Next Generation Technologies in Practice, Loughborough, 11 March 2009

What sustains our community?

Outline

• Background: why we did

• What we did

• What we learned

• Where we are going from here

Emerge was an innovative, 28 month, user-centred, investigation-led, project, funded by the JISC and guided by the principles of appreciative inquiry..

The aim is to support the formation of an "effective and sustainable community of practice” around the Users and Innovation Development Model, using Web2.0 technologies (def 1, def 2).

Emerge is the support project for the JISC Capital Programme, Users and Innovation strand

Educational R&D

• Outputs or outcomes?• Producing artefacts or building capacity?• Quantitative or qualitative measures?• Easy answers or the deep complexity of

institutional change?

Through the U&I Programme a real effort has been made to transform practice based on the needs of

individual users working in institutions

Developing projects in a context where there is

awareness of the wider activity in a field and an

understanding of the alignments and gaps in that field

will lead to better projects being developed.

By using community development processes and social

networking the general quality of educational (learning)

technology development projects may be improved,

bringing benefits not just to the JISC but more widely to

all sectoral funding agencies and stakeholders.

Working hypotheses

Self-selected (autonomous, self-directed) individuals build networks to meet broader social objectives beyond the ‘daily-me’ ...Networked individuals can move across, undermine, and transgress boundaries of existing institutions. This provides the basis for pro-social networks: neither personal nor institutional.

These self-selected, internet enabled, networked individuals often break from existing organisational or institutional networks that are themselves being transformed in Internet space... The ability that the Internet affords individuals to network beyond institutional arenas reinforces communicative power.(Dutton 2008, 5th Estate, 5-6 my paraphrase)

A Connected Commons

A model of software development

adapted to community development

transformative, investigative approach

Where we started

Phases

1 Community formation

• Support to understand processes of user engagement,

undertake user engagement activities, and work through

a peer review process

2 Project support

• using community development  processes and social

networking

3 Benefits realisation

• to widen the impact of the projects, build capacity ,

synthesise knowledge, experience and outputs

Radical, user-centred, Freirian approach to

community formation

activities authentic to the participants’ cultural context

… participants in the proto-projects, projects and the community of practice are themselves a user group working in a user centred environment, modelling the user engagement development cycle and applying asset-based community development processes

It is an actor network, not a software platform or an institution

Activities• London Launch, April 07

• Online Activity Days, June 07

• Manchester Community Consolidation, July 07

• Nottingham Project Development (Dragon’s Den), Sept 07

• York Programme Launch, Jan 08

• Digital Communities & Digital Identities, April 2008

• Exploring User 2.0: the shape of future users, June 08

• Live at Leeds, ALT-C Sept 08

• Altered States, Nov 08

• Benefits Realisation events

• Emerging Sounds of the Bazaar internet radio shows

• Second Life conference socials

supported by a Moodle and Elluminate…

http://reports.jiscemerge.org.uk

Emerge ReportsBuilt on Joomla

Events NetworkBuilt on Elgg 0.9

http://tinyurl.com/ngtip09-network

2 New Services… model practice, release often…

and… (here)

For individuals and projects• professional development/capacity building

• Stimulated & facilitated collaboration

• Improved project planning and management

• Awareness of the relevance of projects in a wider context

Benefits an effective support system

• Visibility, connectivity and discovery? • Or… obscurity, isolation and at times wandering lost.

• The form and patterns of interaction, which develop across a community over time, cannot be predetermined

• The use of participatory social media is multi-modal • The articulation between people and software is not just a

question of interface design (though that is crucial)• The effective use of Web2.0 depends essentially on

human networks.

Benefits unevenly distributed

For institutions• to what extent are they comfortable with ceding

certain amounts of control to individuals? • to what extent are they, as established communities,

willing to cede control to new communities?

For individuals• the principal issue is to what extent do they

subordinate their autonomy and self-direction to any community?

• And, then how much do they subordinate and to which communities?

Questionsinclusion, exclusion and identity

Conditions for success

• Bounded openness• Enough difference• Semi-stability• Adaptable model• Shared repertoire • Structured freedom• Multimodal identity• Serious fun

• Multiple• Contextualised• Relative

There had to be affective advantage to affiliation. Of course there were also those who though that if it wasn't hurting, it wasn't working.

The Future of Emerge

The Future of Emerge

• User-centred social learning media hub where networks of networks of individuals: the human internet, the connected commons, is made visible to participants and the wider community

• Amplifying outputs, connections, impact – presence – of

professionals interested in ELT for, e.g.:o Learning & teachingo Research with … and intoo Community engagemento Administration (MIAP, LLL Records, etc)o Blended, pervaded, physical, virtual and mobile learning

spaceso “Green” ICTo User engagement

• Modelling and supporting effective use of ELT

• Thank youThank you

George RobertsProject Directorgroberts@brookes.ac.uk

http://jiscemerge.org.uk

Josie FraserSteve WarburtonPaul BaileyEmma AndersonMarion SamlerRhona SharpeJoe RosaChris FowlerIsobel FalconerNik BessisMitul ShuklaGraham AttwellBrian KellyGlenaffric

and all the jiscemerge people, projects, partners, steering groups and teams