[iDC] Notworking online collaboration in science and education

[Danica Radovanovic]

Hello John,

On 10/11/07, John Hopkins <jhopkins at neoscenes.net> wrote:

> in brief this process is about facilitating a
> distributed system within the group.  A network.  And the amazing
> phenomena that I have observed about networks is that they are
> comprised of many of these exchanges of energy, and I find that when
> two come together openly they walk away from that encounter both
> inspired -- that excess of energy then is available to the network
> that they are embedded in -- the network becomes the site of
> explosive creative energy.


>>> Thank you for describing your creative methodology in-class. I found it
very similar (almost the same) with the exercise that prof. Gary Marchionini
(Human-computer interaction class) implemented few years ago at UNC (I was
then researcher fellow). Few of us were networking either in the room or
outside the 'class',  with given tasks, being connected. Indeed, as you
mentioned, we already had facilitated distributed system and  from mutual
collaboration we had also huge amount of creativity and expected results. We
(in pairs) worked on the project after the class or some other day, we
collaborated, had interaction and our own network. Thank you for URL's on
corporate networking and collaborating primers (both, in academia and in
human networking). Your experience is valuable and I hope your students are
enjoying your inspiring classes.

I would like here to mention Steven's (Thank you Steven!)  great overview on
communication channels and their structure in the process of networking. And
especially on mentioning of what I' ve been trying to describe and set up as
one of the issues to explore - community of communities model.

Rather, the sort of network that results is what may be called a 'community
> of communities' model. Nodes are highly connected in clusters. A cluster is
> defined simply as a set of nodes with multiple mutual connections. Nodes
> also connect - on a less frequent basis - to nodes outside the cluster.
> Indeed (to take this a step further) nodes typically belong to multiple
> clusters. They may be more or less connected to some clusters. The
> propagation of a message is essentially the propagation of the message from
> one community to the next. The number of steps is low - but for a message to
> pass from one step to the next, it needs to be 'approved' by a large number
> of nodes.
>
 >>> Exact model as I was drawing on paper for creating architecture for
science online community (mentioned in my previous emails): imagine
international electronic scientific Consortia with member countries - from
A(zerbaijan) to Z(imbabwe).
eConsortia is in Steven's model mother community - cluster that is connected
to some other international 'clusters'. Member countries are also multiple
but have formed micro communities on local level (nodes) connected and
networked. They all belong to the main community (electronic science
Consortia). All micro-communities interact among each other but they all
send output to the major community: community of (member countries)
communities. Therefore, they collaborate and distribute data and knowledge
in the network.

> It can be called a cluster around a certain topic or area of interest, but
> the topic or area of interest does not *define* the community, it is
> rather an empirical description of the community (and thus, for example, we
> see people who came together as a hockey team in 1980 continue to be
> drinking buddies in 1990 and go on to form an investment club in 2000).
>

>>> this may work in some professional area but I am not sure for scientific
or academic, as I think that both areas of interest (in this case for
electronic science Consortia may be online databases, open archives,
usability, impact factors of e-journals, etc.) and empirical description of
that community is important. Researchers, IT professionals, information
specialists, coordinators are networking within same area, have similar
focus of work, and they are framed within that community, therefore,
interaction, collaboration and contribution to the 'mother' community are
expected from all other small communities (member countries in this case).

Maximally distributed creativity isn't about opening the channels of
> communication, at least, not directly. It is about each person having the
> potential to be a member of a receptive community, where there is a great
> deal of interactivity among the members of that community, and where the
> community, in turn, is a member of a wider community of communities. Each
> person thus is always heard by some, has the potential to be heard by all,
> and plays a role not only in the creation of new ideas, but also, as part of
> the community, in the evaluation and passing on of others' ideas.
>


I have nothing to add to this statement, as I fully agree. The model that I
am about to create is exactly like this. Each person (in member country) -
coordinator of community, interacts with other members (coordinators) of
other communities networked into the wider one: academic/science eConsortia.
eConsortia collects data and knowledge from those communities and gives back
feedback: so they are all in the process of distributed creativity with
permanent information exchange and flow. Networks requires interaction.

I am getting back to my previous question: as online community manager of
the largest community of communities, I would need all of them (communities)
to put in action, and to adjust modus operandi for the overall aim: to get
information (content) and contributions out of the member countries
-communities, to be intermediator and at the same time teaching and
encouraging them  (I mentioned earlier there are lot of countries from
different backgrounds and levels of digital literacy) of other communities
to start to use web 2.0 platforms, applications themselves.

Some of you gave methods, suggestions and examples from your practice and
other people's experience for active social networking, dissemination of
information, interaction within communities.
I am just wondering  through which activities is possible to reach that
goal, with methods and expected outcomes, timelines for wide network of all
other networks (communities)?

Any other thoughts, or ideas?

Danica

---
belgrade and beyond
http://danicar.wordpress.com

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