Review: Naked Punch (versus Collapse) – first thoughts

Follow-up to Review: COLLAPSE – Journal of Philosophical Research and Development from Transversality - Robert O'Toole

Naked Punch started life as a vehicle of intellectual hope; as a belief in the possibility of a field of open discourse, where disciplinary boundaries are no longer a bar…

This seems a little too vague. Is it perhaps a border–zone between entrenched disciplines? – a site of trade, adventure or even colonization? It is, we are told, a "brave new discourse on philosophy & art" – yes, so an interface between disciplines that have in some way each lost themselves: artistic craft having been surpassed by electronics, becomes "conceptual"; philosophy having lost ground to science, becomes "aesthetic". In either case the familiar 'disruptive technology dissipation' business model is applied, with the old decaying enterprise establishing, begrudgingly, a parallel business in order to explore foreign territories and new markets – mutant limbs that can easily be severed if the experiment goes wrong. A brief examination of the content reveals little of the "art" partner in the equation – there are many more 'blocks of sensation' than one would find in a conventional philosophical journal, however, they are all just so heavilly overcoded and filtered by a conceptual–linguistic machine. It is, as so often, an engagement in which philosophy allows in a little sensation, a little experience, rather than sensation itself necessitating the conceptual.

Further on in the introduction, the editors raise a question familiar to anyone seeking to write an escape from the conceptual overcoding that is philosophy:

Two years on, we are still undecided as to whether to call this printed space a 'magazine' or a 'journal'; and we urge you to treat it directly as neither.

I remember having such a discussion with the editors of COLLAPSE which I think was a conscious effort to attack the division, although I suspect that it never really mattered, for a very interesting reason. The distinction between the two formats/genres is explained by Naked Punch:

• Magazine: "glossy lust for entertainment";
• Journal: "strictly expository journal".

The editors signal that they are in fact looking to produce something else. But what? Perhaps it would help if they consider that any point on the magizine/journal continuum is still only a mode of the consolidation of a territory, or its controlled expansion. We pick up a magazine when the serious business has been done. Imagine the philosopher as [s]he relaxes at home. They never have TVs. So instead perhaps they pick up a lightweight publication? But what? Radical Philosophy? Cosmopolitan? Rubber Weekly? Whatever, it serves its function delivering light relief in between the more severe work (punishment) of writing those journal articles.

Is there a vector other than the magazine/journal continuum? I think COLLAPSE was and probably still is creating this alternative.

Let us anticipate the publication of the new COLLAPSE

Robert O'Toole : 12 May 2006 13:33 |  Tags: Collapse Philosophy Research Transversality Transversality |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Are the E–learning Team cannibals?

As seen on the E-learning Team Calendar today (expect a correction sometime soon).

Robert O'Toole : 11 May 2006 09:26 |  Comments (4) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

My Oxford top 10

1. The Radcliffe Arms, Jerico. A very ordinary, old–fashioned and down–to–earth pub in one of Britain's most expensive neighbourhoods. Good beer, and good cheap food. Excellent for Sunday roast.
2. Walking along the Thames into Oxford, from the Abingdon Park and Ride to the Head of the River pub. On weekend mornings you can see boat crews exercising out on the river. From the pub, you can continue through Christ Church Meadows to the Botanical Gardens, and then across to the Parks and out the other side of Oxford. There is a bus back to the Park and Ride from the city centre.
3. Walking through Port Meadow from the Botley Road to the The Trout Inn. The water meadow is an interesting environment, with lots of open space and lots to see. A good place for a picnic, except for the hordes of angry political geese
4. Borders coffee shop. Each of the three book shops in Oxford have good cafes. However, the Borders cafe is right next to the philosophy section, which contains a decent selection of interesting books, often with plenty of Deleuze.
5. Edamame, 15 Holywell Street. A tiny Japanese restaurant serving what I am told is the kind of food that the Japanese really eat (ie not sushi). We first went there with a friend who has lived in Japan. The food is excellent, although the seating system is very un–English. You have to share your table with anyone else seeking a space.
6. The Fishes pub and restaurant in North Hinksey. Next to a small river, with a large garden and a play area for Mooseheads. Excellent and sensibly priced food. It has been refurbished recently, so may have changed.
7. The Aziz. 230 Cowley Road. Of Oxford's many good Indian Restaurants, this is my favourite. Good friendly service, even for large groups of drunken e–learning advisors.
8. Oxford Coffee Concerts at the Holywell Music Room. Concerts of classical music, Sundays 11:15.
9. Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Free entry. Voracious dinosaurs.
10. Moosehead Manor, Botley. Exclusive club for learning technologists and other miscellaneous flotsam. Luxury accommodation. Entertaining host, speaks Russian, Romanian, Portuguese and English (when sober). Vast array of kitchen gadgets. Endless supply of scotch bonnet chillis. Fascinating and colourful history. Opposite Andy Brock's butchery, hence ideal for serious fry–ups.

Robert O'Toole : 07 May 2006 21:20 |  Tags: Bmw Gs Motorcycle Travel Oxford Travel Travel And Motorcycles Travel Writing Writing |  Comments (12) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Baby Report: Latest Lawrence pictures

Lawrence Two Teeth O'Toole:

Anti–gravity device:

Pig face:

Robert O'Toole : 29 Apr 2006 21:32 |  Tags: Baby Lawrence O-Toole |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Discussion Primer: why naive Christians and philosophers no longer talk to each other

The modes of operation are completely different. Naive Christians are asking completely different questions to philosophers:

Naive Christian:

If I assert X to be "true", what solutions does it provide to the problems of life and death? Which implies the question: if I assert X to be untrue, what things of value (beliefs, institutions, justifications, hopes) might I lose? How might life become less liveable?

Philosopher (from day 1 of an undergraduate philosophy degree you are trained to think in this way):

If I assert X to be true, what forms of justification (types of evidence, types of argument) do I necessarily assert as valid? What are the implications of asserting the validity of those forms of justification? What other truths could be asserted using those forms of justification? What kind of madness and contradiction might that lead to?

Cleverer Christian (oi Kant):

Must I assert X as a necessary condition for the possibility of knowledge (and hence for subjects, collections of subjects, societies, moralities). Is it OK then for me to claim that everyone else can employ the same kinds of justification without resulting in madness and contradiction?

Very clever Christian (has to live in a world dominated by scientific progress):

The truth of my assertions regarding God and morality, as well as the implications of the methods that I use to justify those assertions, are subject to empirical investigation, and can be modified as a result of the investigation. There is progress in spiritual matters as there is in scientific matters.

Transcendental Empiricist or Pragmatist (a kind of post–theological philosopher – my position, with thanks to Nietzsche):

A liveable attitude towards the world requires a complex mixture of beliefs (conceptual components). Some are disposable "helper concepts", used and reused without any siginificant implication ("creativity", "conjecture"), often merely to assist in freeing us from other tired concepts. Other concepts are more critical to the current context (technologies, ecologies), but permanently disposable if circumstances prove them to be no longer useful. The trick is to ensure that we don't think that helper concepts are more than just that (e.g. creativity being confused with divine provinence). But at the same time, we should always have good reliable helper concepts to assist us in assessing and disposing of broken contextual concepts, and therefore being able to cope with real time.

Which one are you? What of Islam?

Robert O'Toole : 28 Apr 2006 14:15 |  Tags: Helper Concept Helper Concepts Philosophy Definitions |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

E–learning Research: tuition fees, market differentiation, and the role of e–learning

It is unusual to see full-frontal nudity in the pages of the Daily Telegraph. Even more shocking that the model in view should be a dear old friend. Unfortunately, this Monday (17–04-06 – abbreviated online version available), there seemed good reason to laugh at the indelicately exposed flesh of that alleged emperor of the education world: the British Arts Degree. The claimed justification for this sudden revelation? They want to charge £3000 a year for the privilege. The ever to be trusted investigative methods of the Telegraph hacks are ringing the first of what will be many alarm bells. They are asking: £3000 for what? Six hours of lectures and seminars a week for someone studying History at York. Outrage. Eight hours a week and you get a psychology degree from Bristol. Even the old Freudster couldn’t have dreamt up that one.

The story was all too superficial, but let us put that aside for a moment and consider the implications of the article’s underlying perception for Warwick. Then it will be possible to consider what this may mean for e-learning.

Firstly, I am a new father, already contemplating university fees eighteen years from now (I am absurdly long sighted). The effects of tuition fees on my considerations are: for that kind of money my son could go anywhere. That is certainly not true, I imagine that a good American education is significantly more expensive. But I have the modern British attitude to debt: when I pay out sufficiently large sums of money I deliberately avoid thinking about the number of zeros on the end of the sum. I’m more inclined to dream about the magnificent product that I am buying. The consequence of this deliberate blindness to the level of my personal debt is that I do not notice whether I am spending £3000 or £10000. For evidence, consider my mortgage, a staggering and entirely unreasonable amount of money. Therefore, if I have to pay out lots of cash for my son’s education, I will go for the best available, or at least as much as my credit limit can handle. And if that also means he gets to go abroad, somewhere nice for me to visit, why not? Perhaps what will happen over the longer term is that the portion of an individual’s debt available for house-buying will decrease, whilst the portion to be spent on education will increase. A £20,000 decrease in money available for the mortgage is quite insignificant. Moving that £20,000 into the education debt would make a very big difference. Even so, America may still seem just too expensive, but then there are plenty of alternatives. Australia for example is a dream for many young people in Britain, and they do actually have some decent universities. Perhaps we should set up a campus in the Pacific? In any case, now that I am a consumer of higher education, with money (or rather debt) to spend, I feel more financially empowered than I was as an undergraduate in 1991 having my fees and rent paid for me. That empowerment makes me think: what cool things can I get for my money? Expect to see the appearance of a magazine title just for people like me: Which University?

The implication of tuition fees for Warwick? Undergraduate degrees are now placed into a complex and global market. After years of trying to stay ahead of the other First Division Russell Group universities, with a distant hope of promotion to the Premier League, the game will suddenly change altogether. At the very least the range of feasible and thinkable options available to the school leaver will grow (despite the current number of institutions, there are still very few genuinely different options for the aspiring middle class kid). Competition between the providers will increase. The need to differentiate the product will become pressing (already noticeable in the proposed new Warwick Learning and Teaching Strategy, which seeks to differentiate us as thoroughly “innovative”). The market (or at least its self-appointed guardians, including the Telegraph) will seek out variables of comparison between the products on offer. For example, it is possible to compare the amount of “contact time” (lectures, seminars etc) that a student gets for their £3000 at the various institutions. The Telegraph have done just that. Expect a league table of contact time to be published very soon.

Students and their parents have always had their own methods for comparing universities and making choices. At the first stage of consideration the decision is made for them: which of the various leagues are they in: Oxbridge? Red-brick? Polytechnic? A small minority of students will then base their choice on the specific details of the courses on offer. Students with minority interests (theology, anthropology) will have little choice. For the majority of students, the next most significant consideration is lifestyle. Campus or town based? By the sea? Big City? Near to home or far away? Lively Student’s Union? Nightclubs? Girl-to-boy ratio? The choice has always been taken lightly in academic terms but with huge significance in the social aspect. Perhaps this will remain the case. The current orthodoxy claims that the typical undergraduate wants a degree course that simply offers them the required sheet of paper bearing the figure “2.1” along with three years of fun and “personal development”. In this case the terms of the competition are simple: which university can guarantee the 2.1 whilst offering the best social experience? I contend that Warwick may well lose out to Sydney in the second of these variables. For now the guarantee of a safe degree result may override this. But as the members of this globally scoped market wake up to the new competition, they may well all start to focus their energies on the guarantee of reasonable academic success. In which case who wins? Sunny Sydney with its glorious beaches and bronzed bodies? Coventry? Expect to see the Which University? guide looking ever more like a holiday brochure.

Some will of course dissent from this trend. Perhaps in eighteen years time my son will realise that he is to be expelled from the family home and packed off like a convict to the land of Oz. I will seek at every opportunity to instil him with a sense of adventure, but should that fail, he may oppose my plans by opting to join the thousands of young people who simply choose not to go away to university (he can stay, but will have to live in the garage). The Open University is increasingly popular, as are the many smaller more local universities offering easier and more certain access. This is in many cases a rational choice, not just for economic reasons. Many students simply cannot cope, at 18, with leaving home. The OU may be the best thing for them (note, I came to Warwick at the age of 20). Expect the appearance of a league table of drop-out rates and mental health problems to be published very soon, as the consumers wise up to this being an important consideration.

The traditional market for universities like Warwick would then be significantly eroded in two directions, with some students globalising, whilst others become even more sedentary. In either case Warwick seems to lose its footing. We can attempt to combat this with glossy brochures and friendly open days, but as competition becomes more intense, and the market more discerning, the bottom-line story will come under closer scrutiny and really must hold up effectively. And all the time every other fish in the pond will offer a pretty picture of nice residences and a lively social life. Such things cease to be a differentiator and instead become commodified.

These trends will no doubt be the certain outcome if consumer attitudes remain as present. But the Telegraph article may indicate (or be leading) a significant shift. At least a large sub set of consumers will start to behave more intelligently, with a detailed appreciation of what makes the difference between institutions and their offerings. Expect, at least in the short term, a rise in the number of courses that combine the safety of a traditional UK institution with more exotic destinations abroad (these are already a big part of the Arts at Warwick). Also expect to see prospective students seeking clarification and verification of claims by British universities that they offer a special kind of educational experience, somehow resulting in superior graduates. What exactly is it about a degree at a certain institution that makes it worth the money more than any other? This is the real drive behind the Telegraph article.

The obvious claim is that limited contact hours equal poor quality education, and vice versa. This is countered with the notion that arts students benefit greatly from even a small quantity of high quality contact with top experts, whilst developing independent skills of their own: so called “research based learning”. This is in many cases the “exactly” of “what makes a specific degree better”. I have heard this argument at Warwick, and indeed have on occasion used it myself. Unfortunately as a differentiator and mark of quality, this concept has become dramatically devalued and will not stand up to the kind of scrutiny applied by the Telegraph. Professor Anthony King of Essex University knows this to be the case. He makes the obvious point that 18 year old students do not have the required skills to operate as independent researchers. Expect to see as a consequence universities differentiating themselves through well worked out, consistent and clearly branded undergraduate induction and skills programmes. Warwick MUST do this to keep competitive as an undergraduate provider. However, such curriculum developments are expensive. And the question of who bears the cost has to be settled. It may be born by agencies external to the subject specialist academics, by for example a central undergraduate skills programme separate from academic departments. However, we then risk the dilution of the degree programme away from subject specialism and academic expertise, precisely the things that we claim give its special value. At the other extreme, the cost of curriculum development would fall upon the subject specialist academic. This would be a difficult choice at a time at which increasing pressure is being placed upon such academics to produce high quality work to be evaluated by the Research Assessment Exercise. It may be that research academics simply cannot do the extra work of redeveloping the curriculum at this time.

The immediate quandary facing Warwick, given the changing market conditions, is then how can it differentiate its undergraduate offerings with some special characteristic, such that its claims:

1. are significantly attractive to prospective students within a global market;
2. represent value for money;
3. can be understood by prospective undergraduates (and the media that tells them what matters) without too much effort;
4. do not add an unbearable overhead to existing resources (academics);
5. can be maintained as a distinct advantage over the competition for a significant length of time.

By definition, there is no simple solution. If points 1 to 4 were easily achievable, then every one of our competitors would achieve them right away, leaving us with no advantage: we would fail on point 5. As always, any solution to the problem of successful differentiation in competition requires a blend of strategies that:

• meet the popular demands and expectations of the market;
• do so in some uniquely special and un-commodifiable way;
• reduce cost whilst bringing new value to all participating agents.

At this point the common reaction is to reach for a copy of the Oxford Dictionary of Techno Wizardry. Look under E for E-learning perhaps. But don’t get too excited. There are some possibilities, but we will not find a panacea. Technical solutions can only be part of the answer to the kind of problems that I have outlined. For example, we could create an online induction course that requires no input from academic staff. However, if it worked really well and delivered valuable education, it would not be delivering an education valuable in a way specific to Warwick and its academia. In fact it would soon become commodified, copied by every other university. Technical solutions always imply that we must keep innovating and improving, as they are easily copied by the opposition. The best solution is to pair the technical solution with something else that cannot be copied by another university. Something unique and situated in the culture and community of the place, which must itself develop to meet the new challenges alongside the introduction of new technologies.

At this point I should make clear exactly what I am not advocating, for e-learning already has a bad name from the wrong kind of coupling of technological and cultural change. Many within education and beyond have sought to force change through technological development. This however very rarely works, unless you have the power to force everyone to use the new technology. Unfortunately, this tactic is usually the last resort of institutions who do not have that kind of power. Paradoxically, they hope to attain this authority surreptitiously through the introduction of technology, which of course relies on having such a degree of power (the strategy thus collapses into circularity). For example, the rapidly fading generation of Virtual Learning Environments (Blackboard, WebCT, Learnwise) have been adopted by some institutions as a means of introducing quality assurance frameworks by stealth. The idea being that the VLE “encourages” lecturers to document their teaching activities and to record the work of their students in an online location easily accessible to university authorities. Administrators would then be able to drill-down into institutions to examine every detail of what is going on, without even leaving their desks. Of course no British university has either the power or the will to force academics to cooperate. Consequently there are a lot of very empty VLEs out there.

Instead, we require a different kind of technology strategy, one that takes the best aspects of the unique community and culture of the university, and supports, enhances and extends them to provide a significantly different and more valuable undergraduate experience. Importantly, this cannot be done in isolation from development in the practices of the people involved in teaching undergraduates, as they are the key source of value. So we could see the introduction of a superb new technical tool for supporting undergraduate learning, for example a blog system, but that must be connected to and validated by the involvement of the specialist academics that are Warwick’s special value. Currently the Warwick Blogs system does give us a small advantage over our competitors in the overall undergraduate provision, but it is not in any way rooted in the academic specialism and culture that makes Warwick unique. It is potentially comodifiable. Expect to see Oxford Blogs, Cambridge Blogs and so on at some point soon. The next difficult question, one that I do not yet have sufficient answers for, is how we develop our e-learning provisions so as to stimulate the required cultural development within the university. I have a strategy, but not yet the required tactics. Any suggestions?

Robert O'Toole : 20 Apr 2006 07:25 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (4) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

E–learning Research: copyright and the principle of fair dealing in education

Firstly, what is meant by "fair dealing"? The notion refers to exceptions in the application of copyright that may be claimed as applicable to specific breaches of an author or artist's rights. In a limited set of situations, one could offer as a defence in court that a breach of copyright is "fair" under the accepted meaning of that part of the copyright legislation. Whether a specific breach of the law is "fair" or not is always a matter of judgement.

What then is allowable? Under "fair dealing" it is the case that certain educational activities that breach copyright are acceptable. These exceptions are however very strictly defined. Stepping outside of the boundaries leaves one with no legal defence. The boundary is simple, as Raymond Wall explains in his very useful Copyright Made Easier (Aslib/IMI 2000): one may break another person's copyright by making a copy if that copy is to be used for either research or private study. If used for research purposes, then the copy may be circulated amongst the researchers, or they may each make their own copies. If used for private study, the copy may be used privately by a single "student":

'Private study' has become accepted as excluding group or class study… p.169

Notice that the shared use of copies in the research context does not apply to the study context. Copies cannot be made for and circulated to classes of students. This may be quite a surprise. We have become familiar with the following activity:

…someone possessed a photograph of a painting, taken for research or private study, and subsequently showed it to a class… p.273

For example, a slide of an artwork being presented to a class. And as Wall argues, we are justified in considering this not to be a problem:

…it is doubtful whether the rights owner would object… p.273

But the fact is that in doing so we have no legal right or recourse to "fair dealing". If we then seek to transfer this scenario to the digital world, making a scanned file of the artwork and "showing" it to the class via the internet, rights owners understandably get a lot more upset and a lot less charitable. Digitisation enables the rapid production and circulation of multiple copies, beyond the original good intentions of the person who originally scanned the image – bad news for rights owners. One might then consider claiming that the digitised image is circulated via the internet for research purposes and not for private study. This almost works. Unfortunately, we should remember that "fair dealing" is not a guaranteed right, but rather a possible defence that may be available if indeed the dealing were fair. However, if the digitised image were to become available beyond the research group, and multiple copies are made for purposes beyond the research, then the rights of the copyright owner have been infringed unfairly.

There is then a chain of misconceptions that lead people from acceptable fair dealing for private study or research, to the abuse of copyright online. And subsequently I must often explain that just because you can share an image for research purposes or show an image in a lecture, you cannot therefore digitise that image and put it on your web site.

Does this then mean that we can do very little with digital media? There are two further possibilities that may provide the rights to use the media. Firstly, there is the lapsed-time defence. A moderately complex set of rules governs the persistence of copyright after the creation of object or the death of the artist/author. Unfortunately this is not at all straightforwards.

In the case of an artwork, current ownership may lie with a gallery or other body that has licenced the right to make a copy to a specific person (or excluded others from the right under specific contract, such as the right of the public to enter the gallery). The person who then creates the image of the artwork then holds the copyright of the image, but under contratcual terms imposed by the gallery. When reproducing an old artwork, by for example scanning a postcard, one must respect the copyright of the person who created the image of the artwork that is being reproduced.

In the case of a sufficiently old text, although no specific reproduction of it can be copyrighted (even a different presentational form or typography), the text may contain notes or translations that are original to a more recent agent, and therefore part of their rights.

The final and most painful solution is to obtain permission, from the rights owner, to reproduce their work. In some cases, we are lucky to find that someone has already done the work for us. As Wall explains, the exclusion of group or class study is:

…in fact the basis of photocopy licensing of multiple copying in the education sector. p.170

But in many cases, including almost all digitisation, there are no such agreements or agencies. In these cases, permission must be sought on a item by item basis. You simply have to do the tedious work of contacting artists/authors and asking for permission.

Copyright is then a significant blocker to the use of artworks and texts in the arts. The assumption that such educational use is "fair dealing" is false. Without rights agreements and agencies to help, keeping legal is a difficult task. My next investigation on the subject will be to consider the agencies and agreements that are available now, or in the near future, to assist.

Comments and corrections are most welcome (especially if they are from lawyers and free of charge).

Robert O'Toole : 19 Apr 2006 22:56 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Review: COLLAPSE – Journal of Philosophical Research and Development

COLLAPSE is just so...[can't choose exactly the right adjective, but "vital", "exciting" and "connected" would be in the vicinity]. Perhaps you have been unlucky, never having encountered this publication? They say it is a "Journal of Philosophical Research and Development", however its creative conception of any of those six words is in itself part of the adventure. No publication has ever been quite so tangential and at the same time so concentratory.

"It aims to force unforeseen conjunctions, singular correspondences, and cross-fertilisations; to diagram abstract sensations as yet unnamed."

"The journal COLLAPSE exists as the explosive, perhaps fragmentary, product of the passion for thought, unrestrained by any thematic or formal constraint, any justificatory relation to any agency whatsoever."

Academia averse to risk? Not in COLLAPSE. Ceaseless regurgitation of its own grey matter? No.

Robert O'Toole : 07 Apr 2006 15:41 |  Tags: Collapse Philosophy Research Transversality Transversality |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

E–learning Research: Why academics blog (or not)?

Follow-up to Research Plan: ideas for researching networking, narrowcasting and broadcasting by bloggers from Transversality - Robert O'Toole

Why this matters

I think I have some answers to these questions. Or at the very least, I have a good way of thinking about the problem that may render it answerable. But first I assume you are not necessarily convinced that it matters. In response I offer two arguments:

1. Answering the question of why academics don’t blog may give us a deeper insight into academic attitudes and behaviours. This knowledge is transferable to other learning technology development problems;
2. I believe that weblog technology (along with other new web tools) has the potential to dramatically enhance the “academic environment”, if applied intelligently.

So there you have my agenda and motivation. I hope you agree on its significance.

Understanding the desire to blog

We should ask more widely of all bloggers: "why do you blog?”. The first and key step in answering this question is: "who do you blog for?" – "what is your intended (or implicitly assumed) audience?" The intention of a blog may be to inform, enrage, impress and so on, but those effects are always relative to and motivated by the imagined effect on a given audience. The blogger blogs so as to have these effects on an audience. Sometimes, as in a solely reflective blog, there is an audience of one, the author themselves. Even so, the motivation is to have an effect on that audience.

At this point, as I suggested in an earlier entry, we can use one of the core concepts of communications and design studies: narrowcasting versus broadcasting. The question then is put more specifically:

1. Do you write for a specific actual audience (known nameable people)? – In which case you are engaging in formal narrowcasting (the most formal narrowcasting will apply privacy controls to keep unknown people out);
2. Do you write for a specific virtual audience (unknown but clearly classifiable people, such as "all philosophy students")? – In which case you are engaging in informal narrowcasting.

Or:

1. Do you write for no specific audience, considering your audience to be anyone who finds your blog? – You are engaging in broadcasting;
2. Do you write content that appeals to a broad and loosely specified audience, but seek positive feedback from an identifiable and narrow audience? – You are broadcasting, but through the filter of what is in effect an informal or formal editorial presence.

Blogs may in reality be a mix of these attitudes, although not necessarily within the same entries. For example, my blog contains informally narrowcasted entries about the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, as well as broadcasted entries about my baby. Some blogs are particularly effective at leading a general audience into an interest in very specialized topics, or vice versa. But quite often a blogger will make an assumption, usually a received and unconsidered assumption, about their audience, the audience appropriate for a blog, and stick to it. And from where is this assumption receieved? I suggest two key sources, each transmitting a different and contradictory assumption, and resulting in very different kinds of blog:

1. The traditional broadcast medium (newspapers, radio, television) who present blogs in terms understandable and significant to themselves. Looking at the coverage of blogs in these media, one would assume that blogging is a broadcast medium, aiming to reach an unspecialized and general audience (in fact the blogs that they like are the ones that are capable of being translated into the traditional broadcast media);
2. The network effect of friends who blog enticing their friends to also blog. In this case the tendency would be to blog for your friends, in response to your friends, and therefore to narrowcast.

Which of these two influences is the most prevalent? Examing the list of recent entries in Warwick Blogs usually indicates that the former may be more potent. Indeed it would appear that most bloggers are trying to be one-person-broadcast-media, with the majority of entries about topics of very general interest and requiring no specialist knowledge. There could be narrowcasted topics that we can’t see dues to privacy controls, but in fact I know that this is quite rare. We could also assume that the authors of these broadcasted entries are expecting a set of known readers to appreciate them, whilst still writing in an essentially broadcast style. I suspect that this says something about the kinds of social relations that exist between these bloggers. They are after all mostly students and hence only together for a very short and uncertain period of time, perhaps not long enough to develop deeper and more specialised shared interests.

We may also ask the question of the blog system itself: is it biased towards narrowcasting or broadcasting? Have a look at the Warwick Blogs homepage and see what you think. More importantly, what does a set of blogs (and their aggregation) implicitly say about the purpose of blogging? My guess is that a brief look at Warwick Blogs would give you the impression that bloggers write more for an unspecialized and general audience. The highly discursive nature of blogging (especially at Warwick) encourages this. The listing of topics that have received many comments reinforces this. The assumption is then that blog entries are written to prompt discussion amongst a general audience.

Understanding the academic desire to blog (or not)

Now consider the nature of "being an academic". What is the most significant feature? I would say specialization. In fact I would argue that universities exist as places in which quite extreme specialization can take place. This is so extreme that even two people in the same department may not have much of an understanding of each other's work (modal logic is a mystery to me). To an outsider that may seem bad. But it is in fact the very reason for giving people the time and space required to explore and innovate. Furthermore, I conjecture that most academics would respond to finding any spare time in their busy diaries by doing activities to work further on their specialization. If you're not an academic, and you don't believe me, think back to what it was like being an undergraduate. Did you get the sense that each individual academic was trying to pull you into their own particular specialized field? This is even more so for graduate students, as lecturers seek to recruit doctoral students (or at least sell their own books).

Asking again the question: "why should an academic blog?" – So far we have no answer.

Of course academics cannot stay in their silos of specialization permanently. They occassionaly have to crawl out of the cave and communicate their work to a slightly more broad audience. Ideas do need to be tested. They also need to be funded. Could they do this in a blog? Yes. Would they? Probably not. Consider just how carefully managed this process of academic exposure usually is, and how much work is required to get it right. The peer reviewed journal is one of two mechanisms for communicating academic work in a managed way; a tighly controlled way. Conferences are a little more wild and risky, but even so are regulated with high expectations. I know of academics that could talk brilliantly about anything at any time, and yet they still cancel conference appearances because their papers are not perfect.

From this perspective, the project of academic blogging looks doomed. Perhaps that is why very few academics turn up to my workshops on blogging? (In comparison to sessions on tools that help with their own private research).

Academic blogging 2

I seem to have done a fairly good job of demolishing the idea that blogs can be useful to academics. And yet I still stand by my statement that:

weblog technology (along with other new web tools) has the potential to dramatically enhance the “academic environment”, if applied intelligently.

The weblog is, after all, a powerful tool for recording and archiving the development of ideas, for exploiting that archive, for selectively exposing it to others, and for developing an identity and a presence. All of these activities are vital to the academic process. The key to using the technology is in understanding how it can be used to address a controlled audience (from an audience of one, the author, to the whole world). This is a matter of using the features built into the software, as well as exploiting writing techniques that more clearly define the audience and hence manage engagement with it. For example, one keep a blog containing entries about a specialised topic, sometimes stating that an entry is “just a conjecture” and other times stating that it is “more conclusive”. You can alert colleagues to entries that they will be interested in, asking for a response, even a formal peer review. But you can also expose these entries to the world, allowing for chance encounters with other academics, in the same or a related field. You may also find that over time words that you use, ideas that you develop, in your blog become more widely accepted. It could even attract funding.

However, for this to become common practice, changes must occur:

1. We need to change people’s perception of the purpose of blogging, from a broadcast medium to a medium that is sophisticated enough to combine broad and narrowcasting as required;
2. There needs to be more widespread adoption of the techniques for managing audiences and writing;
3. The advantages of blogging for academics in specific situations need to be explicated and communicated, with real examples.

I shall explore this in another forthcoming entry.

Your comments on any aspect of this entry are most welcome.

Robert O'Toole : 06 Apr 2006 16:04 |  Tags: Blog Research E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

E–learning Research: Factors for choosing e–learning projects

Follow-up to E–learning Research: Achieving success in e–learning development from Transversality - Robert O'Toole

I am therefore seeking:

1. guidelines on selecting projects, such that those chosen are more significant and continually successful;
2. means for encouraging the formation and completion of projects (by staff and students) that meet those criteria.

My first conjecture is that a successful e–learning development project requires at least the cooperative endeavours of IT providers (including development and support), the University (that is, services and interests that are global to the whole institution), and the end users (the staff and students who will be affected by the development, and who play a central role in making it happen, usually as part of the project team).

Each of these parties has a set of desires that make the development feasible and worthwhile. In return they have certain responsibilities that must be met for their own desires or those of others are to be met (and hence for the development to be successful). These desires and responsibilities form the factors that contribute to the success of a development. I am trying to create a comprehensive account of these factors. Here is the concept map node so far:

It should be immediately apparent that for all of this to be assured (rather than merely accidental), there needs to be a cooperation of the efforts and interests of the many people involved. At this point we should note that some people do believe that we simply should not worry about this problem. Coordination of all of these people and factors at the same time being too difficult. Rather, we should just stand back and allow new practices to emerge from a diverse network of people all innovating with the available toolset, and actively feeding new requirements to the IT providers and the University. The idea is that the near–viral force of "network effect" will result in positive change over time. This may indeed sometimes be true, and certainly is when countenanced on a very large scale (e.g. the whole internet). But within a University there just are not enough users with enough time and desire to innovate. Furthermore, demands on the time of core users (those who can assure that a new approach is permanently adopted) are so great as to prevent deeper innovation, affecting and improving core activities. Consequently innovation and innovators tend to be peripheral, thus failing on desire 1.1.1.1. Note that although there may be small and quite visible innovations, transferable across domains (1.1.1.3), they are not significant innovations and do not add significant value (1.2.1.3). I conclude then that deeper more widespread cooperation is essential for significant and cost–effective development (the Learning Grid was planned, many cooperated on it, it did not emerge out of the chaos).

(Note on strategy for Rob Johnson: a successful guerrilla operation is only achievable through the deployment of large numbers of operatives, each with plenty of time and committment. That is what distinguishes guerrilla war from terrorism).

Consistent and ongoing commitments are absolutely necessary, as is good communication. The big question concerns how to assure that this happens (problem 2 stated above). The common solution is to form projects that have their own strong distinct identity, and which unite the various partners. How can I do this?

My single greatest problem is in getting sufficiently consistent committment from end users, including staff and students, especially those who are core project members. If success is to be achieved through effective projects, then I must find a way of forming good projects that meet the list of factors for success. I shall now work on this question.

Robert O'Toole : 05 Apr 2006 12:47 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Research Notes: Spinoza and desert asceticism, Kant and the urban sublime

Follow-up to Research Notes: Arabia and the geography of asceticism from Transversality - Robert O'Toole

Upon the water-cleansed and fragrant ledge I undressed my soiled body, and stepped into the little basin, to taste at last a freshness of loving air and water against my tired skin. It was deliciously cool. I lay there quietly, letting the clear, dark red water run over me in a ribbly stream, and rub the travel-dirt away. While I was so happy, a grey-bearded, ragged man, with a hewn face of great power and weariness, came slowly along the path till opposite the spring; and there he let himself down with a sigh upon my clothes spread out over a rock beside the path, for the sun-heat to chase out their thronging vermin.

He heard me and leaned forward, peering with rheumy eyes at this white thing splashing in the hollow beyond the veil of sun-mist. After a long stare he seemed content, and closed his eyes, groaning, 'The love is from God; and of God; and towards God'.

In the cruel matter of fact world of the desert it would be hard to believe in a loving God, one that deliberately arranges the world for the benefit of humans. This desert wanderer had himself been blinded, rendering his staring looks fitting of someone with a more transcendent imaginary. Lawrence had just experienced the erosion of vision himself, with Sherif Aid suddenly losing his sight to the burning sun.

But here, in an abundant pool of otherwise rare water, it seems possible. The contrast between desert asceticism and the bathing pool, between the pain of driving sand and the pleasure of cool water, between thirst and immediate satisfaction, mirrors that between the desert and its necessities and the town and its free-will. The spring at Shallala sits within a sublime geological architecture. Lawrence's choice of words allies the great Wadi Rumm with the city or citadel:

The hills on the right grew taller and sharper, a fair counterpart of the other side which straightened itself to one massive rampart of redness. They drew together until only two miles divided them: and then, towering gradually till their parallel parapets must have been a thousand feet above us, ran forward for an avenue of miles. p.351

Lawrence, an archaeologist with expertise on fortifications, draws the inevitable analogies. The walls are said to be:

built sectionally, in rags like gigantic buildings, along two sides of their street.

And:

The crags were capped in nests of domes, less hotly red than the body of the hill; rather grey and shallow. They gave the finishing semblance of Byzantine architecture.

Wadi Rumm is a citadel, an overwhelming and enveloping cave bigger than man but making sense of man. It is said that the:

The Arab armies would have been lost in the length and breadth of it, and within the walls a squadron of aeroplanes could have wheeled in formation. Our little caravan grew self-conscious, and fell dead quiet, afraid and ashamed to flaunt its smallness in the presence of the stupendous hills.

Wadi Rumm is Lawrence's sublime. Perhaps it is the closest that he gets to Oedipus?

Landscapes, in childhood's dream, were so vast and silent. We looked backward through our memory for the prototype up which all men had walked between such walls toward such an open square as that in front where this road seemed to end. Later, when we were often riding inland, my mind used to turn me from the direct road, to clear my senses by a night in Rumm and by the ride down its dawn-lit valley towards the shining plains, or up its valley in the sunset towards that glowing square which my timid anticipation never let me reach. I would say, 'Shall I ride on this time, beyond the Khazail, and know it all?' But in truth I liked Rumm too much.

But for Lawrence the city, its sublime, and the shame that it makes possible (the invasion of the citadel at Deraa), are not necessary. Ideas, sweeping out of the desert, may go in one of two directions: the Hellenism of the city (and its Christianity) or the surrender to fate, fact and an impersonal God of desert ascetiicisms. The words of the ragged man at Wadi Rumm had reminded Lawrence of this, and of his ambiguous position between the two (whilst relaxing in the spring, removing the desert dust and returning to the city): 'The love is from God; and of God; and towards God'.

His low-spoken words were caught by some trick distinctly in my water pool. They stopped me suddenly. I had believed Semites unable to use love as a link between themselves and God, indeed, unable to conceive such a relation except with the intellectuality of Spinoza, who loved so rationally and sexlessly, and transcendently that he did not seek, or rather had not permitted, a return. p.356

…expressing the monotheism of open spaces, the pass-through-infinity of pantheism and its everyday usefulness of an all-pervading, household God. p.357

Christianity had seemed to me the first creed to proclaim love in this upper world, from which the desert and the Semite (from Moses to Zeno) had shut it out: and Christianity was a hybrid, except in its first root not essentially Semitic.

This is followed by an exposition of the differing origins of the religions, and their routes out into the world. An academic exposition, but one written by someone at the border of these two great Ideational generators.

Idea

Spinoza and desert asceticism, Leibniz and urban excess? Just a thought.

Robert O'Toole : 03 Apr 2006 22:48 |  Tags: Deleuze Guattari Kant Lawrence Of Arabia Leibniz Nomadic Nomadic War Machine Philosophy Research Spinoza Sublime Transversality Transversality |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

E–learning Progress Report: looking for a new job

Follow-up to E–learning Research: Achieving success in e–learning development from Transversality - Robert O'Toole

What are we trying to achieve?

I define the goal quite simply: the adoption of good new technologies by lecturers and students to enhance the teaching and learning process (which at Warwick includes research activities). The effort in adopting the new technologies should be justified by the value that they add, and not negated by any disruption that they introduce to existing practices. The end result should be to contribute to Warwick becoming a world class university.

How can I contribute to this?

Perhaps the best place to start is by asking: what am I good at? That is answerable by identifying what, out of the (far too many) things that I do, people value the most.

Rob Johnson identified something important today during a discussion of a planned skills and PDP development project in History. In response to his description of the project, I raised a few critical questions that need to be answered in considering and planning the project. Without first answering these questions, the project could be undermined. People often tell me that they value this input.

Secondly, I was able to demonstrate how the nature of the project and its deliverables might change in response to these answers. Most importantly I could suggest techniques (pedagogical and otherwise) and technologies that might address the identified problems. These suggestions were based on a mix of experience (they had been used elsewhere) and rational conjecture (they were new ideas that sound feasible).

So to summarise, what I am recognised as doing well:

1. help people to think and plan critically;
2. suggest possible solutions.

Note that there are other things that I could potentially do well, but for various reasons beyond my control, I cannot reliably contribute them to e-learning development.

What can I not contribute?

These positive contributions are good and valued. They create specific requirements, including:

1. helping people to answer the critical questions (through deeper investigations);
2. the absolutely fundamental requirement to provide a cohesive and complete set of tools and technologies that can be used to meet the requirements to an acceptable extent;
3. the need to provide good and relavant examples illustrating possible solutions (academics are constantly asking for good relevant examples from real teaching).

Unfortunately, I am finding that I cannot satisfy all of these requirements at the same time, and am not getting sufficient help in doing so. Specifically, I find that:

1. I do not have enough time and resource to help them to answer the critical questions through deeper invesitgations;
2. I cannot provide, or source from elsewhere within the University, the required technologies and support infrastructure – we simply do not have provisions to meet the needs that I am constantly encountering;
3. given that I am having to take personal responsibility for so many of the required e-learning activities, I do not have time available to generate and document the required body of examples – the fact that there are so many gaps in the technology and support provision, also makes this difficult.

Possible solutions?

I am finding that genuine success in e-learning development, or even moderately worthwhile progress, is not happening. These problems cannot be solved by an individual in isolation. They require team work, coordination, and strategy. Without team work and strategy, I am ending up having to fulfill almost every role in the e-learning development process myself (such a diversity as to include building web applications, teaching undergraduates, consulting with academics, project management, writing showcases, testing out new technologies and much more). I conclude that a new way of working is required.

Robert O'Toole : 30 Mar 2006 14:44 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Research Notes: deserts, nomadic war machines, smooth space and the maritime model

Follow-up to Research Notes: Akaba is real and not a phantasm from Transversality - Robert O'Toole

Smooth space and striated space – nomad space and sedentary space – the space in which the war machine develops and the space instituted by the State apparatus – are not of the same nature. A Thousand Plateaus p.474

…initially the Arab nomadic war machine and the Turkish state are different in kind. The task of the rebellion is to break down the discontinuous multiplicity of the Turkish state into a continuous multiplicity into which it can flow and overwhelm. To achieve this, the nomadic war machine must intensify and multiply the striations of the State, rendering it into pulp or pushing it across a threshold of intensity that makes every striation unique and hence the assemblage a flow of pure matter without identity. Not every nomadic formation is a nomadic war machine. It only becomes such when there is necessary relation to a State. The nomadic war machine and its opposing State apparatus thus operates as a translating machine, deterritorializing-reterritorializing, cutting and connecting, between the sedentary and the nomadic…

No sooner do we note a simple opposition between the two kinds of space than we must indicate a much more complex difference by virtue of which the successive terms of the oppositions fail to coincide entirely. And no sooner have we done that than we must remind ourselves that the two spaces in fact exist only in mixture: smooth space is constantly being translated, transversed into striated space; striated space is constantly being reversed, returned to a smooth space. In the first case one organizes even the desert; in the second, the desert gains and grows. ibid p.474–475

…this breaking down requires an outmanouvering and out-acceleration of striations and strategies, such that the nomadic war machine is always disappearing before engagement takes place, thus driving the State apparatus into a frenzy of reaction. Such speed and mobility is achievable with the adoption of the "maritime model" as Deleuze and Guattari say. At liberty to either engage the enemy or dissolve into the desert, guerrilla warfare as non-battle. Lawrence on the maritime model of desert warfare…

In character our operations of development for the final stroke should be like naval war, in mobility, ubiquity, independence of bases and communications, ignoring of ground features, of strategic areas, of fixed directions, of fixed points. 'He who commands the sea is at great liberty, and may take as much or as little of the was as he will.' Seven Pillars of Wisdom p.337

And we commanded the desert. Camel raiding parties, self-contained like ships, might cruise confidently along the enemy's cultivation-frontier, sure of an unhindered retreat into the desert-element which the Turks could not explore.

…was it Montgomery or Rommel who, after the El Alamein, described desert war as more properly modeled along maritime lines? Anyhow, Lawrence was there first. And to what ends?...

Discrimination of what point of the enemy organism to disarrange would come to us with war practice. Our tactics should be to tip and run: not pushes, but strokes. We should never try to improve an advantage. We should use the smallest force in the quickest time at the farthest place. p338

…war against the organism, attacking without reason or pattern anywhere at any time…

The distribution of the raiding parties was unorthodox…we aimed at the widest dissipation of force; and we added fluidity to speed by using one district on Monday, another on Tuesday, a third on Wednesday. Thus natural mobility was reinforced.

…sending the enemy organism into defensive reactionary spasms and deranging its command hierarchies and communications, rendering it as a Body without Organs, returned to a materialty without difference in kind, such that it can be pulled and manipulated, drawn and pressurised…

In a real sense maximum disorder was our equilibrium.

…their order was in chaos…

The internal economy of our raiding parties achieved irregularity and extreme articulation. Our circumstances were not twice similar, so no system could fit them twice: and our diversity threw the enemy intelligence off the track. p.339

…the derangement of the enemy is intensified through planting a terrifying Idea: invisible but omniscient battalions stalk them at all times, let their own imaginations do the work…

By identical battalions and divisions information built itself up, until corps could be inferred on corpses from three companies. Our strengths deoended upon whim.

Robert O'Toole : 29 Mar 2006 23:00 |  Tags: Deleuze Guattari Lawrence Of Arabia Maritime Model Nomadic Nomadic War Machine Philosophy Research Smooth Space Striated Space Transversality Transversality |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

E–learning Research: Achieving success in e–learning development

Key notes

Factors for success

Target the core not the periphery: End users can be described on a continuum between core and peripheral. Core users are closer to the main or most common business of the organisation, either in their own practice or in their power and influence over others. Why this matters: influential people make key decisions. Even core users with less direct power can operate a "network effect" – the use of a technique by one of these users makes it more likely that other users will also adopt it.

Assure is appropriate for the context: What is meant by context? This is the wider environment and community of learning, teaching and research. The project should emerge from and be defined by this context. The context includes:

• Current and future user expectations (staff and students).
• The aims and objectives of all of the users.
• Current and future practices and tactics of the users.

Context is influenced and summarised at a range of levels and perspectives including:

• Inter-university
• Pan-university
• Module team
• Research group
• Peer group
• Programme team
• Department

Seek necessary completeness and cohesion: Completeness is the provision of a well integrated and extensive range of tools and services, without gaps, along with all of the activities required to make them appropriate to the context and used widely and effectively.

Why this matters: end users should not embark on the use of a technology or a technique only to find that an essential component is missing. This is especially important when users are tentatively adapting to new approaches. Completeness is also an issue for the providers of services that should mesh closely with other services.

Some users are happy with speculative projects that may encounter incompleteness. Some activities can be carried out speculatively without guaranteed completeness. Other activities, such as exams, require guaranteed completeness of all required tools and techniques.

Activities required for success

Many activities (service provision, development, communication, training, support, review, evaluation, decision making etc) contribute to the achievement of successful e-learning development, realising the factors for success given above. These activities are widely varied, and require a skillset usually beyond a single person or small team. E-learning initiatives frequently fail becuase they attempt to undertake all of these activities with too limited a human resource. However, for the sake of completeness and consistency, these activities must be undertaken through tightly enmeshed and coordinated teamwork. Expanding some subnodes of these activities reveals the extent of the complexity:

Possible strategies for achieving success

The activities necessary for success in e-learning are great in depth and breadth of diversity. Mastery of the complete set by individuals is niether likely nor to be desired. Strategies have evolved to enable success without such complete control of the factors that contribute to its likelihood. These strategies tend to involve carving out a subset of the required activities, gaining mastery over that subset, and using various tactics to wield some kind of influence or power over the provision of the remaining activities. The problem may be sliced in two ways:

A) Project development, in which a goal is identified that makes use of a set of the available provisions, shapes the development of those provisions, and provides justification and validation of the available feature sets (or alternatively demonstrated gaps and limitations). This node opened out:

B) Service specialism, in which focus is placed upon the provision of a definite set of tools and features, with incremental development in return for limited application within the scope of those features. Node opened out:

A third technique may be called Information Exchange. This represents a retreat from any attempt to ensure completeness and consistency. It is withdrawl from close involvement with either project or service development. The user is in effect left to do much of the work of innovation, application of technologies, discovery of techniques, and identification of gaps and requirements. It is a safe strategy in the short term, but on a longer scale may lead nowhere. More about this node:

Robert O'Toole : 28 Mar 2006 23:08 |  Tags: E-Learning Warwick University |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Baby Report: Deconstruction

"Why make a knife pass between two texts? Why, at least, write two texts at once? What scene is being played? What is desired? In other words, what is there to be afraid of? who is afraid? of whom? There is a wish to make writing ungraspable, of course. When your head is full of the matters here you are reminded that the law of the text is in the other, and so on endlessly. By knocking up the margin – (no) more margin, (no) more frame – one annuls it, blurs the line, takes back from you the standard rule that would enable you to delimit, to cut up, to dominate."

Robert O'Toole : 28 Mar 2006 22:36 |  Tags: Baby Lawrence O-Toole |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem