Internet Based Collaboration and Organisation in Education Institutions - 20 views
started by Dean Strautins on 22 Mar 12
started by Dean Strautins on 22 Mar 12
Start a New Topic » « Back to the Net 308/508 Internet Collaboration and Organisation S1 2012 group
It is common for civilians faced with new situations to run around like headless chickens rather than apply some logical processes to get on with organising themselves. From my reading the 'Headless Chicken' analogy seems to apply to Social Networks and how people have used them to collaborate.
Or described in another way:
1. Evaluating the framework of education institutions regulating participation in web 2.0 based mediums.
2. Specific analysis on the web 2.0 hosted medium of Facebook and the collaborating momentum it has achieved with students.
3. An example or student deployment of web 2.0 mediums for the purpose protest.
4. Examples of education institutions' deployment of web 2.0 mediums for the purpose of improving education processes and results.
Establishing Guidelines for the Use of Social Media in Higher Education
Andrew J. Lenartz (2012), Chapter 16 Establishing Guidelines for the Use of Social Media in Higher Education, in Laura A. Wankel, Charles Wankel (ed.) Misbehavior Online in Higher Education (Cutting-edge Technologies in Higher Education, Volume 5), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.333-353
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/books.htm?chapterid=17010101
E Collaboration in educational institutions makes use of web 2.0 based social mediums. Such as Facebook, You Tube, and Flickr. These social media do not require institutional permission to join so it is the education institutions that have to catch-up if they are to harness the benefits of social media. Likewise, many of the teachers at educational institutions use social media but are handicapped in deploying these media for the benefit of the students and the institution when there are non existent guidelines from their employer. It is because education centres are accredited institutional organisations, they are not online crowds or movements, that brings about a situation where guidelines are required. The consequences for employees of educational institutions using social media incorrectly can be severe. Ethics, Integrity, Trustworthyness can all be undermined if a personal approach to social media is used. Getting it wrong when part of an organisation can result is loss of reputation and unemployability.
This paper provides a suggested pathway for organisations to adopt. This is most important as this paper points out on page 342 that out of 132 accedited medical schools in the USA where 96.97% had a website containing student guidelines and policies. Only 10.16% had locatable online social media guidelines regardless that 95.45% of the schools had a presence on Facebook.
Melbourne Girls Grammar School on March 2011 claims to be the first Australian school to promote a Social Media policy www.handeye.com.au/images/home/news/news24.pdf .
Curtin University posted a Social Media Policy in June 2010 (over 6 years after Facebook began). Australian educational institutions appear to be following the same slow pattern as those educational institutions in the USA. Therefore this paper is very relevant to evaluating Collaboration and Organisation in Higher Education.
Facing off: Facebook and Higher Education
Debra Bateman, Julie Willems (2012), Chapter 5 Facing off: Facebook and Higher Education, in Laura A. Wankel, Charles Wankel (ed.) Misbehavior Online in Higher Education (Cutting-edge Technologies in Higher Education, Volume 5), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.53-79
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/books.htm?chapterid=17010090
This paper provides very good case studies of how e collaboration via Facebook has occurred within Higher Education institutions. The paper provides reasons why Facebook is important - '.. we now expect flexibility in order to work, learn and study whenever and whatever we wish to'(P54) Points to the fact that online social networking human dynamics in the educational arena is also a reality of most other organisations. Educational institutions have specific challenges for e collaboration for example '… between 78% and 95.5% of all enrolled students in Higher Education have indicated that they use Facebook. … and 'only 1.5% of teaching staff within universities are members' (of Facebook) (P56). As mentioned by Mike Kent in Tutorial 'Curtin university specifically has a preference that OASIS is usedto coordinate with students.'
Facebook is a more popular medium partly because it will remain accessible after graduation. When students graduate they will be disconnected from Oasis or will have no need to login to Oasis. Therefore, there is a compelling reason to use Facebook to maintain contact with your hard earnt friends.
Curtin University has placed high importance on mentoring new students as a means to reducing drop out rates. Mentors are difficult to attract and keep as my own wife is a mentor and has taken on the work of three other mentors that have dropped out. Yet an embracing of Facebook may hold the answer for Curtin University as "… the main reason for students' non completion of courses is the result of a perceived lack of social presence or 'unhappiness with the social environment." (P58)
As contained in the final paper below - students have a preference to first ask fellow students for assistance rather than ask the teacher. Therefore,
"Facebook provides students with opportunities to teach each other in synchronous communication through instant messaging and asynchronous communications through the discussion strings."(P60)
Facebook itself posts information that supports this paper on the uptake of users within educational institutions. "The image of college students arranging study groups is not the first image that comes to mind when thinking about Facebook use on campus. But our research suggests that students are using the site to support their academic, as well as social, goals." https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=487460320569
Cuts, Tweets, Solidarity and Mobilisation: How the Internet Shaped the Student Occupations
Yannis Theocharis (November 16, 2011) Retrieved from http://pa.oxfordjournals.org/content/65/1/162.short
Parliam Aff (2012) 65 (1): 162-194. doi: 10.1093/pa/gsr049
University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany
yannis.theocharis@mzes.uni-mannheim.de
This paper describes the characteristics of students and their ability and willingness to interact with social networks to collaborate in protest. Good general background information provides an insight in to how non participants perceive students, 'slaktivism', 'know nothings', 'informational exuberance', 'me generation' etc. Then in turn the students perception of politicians - students have a high level of distrust towards politicians. "… young people believe that politicians adopt social media to 'look cool' or because some adviser told them to do it." (P172)
The paper tends to theorise that there is a growing realm of young people's engagement in political issues through smaller types of participation. References included point towards the decline in traditional involvement of young people in the political process. I would like to suggest that it is not so much the youth disengaging but moreso that the people in leadership positions tend to be older and have not kept up with online collaboration or kept up in the correct manner so they are somewhat alien to the youth of today.
Pages 179 and 182 provide details on specifically how students collaborated via the social mediums. This alludes to the resourcefullness of the students and ability to strongly identify with each other via these mediums. The students had a common enemy that helped them unite. That enemy being government policy that was against the objective of investing in the education of the youth for the betterment of the economy.
There are some really interesting observations presented that highlight the willingness of students to get involved with the political process on their terms and the increasing disengagement of students from the standard political processes. "Social media appear to be a more effective model for participation than e-deliberation and e-democracy, and they are sometimes also matched by offline participation." (P188) This was "demonstrated in the Obama campaign, and perhaps, during the 'Arab Spring'. (P188) Here is a good example of how protests in Egypt were initiated, organised and then took on their own crowd momentum http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxJK6SxGCAw&feature=related
The early activist uses of social media also have flow-on benefits for minority groups that are seeking ways to gain more participation. Open Ideo has just completed a project seeking to improve voter involvement and used collaboration methodologies to find a way to gain more participation http://www.openideo.com/open/voting/brief.html
I think this paper is important because it describes how a groundswell of people can bring about change directly or indirectly.
1. This paper highlights that the intense student online activity grabbed the attention of journalists so that film and print news carried the students' cause even further.
2. Then in turn other movements around the world were inspired to act and through physical protest achieved more than the student protests in the UK.
3. Whilst concurrently people have seen the power of online collaboration being demonstrated and sought ways to deploy the technology for the benefit of non protesters.
Open Innovation and Organizational Boundaries: The Impact of Task Decomposition and Knowledge Distribution on the Locus of Innovation
Published: February 3, 2012, Authors:Karim R. Lakhani and Michael L. Tushman
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6930.html
This paper rounds off the previous three papers above by looking at organisational factors that facilitate Collaboration and Organisation within institutions. Three case studies are used as examples on how open collaboration has strengthend Apple, Lego, and NASA. The paper points to intrinsic motivators as contributors being more powerful for innovation than extrinsic motivators in the appropriate setting. The paper is thrilling in that it points to the value every student gains from studying this subject at Curtin University. The paper suggests that all corporations will require management to have a clear understanding of the business segments that ought or not be collaborating with the public for the purpose of strengthening the market position of the company.
The diagram below showing extrinsic and intrinsic motivators are referenced in this paper:
Worker Motivation in Crowdsourcing and Human Computation
Posted on July 9, 2011 by thimoschulze
http://crowdresearch.org/blog/?p=1245
The Open Innovation paper sugests there are two contingencies that influence the potential for an organisation to collaboration in its processes such as R&D. "The degree to which critical tasks can be decomposed and the extent to which problem solving knowledge for these tasks is distributed." (Page 6)
The paper discusses the managerial challenges facing organisations in implimenting collaborative processes that can be related to educational institutions.
(Continued Next Page)
The paper points to the situations were there are low communication costs and knowledge is not solely held within an istitution then public collaboration can bring benefits to the institution. These variables are present for educational institutions.
The following podcast supports this paper as it presents information and case examples on how collaboration in educational institutions has been implimented. In the podcast you will hear how Internet Collaboration and Organisation facilitates student collaboration to learn and build a stronger sense of community under an institutional umbrella. The example in the podcast is similar to the Lego, NASA and Apple examples presented in the paper. You will hear how students write and present the class content and assist teachers to learn how to use the technology used.
Radio National, Future Tense, The Digital Classroom, Broadcast: Thursday 13 May 2010 8:30AM
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/futuretense/the-digital-classroom/3105332#comments