IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Magazine - October 2019 - 15

continue to be a push for transdisciplinary work (and there
should be), then higher education needs to better define a
path for fair and consistent criteria for evaluating transdis-
ciplinary participants. Additional information relating to
academic credit in relation to transdisciplinary work can
be found in [13] and [14].

centered collaborative tools and systems, and human-cen-
tered artificial intelligence. He serves on multiple internation-
al/societal program and technical committees, in addition to
multiple editorial boards including that of Human Factors. He
is a Member of the IEEE.
References

Metrics to Measure Transdisciplinary Performance
Finally, and in relation to the previous recommenda-
tion, better metrics to measure transdisciplinary work
are needed. It is easier to measure perceived impact
and success of single-domain work. Typically, publica-
tions, protocols, policies, and patents are released to
highly respected historical domain-specific outlets. But
what happens when those same outlets do not fit the
needs of transdisciplinary work? We must develop new
innovative methods to define what success is within
transdisciplinary work. Progress is slowly being made
in this effort with the advent of transdisciplinary jour-
nals and conferences. In addition, we have seen efforts
put forth with the goal of creating actual performance
metrics that include informetrics and innovative cita-
tion counts [15]-[17]. Yet, more must be done, and it
starts with more empirical work being conducted to
study real transdisciplinary teams working in context.
This work will help define good and bad transdisci-
plinary performance.

[1] Nature, vol. 526, no. 7574, pp. 475-602, Oct. 2015. [Online]. Available: http://www
.nature.com/nature/journal/v526/n7574/index.html
[2] Merriam-Webster, "Definition of interdisciplinary." Accessed on: Apr. 24, 2019.
[Online]. Available: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/interdisciplinary
[3] S. Wang and E. Tunstel, "The emergence of abstract sciences and transdisciplinary
advances: Developments in systems, man, and cybernetics," IEEE Syst., Man, and
Cybern. Mag., vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 12-19, 2019.
[4] S. Rogers, K. Sheldon, and E. Wheat, "A new model for training graduate students
to conduct interdisciplinary, interorganizational, and international research," BioSci.,
vol. 62, no. 3, pp. 296-304, 2012.
[5] A. Schmidt et al., "Transformation of higher education: The transdisciplinary
approach in engineering," IEEE Trans. Edu., vol. 46, no. 2, pp. 289-295, 2003.
[6] S. Brint, L. Turk-Bicakci, K. Proctor, and S. P. Murphy, "Expanding the social frame
of knowledge: Interdisciplinary, degree-granting fields in American colleges and universities, 1975-2000," Rev. Higher Educ., vol. 32, no. 2, pp. 155-183, 2009.
[7] N. Cooke and M. Hilton, "Advancing research on the effectiveness of team science,"
in Enhancing the Effectiveness of Team Science. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2015.
[8] E. Bozhkova, "Interdisciplinary proposals struggle to get funded," Nature, June
29, 2016. doi: 10.1038/nature.2016.20189. [Online]. Available: http://www.nature.com/
news/interdisciplinary-proposals-struggle-to-get-funded-1.20189

Conclusion
SMC has the ability to become a community leader in
advancing transdisciplinary work. All of the necessary
pieces to producing transdisciplinary work are currently
available within the community. SMC has greatly helped
me in developing and positioning my own transdisci-
plinary work on human-machine teaming [18], and this
gives me a great deal of hope moving forward.
But we must work together as a community to define
and develop procedures that push us to produce transdis-
ciplinary work. Being inherently interdisciplinary does not
make us transdisciplinary. Transdisciplinary work
requires additional proactive and focused work toward the
goal of being transdisciplinary.

[9] S. Schneider, "Climate change and the world predicament: A case study for interdisciplinary research," Climatic Change, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 21-43, 1977.
[10] E. Bradner and G. Mark. "Why distance matters: Effects on cooperation, persuasion and deception," in Proc. 2002 ACM Conf. Computer-Supported Cooperative Work,
pp. 226-235.
[11] B. Crandall, G. Klein, G. A. Klein, and R. Hoffman, Working Minds: A Practitioner's Guide to Cognitive Task Analysis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006.
[12] S. Mohammed, L. Ferzandi, and K. Hamilton, "Metaphor no more: A 15-year
review of the team mental model construct," J. Manage., vol. 36, no. 4, pp. 876-910,
2010.
[13] J. Klein and H. Falk-Krzesinski, "Interdisciplinary and collaborative work:
Framing promotion and tenure practices and policies," Res. Policy, vol. 46, no. 6, pp.
1055-1061, 2017.
[14] M. Benson et al., "Five ways to support interdisciplinary work before tenure," J.
Environmental Stud. Sci., vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 260-267, 2016.

About the Author
Nathan J. McNeese (mcneese@clemson.edu) earned his
B.S. degree in psychology and his Ph.D. degree in information
sciences and technology, both from The Pennsylvania State
University, State College, in 2009 and 2014, respectively. He is
an assistant professor and director with the Team Research
Analytics in Computational Environments Research Group
within the Division of Human-Centered Computing in the
School of Computing at Clemson University. He also holds a
secondary appointment in Clemson's Human Factors Insti-
tute, is a faculty scholar in Clemson's School of Health
Research, and is a Watt Family faculty fellow. His current
research interests include human-agent teaming, human-

[15] A. Porter, A. Cohen, J. Roessner, and M. Perreault, "Measuring researcher interdisciplinarity," Scientometrics, vol. 72, no. 1, pp. 117-147, 2007.
[16] A. Porter, J. Roessner, A. Cohen, and M. Perreault, "Interdisciplinary research:
Meaning, metrics and nurture," Res. Evaluation, vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 187-195, 2006.
[17] G. Abramo, A. Ciriaco, A. D'Angelo, and L. Zhang, "A comparison of two approaches for measuring interdisciplinary research output: The disciplinary diversity of
authors vs the disciplinary diversity of the reference list," J. Informetrics, vol. 12, no.
4, pp. 1182-1193, 2018.
[18] N. McNeese, M. Demir, N. Cooke, and C. Myers, "Teaming with a synthetic teammate: Insights into human-autonomy teaming," Hum. Factors, vol. 60, no. 2, pp.
262-273, 2018.

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http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v526/n7574/index.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v526/n7574/index.html https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/interdisciplinary https://www.nature.com/news/interdisciplinary-proposals-struggle-to-get-funded-1.20189 https://www.nature.com/news/interdisciplinary-proposals-struggle-to-get-funded-1.20189
IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Magazine - October 2019

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