Rotterdam University Learning Community - Group Forming and Platform Use
In the past 14 months I worked together with a group of teachers at Rotterdam University. In this posting I reflect on how the group was or wasn't forming into a community, and how we used a platform for online interaction.
For a more general description see my earlier posting about the general results.
Rethink logo during final event (l), Informal drinks (r, by Anja)
Was this group a community? No!
Was this group of teachers a community of practice? Was it a group? I can answer that question with a 'No'. We started with a group of strangers. All came from different departments of Rotterdam University, and did not know each other before. At the end, during the last interviews with group members, at least one (very active and committed) person said that 'it still does not feel like a group to me'. Others were irritated about the (perceived) lack of commitment of other members towards the group, and the way people did not do their agreed upon tasks. Yet other members do not associate the term 'community' with them as a group, but with the fact that we used an on-line platform as part of our exchanges. Also we lost some group members along the way, who for different reasons could not continue their efforts. Also remarks were made about face to face meetings that indicate they were sometimes viewed as staff meetings or other more formal settings. All in all, these were signs there was not as much cohesion as we hoped to achieve.
During hands-on session (l), and me showing my terrible hand writing (r, by Jet Houwers)
Was this group a community? Yes!
Was this group of teachers a community of practice? Was it a group? I can answer that question with a 'Yes'. Part of what one can see as sign of not being a community, are in fact signs of community. Having different layers of involvement (up to and including the point of withdrawing from the group), and especially having people care about other member's level of involvement and commitment are signs of feeling a relationship with those others. Likewise people were not reluctant to talk about each other's behaviour in the group, which requires a certain level of group safety. Also on their own initiative little sub groups were formed that worked together on different tasks. There was an enormous amount of constructive criticism and positive feedback, especially in the exchanges in the platform. The amount of energy exhibited by the core of the group clearly spoke of community forming to me, filling e.g. the roles of opinion leaders, group influencers etc. Another member was instrumental as a facilitator to other people's progress, even if he did not really notice it himself. Hands-on sessions where talk was replaced by doing were experienced as very stimulating: 'I still remember exactly everything I learned that day'. There are examples where specific group members were essential in personal break through events for other members resulting in real shifts in attitude, as well as examples of people consciously intervening in the group's dynamics on a very personal level. But most telling of all is the fact that the group largely wants to go on, even now the project has ended. Going on and at the same time welcoming in additional people into the group. In parallel with the project a large group of colleagues has found themselves in Yammer.com (Twitter for within your organization) where exchanges are taking place, adding different layers of involvement yet again. All those are most certainly signs of community forming (creating rhythm, spaces and layers of involvement, and being actively inviting). Had we put the group under more pressure regarding the intensity of working together we probably would have speeded the forming of relationships up, but at the cost of attaching it more completely to the specific context of the project. It would have heightened the risk of the group falling apart after the project once the pressure that kept it together vanished. Whatever happens now is of their own choosing, based on the context they created themselves in the past year. Part of the community building effort of the past year thus will only be reaped after the end of the project, and with people that weren't part of the project. That's an important transfer aspect, and transfer of knowledge was a key part of our goals.
During drinks (l), Screen showing the platform (r, by Anja)
The role of our online platform
Right from the start we used a Drupal based online platform for our interaction between face to face sessions. It resembles the set-up of Howard Rheingold's Social Media Classroom in certain aspects (not a coincidence as we compared notes in June last year). Over the course of a year the dozen members wrote over 6900 entries in the platform. Interestingly enough eventually entries were posted during all hours of a 24 hour period. The entries show a classic power-law pattern. Some posted over 400 times, others posted only once or twice. Those that were posting only sporadically mentioned different reasons for doing so. The lay-out of the site was lacking contrast for easy reading (we originally styled it in black to give it an underground look and feel), some found having multiple navigational aids to get to the same information (in stead of having a clear hierarchical organization of content) confusing. Others had their own blogs they used to chronicle their work, even though it meant missing out on much of the interaction with the rest of the group. Also there was a specific group that at first was reluctant to share much on-line, as well as put a picture of themselves alongside it: they had been raised to be modest and unobtrusive.
The platform was intensively used for mostly constructive criticism and positive and encouraging feedback. Though at times members complained about not getting feedback on contributions at all. It was also used as a sandbox, to learn yourself how to embed video's and photo's for instance.
Front page of our platform 'De Werkplaats' (the workshop), in 'underground black'
All in all the platform served an important role during the year. I certainly underestimated the time and energy needed to be able to adapt the platform to emerging needs over time. We planned to start the platform low-key and then add features when the group wanted them. In practice I only came around to a few minor changes early on (adding a bit of functionality, and fixing search issues in the platform), as I needed to spend virtually all my available time on working with the group itself. Ideally we would have had someone running the platform as a seperate role, working in tandem with me as group facilitator and the project leader, so different roles would not hinder eachother in competition for time and energy.
Two other things of note. After the project ended formally early April, no activity took place anymore in the platform. We resorted to e-mail to make sure that the information concerning the final group event we organized early June was received by all (including those that did not use the platform frequently). Second, the group that wants to go on now that the project has ended, has indicated that they would like to continue to use the platform, albeit in somewhat altered fashion. I have promised to work with them to make that happen, and will also keep the domain and hosting available to them.
Tags: hzap08, hogeschoolrotterdam, cop, communityofpractice, socialmediaclassroom, smc
2 Comments and 0 Trackbacks | PermalinkHack the Government Day - A Report
Last Saturday saw the 2nd installment of GovCamp, this time titled 'Hack the Government', in Amsterdam. A full day long both civil servants and coders discussed different issues around opening up government data. At the same time the coders that were present created applications right there and then, based on open government data. The day was put together by my friend James Burke and Lex Slaghuis, and with loads of much appreciated help by Vincent Lindeboom and Edial Dekker. I started the day with a short introduction sketching the general landscape around open gov data, based on our experiences in the project described in the previous posting, and facilitated the audience in building the program BarCamp-style on an impromptu-wiki-wall.
Citizens and coders need to take more of a constructive activist stance
Like I remarked last year, it is one thing to complain about government doing things 'wrong' and 'not getting it', and treating government as one organizational body, but quite another to actually formulate what you want and what you are prepared to do yourself to get there. This is regardless of the fact that there are civil servants who don't 'get it' at all, and are making mistakes, because when you don't reach out to help them 'get it' they will never know they're not living up to your expectations in the first place. This is regardless of the fact that we often experience stonewalling when asking for more government transparency, because if we don't do whatever already is possible within our own sphere of influence we will never get to the point where the still dominant culture of default opaqueness is changed. Just saying 'yes, but it's the law' is not enough and will not work change, you have to be prepared to act based on it. As large scale political pressure to make this a priority is lacking (unlike e.g. the US currently, or the UK), we need to build pressure ourselves.
Civil Servants need to reach out
At the same time it is key that civil servants who are serious about open gov data let the 'outside' know what they need to move things forward, what we can do to help. Luckily, even in the midst of a lot of confusion over language and what is and what is not a governmental task, last Saturday was a platform for civil servants and coders to find a way to collectively move forward.
I was very pleased to see that a significant group of government employees decided to participate. Government ministries (e.g. Interior, Education, General Affairs) were represented, as well municipalities (e.g. Vught, Utrecht, Den Haag), and different parts of governmental bodies dealing with transparency, ICT or other topics (e.g. ICTU).
Andre Herbrink of Min of Education on open data (left) and Twitter wall back channel (right)
One of the presentations given, on ikregeer.nl
Alper's presentation on scraping.
Not just talk, also walk
We not only talked about open data and discussed existing efforts and examples, we walked the talk as well. After Alper giving a short introduction on how to scrape data when the source is not directly available, or there is no API, coders got to work on different ideas and apps that reuse open (or in some cases not so open yet) government data.
Some of the things that people worked on:
An API for the RDW website and database available from OnzeData.nl ('our data'), allowing access to information about cars based on their license plates. Created by Christoph Kempen en Manfred Zielinski. Update: RDW, the government agency involved, is currently actively blocking the API. Proving how slow going this process of transparancy is.
An Android application taking the information about cars available at the RDW, based on the user entering a license plate number. This info is available through a website, but with this app also more directly and quickly on your mobile phone. Built by Ronald v.d. Lingen.
Polirazzi, a website that takes a politician's name and then gives you an overview of any newspaper articles mentioning that politician. Built by Breyten Ernsting, based on an API available at IkRegeer.nl ('I govern') to get the list of current members of parliament and party affiliation.
Discussing meaningful data visualization (l), Breyten and Ronald coding (r)
A way for investigative journalists to detect changes in PDF files published by government. Sometimes small but crucial pieces of info get augmented, changed or edited in already public documents without it being noticed and under the same url and document title. A small group worked on a way of versioning these documents.
An idea to add RIVM environmental data to an iPhone app, and combine it with existing rain radar apps. Reminiscent of the 'smog alarm' website we built as an example earlier.
A open version of the database of the Chamber of Commerce 'who earn more money exploiting their database with your data than the average successful Russian spammer outfit', called OpenKvK. With a demo of life scraping and searching at the end of the afternoon. It also allows automatic creation of a ZIP code database. This is an extremely important dataset (for all kinds of location aware services), that is currently owned by TNT to everybody's chagrin and not in public hands (as an undesirable result of privatizing the mail). Watch OpenKvK.nl for when it's ready (search form not active yet).
Do you know exactly when garbage gets collected in your street? And old paper? Garden refuse? Pascal van Hecke, Hanno Lans and Menno Sman worked on an idea to create an easy site giving you all the info you need based on your zip code and house number. Most intriguing part of their idea was to me their suggestion to crowdsource the needed data scraping: have a few people in each municipality scrape the data relevant and useful to them, and in that way build up national coverage and completeness.
During a session (l), lunch time conversations (r)
I may have missed some other efforts but, am happy to add more if you point out my omissions. I do have one regret though, and that is noone worked with the data of the Ministry of Education. They were present and could have helped explain jargon language etc being used in their sometimes hard to understand API, also they were really eager to see people work with their data, and actively asking for feedback and input.
(More pics in my Flickr stream)
A short video impression (in Dutch) by Elmine Wijnia:
Open Government Data Netherlands Update
In the past months together with James Burke I worked for the Ministry for the Interior on open public service information (PSI), or open government data. In this posting I describe and link to the results, as well as reflect on the path forward. (See previous postings here and here, and the project's earlier roots here)
Results we set out to create
We set out to do, and did, 4 things.
1) Get an overview of already available public government data and the people involved
2) Create two examples of how government data can be reused, and be made even more reusable
3) Write a guide on what you need to take into account when opening up your data
4) Propose a scenario for the way forward
Open up your data, it's the law
First it is important to realize that opening up PSI/Government Data is not merely a gesture of good will by branches of government. By law all information and data relating to policies is public, unless there are urgent and severe reasons to not make it public (legal, privacy, national security come to mind). So 'public, unless' is the law, as per the European Directive on PSI, which has been implemented in the corresponding Dutch law, Wet Openbaarheid Bestuur (WOB), as described in this English translation. Open data helps in increasing the transparancy of government, as well as enables new and innovative applications that would not otherwise be possible (thus increasing the value created by collecting the data in the first place)
In practice this does not yet translate widely into pro-actively making information and data available in open standards (also law since April 2008) that mean they can actually be easily used by citizens and private organizations. There are exceptions of course, but in general you have to ask first and hope you get your answer in a usable format.
Open up your data and information at every level you can
Strengthening the network of exceptions to change culture
The people that are currently creating the exceptions (i.e. are pro-actively enabling open government data) are at this moment still largely isolated. Bringing them together, enabling the sharing of experiences is the way forward we proposed. So that the exceptions become more visible, and thus 'normal', so that the civil servants involved are better equipped with arguments and examples to move forward within their own environment, and so that it can be shown they are meeting a real demand of citizens. In our interviews service to citizens turned out to be a core value that can be leveraged towards a pro-actively open government when it comes to information and data.
So strenghtening the network and creating the conditions for forming a community of practice around those interested in opening up government data (civil servants, citizens, organizations alike) is an important aspect of bringing practice in line with the law, and making sure it becomes integrated in the cultural fabric of our government organisations.
As steps towards that we are using the results of our project to both crowd source our efforts, as well as use them as catalysts for network and community building.
Strengthening international ties: presenting our project at EUPS20 at the EU in Brussels, and Open Knowledge Foundation Communia Workshop in London
Putting the results 'out there'
All the results of our project have landed in a Workspace in the Overheid20 webplatform. This platform can be used by both civil servants and others to explore the possibilities of social media / web.20, while staying within the guidelines that are in place for designing and securing government websites. It allows for group forming, both public and closed, and where other people can be invited into.
We also published most of our results in other places, to make it easier to crowdsource further development, and make results easier to link to.
The data sources we identified are now part of the wiki Open Data Overheid where Lex Slaghuis and others were already independently bringing together sources and information.
The two examples of reusing government data we created each have their own website, which includes an explanation of both the work as well as the reasoning behind it.
The guide we wrote for civil servants involved with open government is based on the interviews we had during the project, and is now open for review and feedback at Vrije Data (free data). The first round of feedback will be written into the guide on June 20th, but more feedback and additions are welcome after that date as well. The guide adresses the definition of open and reusable data, goes into technological, organizational and legal aspects, as well as explaining the importance of open data.
Examples of reuse
We created two examples of reusing gov data. One is the 'school finder' that allows searching more intuitively for schools based on your zip code. The other is a 'smog alarm' that shows you smog predictions in your area, as well as sends alerts via Twitter to you if predicted values pass a threshold you indicated. We also made sure that the two examples output data in ways that make it more reusable, using microformats, giving data unique URLs that can be referred to and feeding sensor data into Pachube, the international source for worldwide open sensor data for instance.
Smog Alarm and School Finder screenshots.
Activities to enable the network
Several activities are under way that serve as catalysts to bring the network together. Last Saturday saw 'Hack the Government' (a follow up of last year's GovCamp we organized) where civil servants and coders spent a day discussing issues around open data, as well as create on the spot several applications reusing government data. Two government ministries are providing funding to realize good ideas around reusing government data. The Ministry for the Interior is organizing a competition 'Dat zou handig zijn!' ('That would be great to have'), which is similar to the UK initiative Show us a Better Way. The Ministry for Education is also making money available for ideas around the specific reuse of the mass of educational data they are making available already.
At the end of this month a BarCamp is taking place around the (strict) web styling guidelines in place for government websites and how social media /web 2.0 functionality can be used and implemented in accordance with these guidelines (or how the guidelines should change). Meanwhile discussion is going on in lots of places, that we are aware of. In different ministries, but also provincial governments, as well as in community websites like Ambtenaar 2.0 ('civil servants 2.0'). Hopefully the Ministry for the Interior can continue to play a role in stimulating the network around Open Data, both with activities as well as brokering contacts and incentives. Also we'll keep trying to learn from initiatives abroad, as well as share our experiences (especially since the culture of our public sphere is very different from the one in e.g. the UK) in moving forward with open PSI and data. To that extent I also proposed a session at the Reboot conference, to bring together European experiences in this field.
Coders last Saturday discussing applications for government data
Rotterdam University Learning Community Results
Almost exactly a year ago I wrote here about a project I had embarked on at Rotterdam University with a group of a dozen or so teachers:
The aim is to let the members explore and learn in a self-steered setting, as a diversification of the internal training methods they have on offer for their employees. Subject matter is how to adapt their teaching to the digital reality their students are already living in, and the digital reality in place in the fields of work they are educating their students for.
We spent a full year exploring and Freddy Veltman worked with us the entire year, as we were her subject of empirical study for her PhD research into how professionals develop themselves. My own role was as designer of the original work format, as facilitator to the group and moderator in the group's online platform, and as subject matter expert for all things social media.
Last Thursday all members of the group presented their work to colleagues and management. A project that has been very dear to me has now ended. Time to look back for a bit.
The Big Five
During the year we realized as a group we were getting results and learning things in five different areas, that were relevant to Rotterdam University. These five areas were dubbed The Big Five by one of the group members, and the term immediately stuck:
Authenticity (Bringing your teaching as close as possible to reality. Real problems, real results, real work formats, making everything count.)
Co-creation (Involving both your students and colleagues in each and every stage of both development and execution of your teaching modules.)
Competences (What's needed for a teacher with regard to the first two points, and to do your own exploratory and networked learning as a teacher)
Knowledge Creation (What we learned that can be packaged for others and can be transferred to others in the organisation)
Work Form (How the free format self-steered learning group worked for us, how it can be used both in teaching as well as in growing professionally)
There is a lot to say about the five points above, but that warrants multiple posts, so I will not go into it now. In stead I want to focus on the effect the project had on the participants and on their students.
Change your work, change yourself
I doubt that at the start the participants knew what they were getting themselves into. Most of them thought they embarked on a project to modernize their teaching. But all, including me and the project manager, ended up (re-)shaping our skills and our attitudes in unexpected ways. I'll let a few quotes taken from the final interviews with group members speak for themselves.
"I rediscovered the fun of learning. I learned that merely working to improve my teaching is a boost in enjoying my work and be motivated all by itself."
"Doing things, acting on thoughts, gives a lot of space in my mind"
"I now have the guts to experiment."
"I am sad that I don't get to lecture as much anymore, I enjoyed that so much. But I am now much more involved with my students, much more in touch with them. I've started loving my students so much more."
"The relief of being able to ask anything in the group, however small or 'stupid'. All questions were good questions."
"I've lost my fear of technology, my fear of making mistakes using technology."
"I was brought up to be modest, to think that sharing was exhibitionist. I've learned to share so much more."
"Glad we had an entire year. Real change needs time."
"I came to change my teaching module, I left having changed my world."
"I feel closer to my colleagues and to my students. The contact is much more real."
"I've learned to own my work. My primary concern are my students, everything else is secondary. I would get away with doing much less, but that would make me feel completely miserable."
"It's been over 35 years I had so much fun learning so much."
"It's amazing to learn from and connect to people all around the world. It's inconceivable how much that means to me."
"I almost exhausted myself in the first months. Spending time on this project until 2 or 3 am. But I needed to."
"This project made my entire job much more fun. The space and freedom to explore and experiment."
The list goes on. Mind you, this is all irrespective of the fact that it has been a bumpy ride for the group at times. Harsh words have been exchanged between members, frustrations and tempers flared. This was no walk in the park.
Change your work, change your students
Group members also have a lot to tell about how changing the teaching modules, changing their own teaching skills and attitudes, impacted their students and the results the students achieved. In general appreciation for the courses went up, results stayed the same or went up as well. Especially for those modules where books and theoretical material were dealt with as resources while immediately applying that knowledge in the course. Students found themselves more challenged, more involved and having more understanding of the role of the teacher. Again a few quotes, from both teachers and students to wet your appetite:
"My students don't miss my lecturing at all."
"It's amazing what you get back from your students when you let go."
"Being open to my students that I am experimenting myself, actively inviting their feedback, and the amount of recognition you get from that."
"When I met a student some time later, and asked her how the course I adapted had effect on her, she started to cry."
"Amazing what we learned in three weeks. I now understand so much better what my future profession is about."
I'll go into results on the Big Five and examples more in consequent postings. I feel privileged to have been part of this project.
Technorati Tags: hzap08, communityofpractice, learningcommunity, hogeschoolrotterdam
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