Background; in an earlier post Show & Tell I discussed the concept of journeymen, people who would help triangulate, authenticate, and validate the learning process identified by a WikiSqolar as part of the WikiQuals project. The term, and the concept, were derived from the process by which the learning of apprentices in medieval guilds was validated; however the term is clearly sexist. A number of female academics, such as Catherine Cronin, who expressed interest in being a journeyman/person, because they were happy with the concept, forcefully expressed clear reservations about the terminology.

Thankfully for the project another female academic, Dr Ilene Dawn Alexander of the University of Minnesota, came up with a different term, which also entails slightly differing concepts and roles as we evolve the WikiQuals project. Ilene suggested that Sqolars need Affinity Partners as part of the WikiQuals process and this discussion will examine in a little more detail what we are trying to achieve with the introduction of Affinity Partners.

Wikiquals; to recap what we are examining in the WikiQuals project is how we might implement the idea of post-hoc accreditation in extra-institutional contexts (which is derived from the “formal” phase of the Emergent Learning Model). As suggested by the University Project a University is a ‘Community of Scholars’ or in our, slightly pretentious, case, Sqolars. Our current community of Sqolars are endeavouring to produce doctoral level work in this mode.  The current WikiQuals project, or community, have self-organised around the concept of producing a book reflecting their interests to an approximately doctoral level of quality. Individually each Sqolar possibly only needs themselves to clarify and define their stated aim of publishing original work on a subject that interests them.

Critical Friend; However for the WikiQuals project a community of Sqolars needs to emerge, so the WikiQuals process needs more than clear statements of individual aims if  it is to be more than an organising principle for a group of friends who want to publish. So we needed some kind of external “critical friend” to help lift WikiQuals beyond a simple shared goal of publishing personal ideas, into the realm of a project that could query how we validate learning and provide some insights into alternatives. This is why we first introduced the concept of a journeyman.

Show and Tell; A Journeyman is someone external to the WikiQuals process who is needed to ensure that the work produced is not self-referential with a value only within the context, and the community, in which it was produced.  In medieval guilds a journeyman was someone from another guild who would review the work of an apprentice of a guild “master”, on the basis of a process called ‘show and tell’; show me what you can do and tell me how you do it. This seems a very valid process of quality assurance to me, arguably an early form of wrangling. For WikiQuals Show & Tell and the idea of a journeyman was adopted conceptually to reference other methods of ensuring the quality of work produced by novices in learning contexts. However what we are doing is more complex than graduating from being a guild apprentice and consequently requires the adoption of a number of critical factors; Learning support, dialogical engagement and some process which engages with the validation of quality. As someone tweeted about WikiQuals; how can you have a disembodied learning process? You can’t of course; the Emergent Learning Model calls for an initial social process of self-organisation developing into a learning community.

Learning Support; so any process that guarantees the value and quality of the WikiQuals project necessarily also needs to be involved in providing learning support.  On the individual Sqolar pages I have created a framework for measuring this which includes Aims, support and Review. Initially I have been providing the ‘scholarly’ review of Sqolars aims. But as we have developed these review ‘seminars’ the value of a third party with a dialogical, or reflective, role has become increasingly evident; and so the idea of an Affinity Partner has emerged. This idea emerged from a very interesting review session with Kai Graf von Pahlen and Ilene Alexander in Liverpool. Subsequent sessions with Bridget McKenzie, who has had discussions with Pat Kane and particularly Philippa Young in a discussion with Lois Acton has enabled the current idea of an Affinity Parner to develop. Learning Support is the current problem we are trying to solve on the WikiQuals project and a key part of the project is to find out what problems need to be solved in co-creating new models of learning.

Affinity Partner; The idea of an Affinity Partner also reflects Rose Luckin’s idea of a “More Able Partner”(pdf) in the Ecology of Resources model and Sugata Mitra’s use of the “Granny Cloud” for learning in his “Self-Organised Learning Environment”, as well as medieval journeymen. What the term, and the idea, of an Affinity Partner hopes to suggest is that critical friends are also engaged in learning support as there is a shared interest in the outcomes of the Sqolars learning. So here are some initial thoughts, to be developed practically, on the role of Affinity Partners;

a) Supports and discusses the ideas of the Sqolar, providing belief in the value of the work

c) Enables reflection to help both broaden and deepen the work being undertaken, providing a mentoring process

c) Challenges the Sqolar’s work as a critical friend;

d) Reviews the Sqolar’s work providing a moderating process.

Next Steps; We will be identifying and putting in place Affinity Partners for all Sqolars over the next few weeks and will report back on both the practicalities and what we learn anew from this process. Comments on the idea of Affinity Partners are encouraged, welcomed and appreciated

PS Scholarly Affinity v Academic Brutality; Just had a conversation with a friend over lunch about her recent docotoral Viva which reminded how me brutal and cruel they can be; semi-precious intellectuals gatekeeping academic consumption with a vicious lack of empathy. I’ve had several such experiences, once when I had to defend my Masters course papers before an Oxbridge Don who brutally tore apart my previously acceptable work (largely, I believe, because I had written a paper arguing against a science of social studies inspired by Paul Feyerabend - who later advised me).  Recently when the Learner-Generated Contexts Group submitted the Open Context Model of Learning to Open Learn because John Seely Brown called it “the most exciting thing happening in England” to have it rejected by the Open University. Even Noam Chomsky rejected me from his Ph.D in Linguistics and Philosophy because I had, and I quote, “too many ideas” All anecdotes, but all true. The relevant point here is about the value of affinity and empathy in intellectual endeavour as they are both qualities that enable scholarship and which we are planning for.

Developing post-hoc accreditation processes; is the purpose of WikiQuals because high-stakes assessment (of education) is seen as the only valid social measure of learning; We disagree!

Introduction; We have been asked a question within the PhD group and consequently had some scholarly, and not so scholarly, discussions, concerning whether we should accredit the WikiQuals Ph.D or not. In part this is because we have had a very generous offer of some kind of twin track accreditation from an HEI in London (a doctorate by publication) and in part  because the purpose of WikiQuals isn’t yet fully clear to everyone. So I shall deal with the issue of post-hoc accreditation in a little more detail in this post.

Formal Learning; My main reason for developing WikiQuals, which grows out of the “formal” part of the Emergent Learning Model, derives from previous experiences I’ve had of discussing alternative modes of learning developed from various projects using CMC / CSCL / ICT / ICLT / e-learning / edtech etc., with policy makers let alone alternative learning theories such as constructivism and connectionism.  They always have one simple response, before they go on to dismiss anything just for it being new, namely “Ah yes collaboration is all very well, but how can you test what people have learnt individually?” Or put another way “but what about the high-stakes assessment” (in your bright new idea about learning). Basically all proposed changes in education which emerge from analysing how learning works are dismissed by using the trump card held by the system itself concerning the allegedly enduring value of individual assessment, or exams, if you want to *really* prove that the learning matters in the “real world”.

Network Society; Whilst I think that this issue is in fact a political one about the power and value of existing hierarchies, yet more of what Ben Hammersley calls the clash between hierarchical people and network people in the 21st century, I also think you should, to quote Philippa Young at the University Project workshop on WikiQuals, “solve the problem that annoys you most“. And being told that collaborative, or any other learner-centred learning, isn’t valid because it doesn’t have a high-stakes assessment process at the end of it to prepare you for an enduring life of stress, is what annoys me the most. So here is one possible solution.

Emergent Learning; WikiQuals is both a way of reviewing and redesigning our high-stakes assessment process, as well as being one of many possible outcomes of the learning flows in the Emergent Learning Model, from which it is derived. Within that model we argue that learning is derived from the shared desires of people to learn through what could be described as the social processes of learning. Following the emergence of that desire to learn then we have to ask “how do you identify or create learning resources that map to that shared learning desire”. With the WikiQuals Ph.D group we have a shared desire to learn to a level that equates to a Ph.D, along with a learning resource issue that relates to writing a book. From my perspective as an emergent learning theorist (see Fabriziopgcap) this is a good enough fit of issues to pose interesting problems about how we might accredit that desire for learning. From an Emergent Learning perspective then, we have a relevant set of problems and issues to try and solve collectively within the WikiQuals Ph.D group.

Show & Tell; What we have to do now to address the accreditation process is to incorporate the Show and Tell dimension for each WikiQuals “scholar” by them;

a) stating publically what they are aiming to do

b) identifying resources and processes which will show how they achieved that aim

c) finding journeymen and journeywomen who can help provide guidance, support and quality assurance.

Issues in Accreditation; The debate within the group reflects a division on what represents real accreditation. The current choice for them/us is between either formal Doctoral accreditation on a traditional programme, or helping develop, practically, new processes of accreditation for the emerging networked society.

Rituals of Transition; For various reasons it has long been my view that alternative learning projects suffer from not having major Rituals of Transition such as Freshers Week, Induction and, most significantly Graduation. (you could add in the Prom if you are American or an Inbetweener in the UK). So the WikiQuals group will be designing in some Rituals, starting with a traditional Christmas party with the Everything Unplugged group on December 21^st at the Royal Festival Hall. We have other ideas, such as the pre-certification of post-hoc-accreditation, and will discuss them in a future post.

Co-Creating Scholarship; Incidentally as we are trying to become a Community of Scholars I will also be looking at how we might develop WikiQuals Sqolars as part of a process of Co-Create Open Scholarship too;

So given that we now have a group that have self-identified a learning desire, our Sqolars, how do we then accredit in WikiQuals? Let’s find out on Wednesday.

Background; Having been asked to develop a WikiQuals Masters and align it with the University Project I received more positive responses concerning a WikiQuals Ph.D, after an initial enquiry by Rosie Rafferty. Once a second query was added I realised it was possible. Currently we have 7 interested people, and this is a discussion of how a WikiQuals Ph.D might work.

The WikiQuals model is based on the Emergent Learning Model, which aims to design learning systems based on how people learn rather than where they are housed. The Emergent Learning Model (ELM) works on the assumption that people want to learn and is asking the question how do we design for enthusiasm. ELM has three phases

Informal; the social self-organisation of interested parties

Non-formal; the structured learning opportunities created by selected content, or by creating content

Formal; Accreditation of prior learning-activities

WikiQuals; is examining a particular aspect of the formal phase of learning within ELM and that is what I call post-hoc accreditation, namely accrediting previously completed work that has been undertaken at a doctoral level of depth. The immediate issues that emerged have been how do we show, or prove, that the work is of appropriate quality and depth. In response to the question of how do we create a post-hoc accreditation process, which will both be of appropriate quality and depth AND demonstrate it? I began the WikiQuals blog to document the process of what post-hoc accreditation might mean.

Quality & Depth; The process I propose testing is based on two approaches. Firstly Ian Cunningham’s learning contract model, called self-managed learning, where learners discuss and agree to a contract outlining their learning intentions. Ian uses this approach in a number of contexts but it developed from his work in running the B.A in Interdisciplinary Studies at North East London Poly in the 1970s.

Secondly the variant of the medieval Guild model of learning called “Show & Tell”, discussed previously, modified by web2.0 characteristics such as transparency and reputation. In this model the learner (candidate) identifies what they are interested in studying, or learning or creating, and through negotiation finds a supportive “journeyman” (or ‘journeyperson”) who will help shape the self-managed learning process.

WikiQuals Ph.D; With more than one person interested we had the possibility to design a socially-driven WikiQuals process. Serendipitously the common activity that most of those involved wanted to engage in was writing a book. And following discussions with David Jennings, Bridget McKenzie and Philippa Young we have sketched out the first parts of the WikiQuals Ph.D process

a) research proposal

b) Kindle book of research proposals published online

c) JourneyMan/JourneyWoman identification and process negotiation

d) Refined (moderated & quality-assured) proposal with agreed end-state

e) Book chapter structure agreed and published

f) Publishing chapters and crowd-sourcing comments

g) Book published

Research Proposal; Each WikiQuals candidate will produce an introductory chapter to their book which will propose the subject they will examine as part of their WikiQual, indicate possible research areas as well as projects, people and resources of interest that they will review or reference in writing the book.

WikiQuals website; Mark van Harmelan at Manchester University is developing a WikiQuals website which will be where all WikiQuals work will be published to meet the requirements of transparency and to support WikiQuals scholars in building their reputation. This would be part of a Web 2.0 publishing strategy that needs to be further refined and developed collaboratively amongst the group as we develop the model.

Reflections; from the University Project weekend at Hub Westminster two key ideas emerged that we could use

a) the definition of a university as a ‘community of scholars’

b) the need for a Ritual of Transition into that community

We need to develop this  sense of community for two reasons. It’s how we mark transitions from and to different parts of our lives, and you need to feel that you are a WikiQuals ‘scholar’. Scholar may not be the right word, but we could develop the idea of open scholarship such as that outlined in my proposal on co-creating open scholarship. Maybe we should provide scholars with a certificate of being a WikiQuals scholar to start with?

We will publish the seven current candidate names in the next post. Let me know if you are interested in joining by commenting or tweeting me; @fredgarnett

Background; I will be discussing WikiQuals as part of the University Project at Hub Westminster this weekend (October 14/15/16). I will be working with Leane Brooks during her Saturday session on Saturday 2pm and then, if need be, give a more formal talk on Sunday. In the previous post I outlined the WikiQuals (negotiated) learning process and in this post I want to briefly outline the post-hoc accreditation process.

Three stage model; The 3 stages of wikiquals, based on the Emergent Learning model, are social organisation, resource discovery/creation, and post-hoc accreditation. As you can see this could also be described as stage three, becoming relevant after a social group has been created and a learning process negotiated. The reason I describe it as post-hoc is that it is not a (hidden) exam-based system of learning but a transparent process involving ‘Show and Tell’

Show and Tell; The idea of Show and Tell is that participants negotiate learning activities that they undertake in the real world, carry them out in the real world and document those activities online. Document it here, on their own web-resources, or on www.wikiquals.com. Show and Tell is inspired by the medieval guild notion of (and forgive the language here) Master, Journeyman and Apprentice. A process wherein an apprentice graduates when a journeyman (not the master) agrees that the work that they have shown and told about meets the appropriate standard. Following this Show and Tell process (something more than a Viva but not dissimilar) an apprentice becomes a journeyman.

Journeyman; We will be using volunteer journeymen and journeywomen (does that work) to both a) negotiate the learning process beforehand, like Ian Cunningham’s self-managed learning model, and to carry out the Show and Tell to wrap up the process. I have about six volunteer journeymen and journeywomen already, and I will be negotiating the process further at the University Project this weekend.

Comments Welcome; Please comment below, thanks @fredgarnett

Learning Model

WikiQuals is based on the Emergent Learning Model. This posits a 3-stage process of ‘learning’ built around the emergent and social properties of groups. In this model learning is built around a self-organised group that collaboratively identifies its learning needs and then both discovers and creates the resources it needs to meet their self-identified learning needs. We have identified a group willing to do this for the academic year 2011/12 and this blog will outline the issues we will be addressing in making the WikiQuals process work. More detailed information on the Emergent Learning Model is available in the outline table on slideshare and also in the blog post on Emergent Learning. I sometimes describe this as Smart Mobs + Everything is Miscellaneous means Here Comes Everybody

Post-hoc Accreditation

Building on the Emergent Learning Model the accreditation of learning itself will be a post-hoc process subsequent to the self-organisation and resource-creation carried out by the group. WikiQuals itself is an attempt to map out and test an agreed, negotiated post-hoc method of accreditation that will be completely visible and in the public domain. The proposed method of implementation during 2011/12, outlined here, will enable various approaches to be investigated and we will examine ways of using the accreditation process both to drive the learning identified by those involved in WikiQuals individually and collaboratively, and to review the accreditation process itself.

*Guild-based approaches; Initially WikiQuals will be based on a ‘Show & Tell’ process derived from medieval guilds using the WikiQuals website to show to the world what WikiQuals students have achieved. It will be “Open” and transparent model where learning will be negotiated and agreed, discussed, re-nogotiated, shared and built upon. Learners will “show” their work on WikiQuals, explain it and have it reviewed by ‘journeymen’ who will determine of the completed work matches to the earlier negotiated activities.

Underpinning concepts needed to make WikiQuals

WikiQuals builds on those concepts identified in the Craft of Teaching as being needed to enable the co-creation of learning to emerge. This suggests that the process should have a purpose, be self-managed, negotiated between learners and practitioners, use networks and enable the bridge of contexts between study and practical application which will be stimulated by the process itself being self-organised.

a) Purpose; This draws on the ideas of Mike Wesch, Professor of Digital Anthropology that any large group of learners needs to identify its purpose. This will be a discussion of what the group as a whole wants to do but also needs to allow for both group purpose and individual motivations to be expressed. Mike Wesch, like Dave Weinberger has also identified how the machine is us/ing us.

b) Self-managed; This draws on the ideas of Ian Cunningham begun at NELP in the 1970s on the BA in Interdisciplinary studies and now captured in the Self-Managed Learning work with, for example, South Down College who were part of the future of learning workshop.

c) Negotiated; This represents the andragogic aspect of the learning process where the learners negotiate with their WikiQuals guides on how to achieve what they desire in their learning and how to structure it. Guides need to act as brokers helping to both respond to learning needs and to shape them through a process of brokering.

d) Networked; The 21^st century represents many challenges but a key aspect of that might be summarised as being part of the network society. Caroline Haythornthwaite has done a lot of work looking at the role of scholarship in the networked society in her Leverhulme Lectures New Forms of Doctorate. This challenges us to regard learning as the outcome of relations in a networked society. We shall use some of her topologies to enable organisation based on strong and weak ties between people.

e) Bridging Contexts; The 21^st Century is not just characterised by the power of networked affordances but by the range of devices available for creating new patterns within those affordances. Thomas Cochrane has described this as Bridging Learning Contexts (pdf) and we will seek to both use the context of our learning, in partnership with the University Project (@dougald), and to open up possibilities and to transcend such limitations that are introduced by bridging contexts collaboratively.

f) Self-organised; historically learning takes place in a place which allows for a lot of organisational decisions to have been taken so scholars can focus just n scholarship. This is a political economy in itself and restricts the opportunities for learning that might emerge from the self-identified purpose of a group. Organising many of the aspects of learning beyond the concerns of subjects might not appeal to many, but are a key aspect of enabling both self-managed learning and work to happen, and some of the group are keen on engaging with some aspects of this, such as identifying resources and organising events. We also need to identify whether we should run on a termly or a semester basis and what accommodation we might use.

g) Success; This will need to be identified, discussed and agreed within the WikiQuals group themselves, in discussion with journeymen. We suggest that the parameters of success need to be owned by everyone themselves but the documentation of what they have done on WikiQuals will show to the world what they have achieved. And they will need to substantiate what they have done to the point that a ‘journeyman’ will provide a reference for them.

A WikiQual then will be achieved as the outcome of a collaborative process in which purposeful activities will be developed and proposed with a group, activities, contexts and resources identified, learning outcomes negotiated with journeyman and activities documented in order to share the learning. A WikiQual will show and tell whatever it is that a participant has undertaken both collaboratively and individually within the group.

Timings;

For 2011/12 the following programme is suggested

September 2011;            Planning Workshops with interested parties

October 2011;                Learning Set-Up negotiated and recorded

November 2011;            WikiQuals Outcomes Agreed

December 2011;             Summative updates to WikiQuals

Outcomes will be reviewed and refined each term, or semester, so that the process is dynamic.

September 2012;            WikiQuals Festival of Accreditation

This is where we will provide notifications about WikiQuals project. It will be based on the Emergent Learning Model and will attempt to create new socially-driven learning processes and outcomes.