The Commons

From Studyplace

Categories  Concepts Subjects People Essays Reviews Commons Courses Help	Pathways Concepts Subjects People Essays Reviews Commons Courses Help
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Here we reflect on our projects to understand the possibilities of peer production and to facilitate work through decentralized digital interaction. The Commons provides a place both for reflecting on the StudyPlace undertaking as a whole, and for reflecting on the specific categorical work that organizes and gives structure to StudyPlace.

As regards the former, here are some questions for reflection —

• Can peer production in a digital commons advance knowledge more effectively than the traditional practice of possessive authorship?
• What traditional modes of creative inquiry, perhaps even individual authorship, can be usefully understood as forms of peer production?
• What modes of collaborative inquiry and intellectual cooperation should we cultivate through StudyPlace?
• Who can we attract as contributors and what guidelines will best lead to effective, worthwhile work?
• Can collaborative writing achieve excellence in usage, conveying powerful ideas with clarity and grace?

As regards the latter, here is an introduction to StudyPlace activities —

StudyPlace is conceptual, not encyclopedic. We engage in concept formation about what educates. We organize our conceptual work through 8 general headings (including the Commons), which function both as categories (alphabetical lists of pages), and as pathways (more thematic than alphabetical listings). Below please find links to these headings, which are not exclusive of each other. Here, in the Commons, links go to pathway pages, not categories. In each pathway page a heading is treated as a concept in itself; that is - not as a means to a substantive end but as an end in itself.

• Concepts — fairly specific ideas of use in thinking about what educates. Some pivotal concepts, like common knowledge, form projects for systematic development.
• Subjects — disciplined forms of inquiry that generate the current state of knowledge about education and pedagogy.
• People — individuals whose accomplishments make them significant as educators, people whose work has added to what educates.
• Essays — essays by current or historical writers that illuminate what educates.
• Reviews — evaluating the educative power of books, movies, plays, and exhibitions.
• Courses — materials supporting courses in which participants make use of StudyPlace.
• Help — how to do what you want to do.

Clean-up tasks

• Go through the Study pages associated with each People page to remove the subpages for "works by", "works about" and "glossary entries". If there is material in these subpages, copy it into the appropriate location on the top level of the Study page. The original Person template used to set these pages up automatically entered the subpages -- unfortunately it makes the Study pages more, not less complicated to maintain and for consistency the subpages we should remove the subpages.