COALESCE is a free online team science educational resource developed by Northwestern University researchers and designed to foster cross-disciplinary, collaborative research in the health sciences. Modern science relies heavily on specialized methodologies and diverse forms of expertise aiming to discover and apply solutions to complicated challenges. Collaboration has become essential, making translational science a team endeavor necessitating partnerships among scientists trained in different fields and requiring new openness to interdependence, joint ownership, and collective responsibility. This publicly available team science training resource is supported in part by a CTSA grant (3UL1RR025741) and can be accessed at teamscience.net. COALESCE features four online modules – an introduction to the science of team science (SciTS) and three modules focused on particular applied areas: basic biomedical, behavioral, and clinical medical sciences. The SciTS modules house short videos, animations, and activities covering a wide range of introductory topics, including assembling, managing, and evaluating a team. Users are able to move freely throughout the module, identifying topics of interest and viewing expert and research-based information on those topics at will. Users self-guide through each of these modules, interacting with multimedia curricula as they make decisions and receive feedback on practical problems. The problems users must successfully navigate to complete each module relate to issues of assembling, launching, and managing the maturation of a cross-disciplinary research team.
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