(no subject)
After my earlier rant, I went to talk to one of the developers of the community of practice. She suggested I outline my concerns as, while I was talking, she got a better idea of what I was talking about.
There appears to be a misconception about the ideas that I expressed at the first meeting of the core group and perhaps I assumed certain issues. The point of closed spaces is not to lock out individuals or groups from the community, but to provide safe spaces, avenues into the community from the periphery. This is based on the original conception of a Community of Practice in the work of Lave and Wenger.
The vision of the website is a fully developed community of practice and this vision is important. Without such a vision, there can be no community. What is perhaps missing is the pathways from the periphery to the centre. A slow appropriation of the key skills is a core feature of developing communities. In this way, safe places are provided in the same way that smaller tasks are mastered prior to more complex tasks being attempted within apprenticeships. The safe spaces allow for small steps, pathways into the community. We cannot expect participants to become fully skilled members of the community on their first venture there.
The safe spaces I envisage would start with an option to post openly for anyone to read, and by anyone, I mean open to the world wide web. The next option would provide a more private form of posting which would rely on either a login or a University IP address (much the same way that access to the library databases is restricted to university only people). Below this, would be options to create groups which any member of faculty could openly read, but only members of faculty. The final layer, and perhaps the most private and safe for new members of the community, would be Special Interest Groups. These SIGs could be subscribed to by any member of faculty, but would necessitate a process (a click on a subscribe button) to become a member and read, and reply to, the posts.
These layers of privacy or safety provide small ways for individuals to negotiate their membership of the community at any given time. The restriction of outsiders, or perhaps more precisely, the defining of a particular audience, opens up possibilities to engage with individuals of similar interest.
On other fronts, given that it was DRM day yesterday, I discovered this morning the unsavoury feeling of DRM on my recently re-imaged (university-owned) laptop computer. Every time I shut the frelling thing down, it reconstructs my desktop. I end up with a university logo embedded on my desktop. I can delete the file, reset the desktop, but as soon as I restart, there it is again. And the other thing, the recent documents list is empty. The frelling thing is deep frozen (although not as deep frozen as the lab machines). Some settings just won't stick. They are managing my rights to my workspace. And all this on the desktop of a researcher who is interested in how people personalise their computers. I just have to work out who to complain to about this. My solution so far, is to leave the computer running and just close it up to move it. Not necessarily the best solution, but, meh, it's not MY computer.
And on the really really really good side of things, I ordered my new black mac today. Finally.
There appears to be a misconception about the ideas that I expressed at the first meeting of the core group and perhaps I assumed certain issues. The point of closed spaces is not to lock out individuals or groups from the community, but to provide safe spaces, avenues into the community from the periphery. This is based on the original conception of a Community of Practice in the work of Lave and Wenger.
The vision of the website is a fully developed community of practice and this vision is important. Without such a vision, there can be no community. What is perhaps missing is the pathways from the periphery to the centre. A slow appropriation of the key skills is a core feature of developing communities. In this way, safe places are provided in the same way that smaller tasks are mastered prior to more complex tasks being attempted within apprenticeships. The safe spaces allow for small steps, pathways into the community. We cannot expect participants to become fully skilled members of the community on their first venture there.
The safe spaces I envisage would start with an option to post openly for anyone to read, and by anyone, I mean open to the world wide web. The next option would provide a more private form of posting which would rely on either a login or a University IP address (much the same way that access to the library databases is restricted to university only people). Below this, would be options to create groups which any member of faculty could openly read, but only members of faculty. The final layer, and perhaps the most private and safe for new members of the community, would be Special Interest Groups. These SIGs could be subscribed to by any member of faculty, but would necessitate a process (a click on a subscribe button) to become a member and read, and reply to, the posts.
These layers of privacy or safety provide small ways for individuals to negotiate their membership of the community at any given time. The restriction of outsiders, or perhaps more precisely, the defining of a particular audience, opens up possibilities to engage with individuals of similar interest.
On other fronts, given that it was DRM day yesterday, I discovered this morning the unsavoury feeling of DRM on my recently re-imaged (university-owned) laptop computer. Every time I shut the frelling thing down, it reconstructs my desktop. I end up with a university logo embedded on my desktop. I can delete the file, reset the desktop, but as soon as I restart, there it is again. And the other thing, the recent documents list is empty. The frelling thing is deep frozen (although not as deep frozen as the lab machines). Some settings just won't stick. They are managing my rights to my workspace. And all this on the desktop of a researcher who is interested in how people personalise their computers. I just have to work out who to complain to about this. My solution so far, is to leave the computer running and just close it up to move it. Not necessarily the best solution, but, meh, it's not MY computer.
And on the really really really good side of things, I ordered my new black mac today. Finally.