Collective Knowledge Production Research Articles

Conversation Circles as a Reflection Strategy, Knowledge and Mobilization: Experiences of the Federal University of Paraíba

O sentido público de universidade diz respeito à sua capacidade de incidir sobre os desafios postos à sociedade, sendo as condições para isso cada vez mais escassas, o que se torna ingrediente para as greves recentes das instituições federais de ensino. Partindo-se da compreensão da greve como instrumento de luta, quatro docentes e um discente da Universidade Federal da Paraíba desenvolveram rodas de conversa, com o objetivo de movimentar a Universidade e potencializar seu senso de coletividade e sua capacidade crítica e criativa. O presente texto apresentará como se deram essas rodas de conversa e de que forma contribuíram para o exercício do papel social da universidade por seus participantes. Foram realizados oito encontros, de julho a novembro de 2015, no período de greve, no departamento de Terapia Ocupacional da Universidade Federal da Paraíba, das quais participaram estudantes, docentes, servidores técnicos e comunidade em geral. Discutiram-se temas socialmente relevantes, como o caráter público da universidade, homofobia, violência contra a mulher negra e assistência estudantil. As rodas propiciaram elementos que foram ao encontro do que acreditamos com relação ao papel social da universidade, com espaços para troca de saberes e para produção coletiva de conhecimento, reflexões e ações socialmente relevantes

Implicit Faith and Reformations of Habit

In post-Reformation England, intense pressures on belief produced sophisticated theorizations of habitual assent and of habit itself. These have been largely overlooked by scholarship on the Reformation because of its fixation on doctrine and confessional identity—the very obsession this scholarship imputes to its subjects. Implicit faith emerges again and again in these theorizations not just as a menace to, but also a condition of, strong belief. Nor is this a local phenomenon: examples are drawn from a wide doctrinal and chronological range (William Perkins, Godfrey Goodman, John Milton, John Wesley). There is evidence of a parallel development in scientific circles, as practitioners like Robert Boyle reflected on the necessary role of implicit faith in the collective production of knowledge, a project to which the ideal image of the self-determining individual, inwardly persuaded by testimony, was not finally adequate. Recent critiques of the Reformation by such writers as Brad Gregory and Jennifer Herdt have thus underestimated the extent to which their critiques were immanently produced within Protestantism itself.

Políticas públicas em educação do campo: Pronera, Procampo e Pronacampo

The central objective of this article is to present reflections about three specific public policies regarding Education in rural areas in Brazil: the National Education Program in Agrarian Reform Areas (Pronera), integrated into the Ministry of Agrarian Development; the Higher Education Support Program for a Graduation Course in Rural Education (Procampo) and the National Program of Rural Education (Pronacampo), all linked to the Ministry of Education. Arising from the mobilization of social movements and organizations, these policies show that the struggle for agrarian reform transcends the struggle for land, since it includes the occupation of many other spaces. Within this work, we carried out a simple approach of the context that resulted in the Rural Education, indicating the main aspects of the studied programs. We developed a bibliographical and documentary research, using among the sources of research, legislation, regulations and decrees, as well as some references recently produced in the field of education in Brazil. We conclude that the collective production of knowledge in association with students, educators, communities and social movements of struggle for land, can dialogue with stories, memories, identities, desires, values and recognition, strengthening the debate on rural education in its close relationship with the social movements, rural schools and public universities. We realized that this articulation is one of the main challenges to be faced by the Movement on rural education and in the results consolidation of Pronera, Procampo and Pronacampo. Keywords : Rural Education. Pronera. Procampo. Pronacampo.

Trabalho coletivo e organização do ensino de matemática: princípios e práticas

A colaboração de pesquisadores de diferentes instituições em torno do ensino e da aprendizagem da Matemática nos anos iniciais do Ensino Fundamental resultou na organização de uma pesquisa formativa por núcleos em rede, desenvolvida no âmbito do OBEDUC/CAPES em consonância com os pressupostos da pesquisa colaborativa e da teoria histórico-cultural. Este artigo busca apresentar discussões acerca do fenômeno formação docente e organização do ensino de matemática. A intenção é que estes estudos possam se constituir em indicadores teórico-metodológicos para o processo de aprendizagem docente centrado no modo de produção coletivo. O principal resultado aponta para a importância do compartilhamento do processo de formação em atividades em comum como forma de possibilitar aos sujeitos a oportunidade de desenvolver for- mas específicas de cooperação que venham a favorecer a apropriação do processo significativo da produção coletiva do conhecimento sobre a atividade pedagógica.

Percepções de docentes e discentes sobre uso educativo de mídias sociais

Introdução: O uso das redes sociais digitais vem sendo um importante aliado nas atividades de ensino e aprendizagem. Objetivo: A pesquisa avaliou a percepção dos alunos e professores sobre o uso dessas novas ferramentas em ambiente educacional. Métodos: Foram distribuídos dois tipos de questionários online a alunos e professores de cursos de Saúde de duas instituições de ensino superior do ABC Paulista, respondidos por 55 alunos e 19 professores. Com base nesses dados, identificamos afirmações qualitativas para avaliar percepções dos dois grupos sobre o uso de redes sociais digitais em ambiente educacional. Resultados: Observou‑se que os alunos estão mais familiarizados com as ferramentas digitais e que parte dos docentes as conhece, mas não as utilizam. O Youtube e o Facebook foram as mídias mais referenciadas e usadas por ambos os públicos. Os alunos apontaram formas de utilização extraclasse para as ferramentas digitais. Conclusão: Mídias sociais podem ser utilizadas como ferramentas educativas, mas os professores precisam ser sensibilizados e capacitados para o uso; alunos podem encontrar opções de compartilhamento e produção de conhecimento coletivo no ambiente virtual de educação em saúde.

Popular problems

ABSTRACTThis article introduces a method to critical reviews and explores the ways in which problems have been formulated in knowledge production on career guidance in Denmark over a 10-year period from 2004 to 2014. The method draws upon the work of Bacchi focussing on the ‘What's the problem represented to be’ (WPR) approach. Forty-nine empirical studies on Danish youth career guidance were included in the study. An analysis of the issues in focus resulted in nine problem categories. One of these, ‘targeting’, is analysed using the WPR approach. Finally, the article concludes that the WPR approach provides a constructive basis for a critical analysis and discussion of the collective empirical knowledge production on career guidance, stimulating awareness of problems and potential solutions among the career guidance community.

Leadership in Solidarity: Notions of Leadership Through Critical Participatory Action Research With Young People and Adults.

The authors trace the connections between multigenerational participatory action research and relational approaches to shared leadership, illustrating how the collective production of knowledge through research builds youth leadership capacity.

The practice of evaluation as an evaluation of practices

This article describes the theoretical basis and characteristics of a process-based, negotiated and generative approach to the evaluation of organizations. Illustrated by a case study, it highlights the inappropriateness of standardized instruments in the face of complexity and uncertainty, suggesting ways to improve the practice of evaluating dynamic complex systems. It underlines how conducting an evaluation within an organization is an opportunity to produce knowledge that reflects on and can potentially transform existing systems. Using an action-research method, ‘instructions to the double’, the implications for data collection and analysis suited to complex interventions and complex environments, are presented and discussed. In particular, the article describes the monitoring and evaluation of practices as unfolding processes, in which evaluative methods and tools are context dependent and subject to social, dynamic and contested mobilization of knowledge. The collective negotiation and production of knowledge in collaboration with practitioners working within the organization, is considered as the necessary condition for enhancing the formative and transformative role of evaluation and supporting reflexivity in professional practices.

Persisting Effects of Internet Skills on Online Participation

Millions of people contribute to online content daily, allowing them to share their ideas and influence public conversations. Some have attached much enthusiasm and hope to such activities as they may result in a variety of benefits, including cultural empowerment, engagement with the political process, and collective knowledge production. While these considerations cast the Internet as a potentially equalizing platform, research has shown that certain groups of people are more likely to participate in such online activities than others. All existing research on this topic has relied on cross-sectional data, making it impossible to make causal arguments about what results in more or less online engagement. That is, while research has found, for example, that Internet skills are related to online participation, the cross-sectional nature of the data makes it difficult for scholars to disentangle the causal effect between the two variables, that is, whether higher skills result in more participation or whether more participation leads to higher skills, or both. In this paper, we draw on a unique panel survey data set that includes data about the same 547 young adults from 2009 and 2012 to address these questions. We consider how demographic factors, socioeconomic status as well as various Internet experiences such as veteran status, frequency of use, autonomy of use, self-efficacy and Internet skills may influence people’s participation online, from editing Wikipedia to taking part in online forum discussions, posting reviews and voting on others’ content. We find that far from being universal, only a small portion of respondents have ever participated in several of these types of online activities, and some have never engaged in any of them. Despite the study’s focus on young adults who have grown up with digital media, not only is participation not universal, there are systematic differences in the types of people who are more or less likely to participate. We show that young adults with higher levels of Web-use skills are more likely to engage in various online production activities than their less-skilled counterparts. In particular, those from more privileged backgrounds, i.e., whose parents have higher levels of education, are more likely to contribute their voices to online conversations. This paper makes a special contribution to the growing literature on Internet skills by examining how three different measures of this concept relate to online engagement. We look at a universal Internet skills measure, we include a measure of Internet self-efficacy, and we test the effect of a more nuanced measure of Web-use skills. We find that self-efficacy and skill have independent effects on the outcome of online engagement suggesting that research on people’s online know-how should not collapse these conceptually different variables. The paper ends with the policy implications of the findings for achieving a universally empowered Internet citizenry. Findings suggest that simply having grown up with digital media does not result in either universal know-how about the Internet nor universal online engagement suggesting that interventions are important to make sure that people from all backgrounds have the necessary skills to take advantage of all that the Internet has to offer.

A tool for learning or a tool for cheating? The many‐sided effects of a participatory student website in mass higher education

AbstractThis paper is a case study of the genesis, operation and, in particular, the educational effects of a participatory website established and run by students of one of the largest universities in the Czech Republic, the purpose of which is to enable students to share study materials, essays and evaluations of staff and courses. We study the rise of the website as a bottom‐up reaction to deficiencies in the educational process perceived by students, which has led to changes in some of the university's educational practices. Drawing upon ethnographic data, we inquire into the various ways in which the website's existence has influenced educational processes and student–teacher relations. The findings show how such a website's impact can be both positive and negative. While it can foster collaboration and a sense of mutuality among students, trigger institutional reflexivity and generate a platform for the collective production of knowledge lacking in curricula, it can also perpetuate institutional deficiencies by compensating for them, often in undesirable ways such as cheating and plagiarism.A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49NlvdpEyuE

3대 SNS에서의 집단적 지식생산 메커니즘 연구

한국에서의 SNS는 트위터, 페이스북, 카카오스토리로 대표된다. 이 공간을 통해 다수의 공동참여와 협업에 의한 사회적 지식생산이 이루어지고 있다. 유선 인터넷시대에는 위키백과나 지식iN 서비스가 집단적 지식생산의 대표적 산물이라 할 수 있었다. 그러나 이제 스마트폰을 중심으로 하는 무선 인터넷 시대에는 SNS를 통해 실시간으로 연결되어 다양한 형태의 집단적 지식생산을 이루게 될 것이다. 이 연구는 3대 SNS에서의 집단지성 참여자를 대상으로 한 설문에 응답한 자료를 비교분석하였다. 트위터, 페이스북, 카카오스토리 사용자 간 집단적 지식생산 메커니즘의 차이점을 밝히기 위해 크게 집단지성 동기, 집단적 지식생산모델 선호도, 집단적 지식문화인식 등 세 가지 변인을 통해 비교하였다. 3대 SNS에서의 참여자 집단을 판별하는 요인을 분석한 결과 다양성지향 이용동기, 개인적 기여동기, 집단적 지식성향인식이 가장 영향력 있는 변수로 작용할 수 있다는 사실이 나타났다. 이 논문은 컴퓨터과학의 눈으로 사회자본이나 집단지성 등 사회과학의 가치를 융합한 것과, 집단적 지식생산의 장을 유선 인터넷에서 무선 인터넷의 실시간 SNS로 문을 열었다는 데에 중요한 의의가 있다. Twitter, Facebook, and KakaoStory are the major SNS in Korea. Social knowledge production is being produced by those services from numerous collaboration and co-participation in those SNS. Wikipedia or Naver JishikIN service was regarded as the representative product of collective knowledge production during the wired internet era. However now at the wireless internet era centered with smart phones, various forms of collective knowledge production would be achieved by connecting to SNS in real-time. In this thesis, the survey data of collective knowledge production for users of three SNS have been compared and analyzed. The difference of the collective knowledge production mechanism among Twitter, Facebook and KakaoStory has been studied and compared through three variables: the motivation of collective knowledge production, the preference of collective knowledge production model, and collective knowledge production cultural perception. As a result of the analysis of the discriminant factors for three SNS user groups, it turns out that the diversity-toward usage motivation, personal contribution motivation, and collective knowledge production tendency perception are the most influential variables. This thesis is of significance in that it unites the value of social science such as social capital and collective knowledge production from the viewpoint of computer science and opens the new chapter of collective knowledge production with the real-time SNS of wireless internet from the wired internet.

To learn and to construct knowledge in the context of work with adult education: a Portuguese case study

Work contexts are frequently referred to as spaces of learning and production of individual and/or collective knowledge. In such contexts specific dynamics are developed which cause the processes of learning and of knowledge production to have particularities. This paper aims at accounting for some dynamics that are associated with those processes, based on the main results of an ethnographic study on the adult educator team of a Portuguese local development association. The research identified ways of working/action rules based on the learning and knowledge production processes in the association. Mutual help, the reformulation and collectivization of practice, reflection in and about the action, and the negotiation of meaning about the practice are some of the mechanisms identified. The study also highlights how those dynamics of knowledge and learning and ways of doing may contribute to a practice which is closer to the needs of the adults to whom this team offers its education and training services.

Teachers’ solutions: a learning study about solution chemistry in Grade 8

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe the collective exploration, process and knowledge production made in a learning study about solution chemistry.Design/methodology/approachSecondary school teachers conducted a learning study with variation theory as a guiding principle, supervised by a researcher. The relationship between teaching and learning was analyzed and evaluated in a learning study cycle of three lessons.FindingsCritical aspects when teaching solution chemistry were identified, as well as enacted patterns of variation that significantly improved students’ learning. Examples of critical aspects were the particulate character of matter, especially the feature of “empty space” between particles, the connection between macroscopic phenomenon and sub‐microscopic explanations and the difference between answers with everyday language and scientific language.Practical implicationsThe paper suggests that teachers in a learning study can produce new knowledge as well as use earlier research results when creating teaching activities that can improve their own practical work and students’ learning.Originality/valueThe study represents an example of research with the aim to improve teachers’ practice by generating knowledge in connection with teachers’ professional tasks.

Krill looks and feelers: a dialogue on expanding perceptions of climate change data

In order to stir action on climate change, people beyond the scientific community need to make sense of the relevant data. When scientific data are expressed aesthetically, an appeal is made to our senses, which in turn leads us to attend to reason. This article examines the process of collaboration between artists and scientists. Moreover, the article itself, written in the voices of an artist and a scientist, is an example of one form of cross-disciplinary collaboration. It focuses on the case of Antarctic krill – key creatures in the marine food web that must be specially understood. The combination of artistic and scientific methods, and the use of new digital imaging methods, enable the representation of krill as beautiful living creatures rather than mere dots on a computer screen. This collaborative process exemplifies the kind of shift towards collective knowledge production that is a necessary part of communicating climate change data.

Best practices for the management of knowledge for conflict resolution: Lessons learned from the Great Lakes region of Africa

This article deals with the management of knowledge for conflict resolution and innovation in Africa. After a brief discussion of the research methodology followed, a feedback is provided on the field study conducted from 2006 to 2008 in northern Uganda and Rwanda and at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania, and in the DRC. As a result of the field study, certain principles and practices were identified whereby the challenges facing Africa could be examined. The author found five ‘realms’ in which knowledge management can take place and that traditional knowledge practices, if merged with more modern knowledge management practices, provide a valuable framework for using knowledge management for conflict resolution and innovation in Africa. Best practices that were identified include an intra-connected and collective knowledge production system and the production of tacit knowledge, especially among the new generation or youth. Furthermore, the importance of intellectual capital (in the form of value-driven leadership, competent managers and expert knowledge workers) and the activation of an intervention into the continuous spiral of violent conflict which will ultimately lead to the innovative transformation of African society are discussed. Finally, some recommendations are offered as possible solutions for conflict resolution and innovation in Africa.

Health Care Standards and the Politics of Singularities

Context is a pivotal concept for social scientists in their attempt to weave singularities or universals to moral codes and political orders. However, in this, social scientists might be neglecting the ways in which individuals or groups who are excluded from the collective production of knowledge want to politicize their concerns also by claiming their uniqueness and singularity. In this article, drawing on the public controversy about access to dementia drugs on the U.K. National Health Service (NHS) and on the work of pioneering sociologist Helen McGill Hughes on “human interest stories,” the author argues that the “politics of singularities” can be articulated in two related ways within technical controversies. First, it expresses the unraveling of sociotechnical ties caused by institutional failure to take concerns into account. Second, it expresses the concrete uniqueness of persons caught by standardized, “universal” and impersonal implements and/or policies. Both these effects are underpinned by resourcing to allegorical expression, a literary form that while fostering political imagination in technological democracies might weaken Science and Technology Studies' (STS) ambitions to influence decision making.

Modelling the incentive to participate in open source biopharmaceutical innovation

The open source model provides a valuable framework for collective knowledge production and dissemination. Open knowledge networks and other cooperative strategies (classified as open source discovery initiatives) are enabling biopharmaceutical companies to access disembodied knowledge-based resources critical to downstream drug development. The objective of these cooperative strategic alliances is to preserve the downstream technological opportunities for multiple firms. When upstream discovery research cannot yield commercial products and when the costs associated with excessive upstream competition are too high, companies jointly benefit from cooperative knowledge production and open knowledge dissemination. An analysis of 39 open source initiatives (consortia) provides us with information on: the likely participants in such initiatives, the focus of knowledge production activities, the characteristics of the knowledge generated, and the management of joint knowledge assets. Based on this analysis, we use game models to understand the decision to participate in such strategic alliances better. Our game models provide a simple but elegant framework for understanding the impact of changing knowledge structures on the payoffs associated with cooperation and defection in knowledge production, and therefore on behaviour.

Collective knowledge production costs and the dynamics of technological systems

Technological knowledge can be understood as a collective good only when its production requires the absorption and integration of external knowledge. Such external knowledge is the outcome of R&D investments that cannot be fully appropriated by firms and generate spillovers. The exploitation of such knowledge spillovers requires specific investments in knowledge communication and absorption, which brings about specific costs. These costs are affected by the structural and dynamic characteristics of technological systems in terms of the knowledge base, the variety of actors and the communication infrastructures and processes. This paper analyzes the costs of collective knowledge production and their implications for the way in which the firm chooses the mix of internal and external knowledge. This choice in turn shapes the evolution of technological systems.

Exploring the Edges of Theory-Practice Gap: Epistemic Cultures in Strategy-Tool Development and Use

This paper takes a strategy-as-practice perspective on the study of strategy tools and the theory-practice gap in strategic management research. Based on a case study, the paper argues that differences in epistemic culture may complicate communication and co-operation between academics and practitioners. These differences may also result in management scholars producing knowledge and strategy tools that lack practical pertinence for corporate actors, particularly in the context of modernist management scholars and contemporary post-bureaucratic knowledge organizations (PBOs). In PBOs, where flexibility, participative management style and consensus building dialogue are emphasized, modernist strategy tools designed for rational problem solving by individual decision-makers may be inadequate. In PBOs, practical strategy work calls for tools that support collective knowledge production, promote dialogue and trust, and function as learning tools. Overall, the paper concludes that the development of strategy tools that actually support practical strategizing calls for a more social model of knowledge and strategy work.

The right tool for the wrong task? Match and mismatch between first and second stimulus in double stimulation

Using Vygotsky’s notion of double stimulation as an analytical tool, we discuss the complex relationship between tasks, tools, and agency in CSCL environments. Empirically we examine how learners in a Norwegian senior high school class learning English as a foreign language approach and respond to an open-ended and collectively oriented task using a wiki. Our findings show that collectively oriented knowledge and language production takes place locally in small groups as well as in the larger collective of the class, and that learners find it difficult to maintain awareness of both levels of activity. However, when facing a breakdown in the wiki application, learners sustained strategies that carried many of the characteristics of collective production. We argue that there is a need to further theorize the task-tool relationship in activities involving collective knowledge production and that we need to align pedagogical as well as technological designs in order to give support for such efforts.