CPsquare

The Fall 2008 Research and Dissertation Fest lineup includes 5 presentations (one more is in the “possible” category).

• Alice MacGillivray: Perceptions and Uses of Boundaries by Respected Leaders — a Trans-disciplinary Inquiry – November 4
• Pamela Stern and Christopher Harz: Serious games for first responders — improving design and usage with social learning theory – November 6
• Melanie Brydges Down: Knowledge sharing in Standard AERO’s redesign group – November 11
• Andreas Lloyd: A system that Works for Me — an anthropological analysis of computer hackers’ shared use and development of the Ubuntu Linux system — November 13
• Lilia Efimova: Between passion and work– blogging practices of knowledge workers — December 2

How we do it: Overview of what these events are about, how they work, etc.

This is a snapshot of an internal wiki page that has developed over the years to guide this series

Context, assumptions

• The CPsquare community values rigorous research and ongoing practice. We have considerable depth on both sides and we seek to find ways in which one can inform the other.
• This series allows authors to hold dialog around their dissertations, theses and big research projects with the CPsquare community (which embraces academic researchers, thought leaders and practitioners in many community domains).
• For authors, presenting to CPsquare community, with members who are well versed in the theories, methodologies and practices around communities of practice can be very useful and gratifying. Especially if they are “solo” works, which can be often extremely isolating experiences for their authors. This fest offers a sympathetic social context in which to unpack some issues.
• For researchers and practitioners in CPsquare, having others share their research work extends our access to high-quality and in-depth efforts to understand what is CPsquare’s domain.

Activities and processes

• The Research and Dissertation Fest can include several different types of projects:
  • proposals – people looking to clarify their research proposal
  • work-in-progress – people part way through seeking assistance in some challenge
  • findings – people presenting what they have discovered and positioning it in the context of other’s completed research and understandings.

Organizing and supporting a presentation so that it meets everyone’s needs requires some careful design and skillful facilitation. Here is some process advice:

• Be careful to not try to present all of 4 years of work in 20 minutes. Choose a key theme or challenge.
• Before the event you should share a summary resource that gives the key issues of your research and makes it readily accessible to a busy audience (takes less than an hour to read).
• You may choose to share your entire dissertation which is posted in the CPsquare Knowledge Base
• Usually the online dialog begins a few days before the conference call for the presenter and community members to pose some questions that help unpack the context of the research.
• The presenter introduces the research in the conference call for no more than 15 to 25 minutes and the discussion is a free give-and-take around the issues that come up.
• Everyone is invited to explore questions asynchronously afterwards, as interest demands
• The presenter is invited to stay involved in the asynchronous conversation if it continues.
• Summaries are always appreciated and valued.

Also note: