Open Education: The University and the Commons

CC-licensed photo: “Sharing” http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/furiousgeorge81/177926979/
Sunday, October 16, 11

The CUNY Academic Commons
Conception, Strategy, Process, Use

The Commons
Histories, Theories, Models

New Models for the Networked Commons
Challenges, Publics, Possibilities


source: cuny.edu

Alexandra W. Logue
Executive Vice Chancellor
and University Provost

George Otte
University Director
of Academic Technology


CUNY Committee on Academic Technology (CAT)
George Otte, Chair
Two members from each CUNY campus

Established September 2008


“AN ACADEMIC TECHNOLOGY COMMONS”


photo by FredR http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/fredr/262344284/

THE INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORY

Photo by myguerrilla http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/myguerrilla/1303099901/

THE PERFECT TAXONOMY

Source: bernat... http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/bernatcg/509261808/

ORGANIC

Source: akashgoyal http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/a_goyal/2169624754/

OPEN

Source: jbushnell http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/jbushnell/569748609/

DECENTERED

Source: Medieval Helpdesk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ

TRADITIONAL MODELS OF TECH SUPPORT

Source: Abby ﬂat-coat http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/22912005@N06/4104714854/

THE HARD SELL

Source: jcn http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/jcn/4568432782/

OPEN SOURCE

source: MikeLeSombre http://is.gd/gAb9R


source: Newman Library, Baruch College http://newman.baruch.cuny.edu/digital/2001/history/book/chap_07/nyt_75_11_16.htm


CUNY IS
OPEN SOURCE


rough prototypes


word of mouth


tech savvy


DIY


engaging open-source
communities


“ we judge our tools by one key metric
above all others: use. Successful tools

”
are tools that are used.

Tom Scheinfeldt
“Lessons from One Week | One Tool – Part 2, Use.” Found History.
2 August 2010. <http://www.foundhistory.org/2010/08/02/lessons-
from-one-week-one-tool-part-2-use/>


104,664 (and counting)
downloads


CUNY PIE

DiFara’s!


the SOCIAL university


What is a
commons?


What is a
commons?

a shared resource


Traditional Commons
Natural resource -- plot of land

CC-licensed photo: “Cow in Niederbauen” http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/akane86/182443256//

3 Phases of English Common Land Tenure

1. Saxon Age before Norman conquest
most village lands held and worked in common.

2. After Norman conquest
village lands belong to local manor, rights of the
common granted on condition of fealty to manor lord

3. Age of enclosure - early 18th century - end of 19th
century
common land divided up, fenced, converted to private
property in modern sense.


Tragedy of the Commons

:’(


“ A t r u e c o m m o n s i s a s t i n t e d t h i n g .”
-- Lewis Hyde , Common as Air


Knowledge as a Commons


Design principles of robust, long-enduring, common-pool resource institutions
(Ostrom 1990, 90–102):

• Clearly deﬁned boundaries should be in place.

• Rules in use are well matched to local needs and conditions.

• Individuals affected by these rules can usually participate in modifying
the rules.

• The right of community members to devise their own rules is respected
by external authorities.

• A system for self-monitoring members’ behavior has been established.

• A graduated system of sanctions is available.

• Community members have access to low-cost conﬂict-resolution
mechanisms.


Libertarian vs.
Associational Commons


2011 vs. 2007


social networks

middle-state publishing

emphasis on process


“The common is not to be construed, therefore, as
a particular kind of thing, asset or even social
process, but as an unstable and malleable social
relation between a particular self-deﬁned social
group and those aspects of its actually existing or
yet-to-be-created social and/or physical
environment deemed crucial to its life and
livelihood. There is, in effect, a social
practice of commoning.” -- David Harvey


What is a
commons?
a shared space
for creating
resources with a
community

What is a
commons?
a shared space for
creating resources
with (and within) a
community

“the process of creating public
knowledge [is] an additional good,
because such work builds social
capital, strengthens communities,
and gives people skills that they
need for effective citizenship.”
-- Peter Levine


“the cornucopia of the
commons”:
more value is created as more
people use the resource and
join the social community. The
operative principle is “the
more, the merrier.”


models


The Academy and Its Publics


Scholarly communication
and the

CRISISin higher ed


Challenges


Challenges

A GROUP OF SILOED COMMONS


Challenges

INTERACTION FATIGUE


Challenges

ENTERPRISE-LEVEL LEARNING
MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS


Challenges

PROPRIETARY PLATFORMS


Challenges
SECONDARY ENCLOSURES,
THREATS TO COLLABORATION:

PATENTS, TRADEMARKS,
COPYRIGHT

“MONOPOLIES OF INVENTION”


Challenges

TRACKING, SURVEILLANCE


Possibilities

BUILD RECURSIVE PUBLICS


“Free Software . . . is not simply a technical pursuit but also the
creation of a ‘public,’ a collective that asserts itself as a check on
other constituted forms of power—like states, the church, and
corporations—but which remains independent of these domains
of power. Free Software is a response to this reorientation that
has resulted in a novel form of democratic political action, a
means by which publics can be created and maintained in forms
not at all familiar to us from the past. Free Software is a public of
a particular kind: a recursive public. Recursive publics
are publics concerned with the ability to build,
control, modify, and maintain the infrastructure
that allows them to come into being in the ﬁrst
place and which, in turn, constitutes their everyday practical
commitments and the identities of the participants as creative
and autonomous individuals.”
– Christopher Kelty, Two Bits:The Cultural Signiﬁcance of Free
Software (2008)


Possibilities

BUILD GENERATIVE SPACES


“Generativity is a system’s capacity to
produce unanticipated change through
unﬁltered contributions from broad and
varied audiences. . . . Generativity pairs an
input consisting of unﬁltered
contributions from diverse people and
groups, who may or may not be working
in concert, with the output of
unanticipated change.”

– Jonathan Zittrain, The Future of the
Internet - And How to Stop It (2008)


Build generative commons
that talk to one another


Federated models


Open APIs


Possibilities

OUR COMMUNITIES
ARE OUR RESOURCES


What is a
commons?
Not (just) the
park, but the
human
microphone

Fostering
community


Possibilities Responsibilities

LOVE
FEEDBACK
BEING THERE


October 11, 2011
CC-licensed photo: “Sharing” http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/furiousgeorge81/177926979/

Open Education: The University and the Commons

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