates and recommendations are more/less useful to users, and;
· A further step in making the recommendations trustworthy would be to have experienced peers involved in the initial stage of launching the system, and having an industry partner who could support development and lend legitimacy, and finally;
· Such a system could possibly be charged for, although it was thought to be most useful to those at the start of their careers, who are least able to pay. The possibility of funding the system through advertisements was not attractive to the stakeholders.
We then used these parameters to build a prototype of the system, which we then tested with a group of 7 creative freelancers (6 from the original group, and 1 replacement for a participant who was unable to continue). These evaluation interviews involved a walkthrough of the system, the application of a System Usability Scale, and a series of more qualitative questions on system design, types of advice provided and views on key features. This allowed us to undertake a review of the prototype and to develop a final overview of the potential system.
One of the key challenges and learning opportunities during this project arose from the multi-disciplinary nature of the research team. Much of the overall methodology adopted came from the field of computer science, but the initial problem from a qualitative study in the field of business. As such, even in a comparatively small project, there was much to translate across disciplinary practices and vocabularies. This was an important developmental opportunity for the research team.
Project Outcomes
They key outcome of this project is a HI-Fi prototype for a system that addresses a key issue of knowledge transmission in the freelancer ecosystem, and which has demonstrated usability and attractiveness for potential users. We intend to advance this project by seeking partners to develop and trial the system, and we would be pleased to hear from anyone interested in collaborating in this development.
We would like to note that in addition to the excellent support we received from Creative Informatics (without which we would not have even imagined this project), we were happy to receive advice and support for this project from Creative Edinburgh, Creative Bridge and colleagues from the British Academy of Management.
Stage One Research Process
Funding Awarded for Front End Development
The Project Team have been awarded just under £10,000 by the Research and Knowledge Exchange fund at Edinburgh Napier University to build the front end of the ‘Freelance Advisor’ app and conduct a user evalulation. This award recognises the significant work that went into developing the design prototype for the app (funded by Creative Informatics) and scaffolds the development of this prototype into a fully functional system.
In this stage, the existing research team of Patrick-Thomson, Lapok and Lawson will be joined by Research Assistant Heidi Koikkalainen. The objectives of this stage are to:
Build the front end of the app (i.e. the user interface)
Develop a user recruitment strategy
Establish an expert panel to guide the project
By the conclusion of this stage we will be able to demonstrate proof of concept with a functioning front end, and we will have the user evaluation data needed to enable back end development of the app. We will also have established a community of industry experts via the expert panel which will help us to ensure that the full development of the app is done in a user-centric and sustainable manner.
This project supports the strategic ambitions of ENU, by advancing knowledge regarding the employment of freelancers, who despite being a key element of the creative workforce, are not well mapped or understood (Paneels et al, 2022). It also presents an opportunity to grow networks with third sector and industry bodies, such as Creative Scotland and BECTU, and directly supports building [the] careers of freelancers across Scotland (and beyond).
Stage 2 funding has been granted by ENU’s Research Innovation and Enterprise Office