My research in the area of creativity and innovation is in social/shared creativity and Communities of Innovation. Communities of Innovation is a framework for understanding the nature and characteristics of communities or organizations focused on producing innovative activity. The framework is not only descriptive, but leads to prescriptive recommendations for designing and supporting these types of communities in both education and business.
Publications and Presentations
Rich, P. J., West, R. E., & Warr, M. (2015). Innovating How We Teach Collaborative Design Through Studio-Based Pedagogy. In Educational Media and Technology Yearbook (pp. 147-163). Springer International Publishing.
West, R. E. (2014). Communities of innovation: Individual, group, and organizational characteristics leading to greater potential for innovation. TechTrends, 58(5), 53-61. (Invited lecture to the Research and Theory division of AECT)
Recent Projects and Research
Rick West assists in developing the interdisciplinary design studio in the library. He also is the co-designer of badgeschool.org and the BYU Open Badges project; a piece of instructional design to provide alternative, micro credentials, for skills learned.
Current Projects and Research
The Open Badges project
you can learn more about this project here: http://badgeschool.org/home/about_us.
This work is being recognized internationally, and the badgeschool website is available to anyone to use to create and issue open badges.