Guidelines
From Internet: Knowledge and Community
Contents |
Introduction
All members of the program will participate in a collective, quarter-long project in which we will conduct in inquiry into the nature of knowledge and community in connection with the Internet. We will conduct this inquiry online and collectively, by using the program’s wiki page.
The project is integral to the program as it promotes investigation and understanding of community and knowledge in a digital environment. The project will actively integrate theory and practice. It is intended to provide a test-bed for a research project in which we are both subjects and objects. It is not only intended to develop a useful project but to help us all understand the topics, both theoretic and practical, of this program. By the end of the quarter we expect to have developed a useful resource that is basically complete.
The exact nature and ultimate structure of the wiki is not predetermined. One objective of this project is for the program to collectively determine the nature and structure of the wiki through constructing it.
Process:
As this project replaces a portion of our class-time (we will meet about 16 hours less over the quarter than is appropriate for an 8-credit program), you are expected to put in a significant amount of time each week on the wiki outside of class – about 2-3 hours a week, on average. Most weeks, this will involve making at least one substantive contribution to the wiki.
In addition to making substantive contributions to the wiki, you are expected to participate in ongoing reflection on the wiki, in at least two ways. First, you should include your reflections on the talk/discussion page which is attached to each wiki page. Second, we will have regular in-class “wiki check-ins” during which we will discuss and make collective decisions about the wiki.
The faculty members will contribute to the wiki as well, although our participation will generally be less than that of the students.
Getting Started
You should be able to access the wiki: the URL is http://wikis.evergreen.edu/knowcom. We will spend some time on the first night on how to edit wikis – it’s pretty simple, but there are some conventions that you should learn.
Your first assignment for the wiki project: By Saturday, January 8, create a page on the wiki, in which you post a question or "community inquiry" as described in the article, From Hull House to Paseo Boricua: The Theory and Practice of Community Inquiry, by Bertram Bruce. Your question should be open-ended — it should allow others some freedom in how they respond.
Your second assignment: By the following Wednesday, January 12, you need to post at least one response to a question other than your own. In your response, develop your thoughts to some extent. You shouldn’t try to give a comprehensive answer, but you should go beyond a sentence or two. Write about two or three paragraphs. But the most important point is to end your post with a further question that continues the exploration of the original inquiry. Your question should be open-ended, just as the original question you asked, or the one you responded to should be open-ended.
You may, if you wish, respond to more than one question, or respond to another person’s response. In fact, once you have done the first two assignments, you should take it upon yourself to participate on the wiki by responding frequently to whatever questions move you to respond. In all your responses (at least for the first few weeks), follow the same guidelines: Give a substantive but not overly extensive response (about two or three paragraphs), and end your response with a further question.
Developing the Wiki
Once you’ve all gotten a good start asking questions, responding to questions and asking further questions, give some thought to developing the wiki further. Read through a number of pages. Look for commonalities or discrepancies among different pages. Look for connections, relationships. Look for ways in which the discussion on one page might inform a discussion on another page. Look also for ways in which our program readings or activities inform various discussions. Then, in response to whatever you find, you can do several things:
- Make links between pages, ones that manifest the relationships that you’ve found between them.
- Write more. Bring in discussions of program readings and activities as they help to answer various questions.
- Introduce questions inspired by our readings or other program work.
- Put a watch on a page in which there is a discussion of interest to you.
- Check for “dead” or “sleeping” pages. Which pages seem to have little discussion on them? Why do you suppose that is? Might there be reason to contribute to those pages?
- Make minor edits. Everyone should be paying attention to spelling, grammar, clarity of expression, and other matters to improve and maintain the writing quality on the wiki as a whole.
- Reorder text on a given page. It may turn out that the original text could be rearranged for greater clarity.
- Give meaningful names to sections in order to help people use the resource more effectively as well as helping them with wiki development.
- Follow the conventions and other intentions that the group has agreed upon.
- Use the same level of respect (at least) that you'd use in face-to-face communication. Allow for diversity of perspectives and strive to portray opinions as opinions.
Taking It Further
As we develop the wiki, you will need to incorporate new ideas drawn from the program readings, guest speakers, class activities and seminars. Each week, you will need to make at least one substantive edit, of any of the kinds mentioned above, that connects with some of the material we’ve been studying. Your edit may, of course, be a new response to program material or it may be a response to what someone else has written about that material.
At this point, before we have actually begun the wiki, it is impossible to predict what shape it will take or what sorts of work will be needed on it once it is up and in development. But, here are some possibilities of some more radical kinds of edits that may be needed:
- Merging. Two (or more) different pages may have such similar topics, or they may develop so similarly, that they really should be made into a single page. Someone will have to take this on as a task, in a given week.
- Splitting. A particular page may become unwieldy or make little sense because it really covers two (or more) topics, and so should be split into several different pages. This is another task for someone to take on in a given week.
- Shaping. A page may need to be restructured so as to address its topic in a more comprehensible manner. Sometimes, pages will need this attention after merging or splitting, but sometimes, pages need this for other reasons as well. Another task for an enterprising wiki editor.
- Page Typing or Retyping. Developing a new type of page (an index page, for example) or changing one type of page into another by altering the content on a page.
- Visuals. We encourage the use of graphics within the wiki, particularly when it helps convey the information more effectively or more easily. We are currently exploring guidelines with the Evergreen technical staff.
Moving Towards Closure
The wiki project should aim at some sort of finished product. What that finished product will be isn’t predetermined. But in general, while the first half of the quarter will be spent in exploration and will likely lead to divergence of ideas, the second half should aim instead at some sort of convergence. Part of our regular wiki check-in discussions, as well as our online discussions, will focus on what kind of convergence we seem to be aiming for. In particular we want the wiki to provide the information, ideas, and, and issues that are central to the program in ways that are accessible to potential readers. As we move forward we will discuss the content and format and whether we use existing models (an encyclopedia, for example) or whether we develop our own new or hybrid models. The nature of the product will have to emerge in the actual activity of constructing the wiki, but we will need to dedicate regular time to reflecting on the nature of what is emerging and where it is heading — and where it should head.
Evaluating Your Work
One of the great advantages of wikis is that, even though they are collaboratively written and edited, each individual’s performance is traceable through the history. At the end of the quarter, your seminar faculty will evaluate you on your effort on the wiki as well as on your other program work. We will pay attention to the frequency and the amount of your work (remember, you should average about one hour a week on the wiki), and we will of course evaluate the nature and quality of that work. Specifically, in our wiki check-in discussions around the 4th and 5th week of the quarter, we will take up the question of what sort of structure the wiki should ultimately have.
To learn more about using a wiki see the help files.
Back to main page.
