[...] Now, my entry point into this project is as an ordinary member of the broader [...] community of users seeking to work with [...] in order to help innovate a next generation of technologies and practice.
As such, my stance towards this project, in whatever capacity I might be invited to participate as a researcher/developer, will always already be one of ordinary community membership – i.e. of user and of innovator in its broadest (and continuously emerging) sense.
On the one hand, my motivation for participating is perhaps typical of the “community of practice” [...] has idealised under its Call II. For example, I would intend to participate in the CoP as fully-fledged and authentic member for the 6 months of the first phase with a view to putting forward a proposal for further funding during the second phase. In addition, based on the work of the CoP, I would intend to help mobilise a third strand of funding for a parallel project to commence during the second phase under Call III.
On the other hand, in order to adequately engage with [...]’s user and innovation programme as an ordinary member, irrespective of my possible CoP status, it may be helpful for me to work with the Programme Team by way of contributing to the support projects under Call I. Why? Because through informing the work of the “policy-makers” at this critical stage where policy turns-to-practice, the outcomes of such collaboration may lead to enhanced CoP regulation in due course. Here, we touch on an aspect yet to be explicitly articulated in any of the project documentation: namely, the on-going governance structure of CoP membership. In comparison, ordinary membership of the broader [...] community is self-selecting and self-organising for all practical intents and purposes – i.e. once the software is available, ordinary members tend to, on the whole, just get on and use it.
Within the prospective “closed” CoP of 100, however, it may well be the Programme Team, as supported by the projects under Call I, which will organise – and thus regulate – the degrees of freedom that both the CoP as a whole, and each CoP member as an individuated participant, may purport to have. These degrees of freedom, and the Programme Team’s practical efforts to regulate such degrees, has the precise potential to make or break the efforts of any particular user and/or innovator engaged across the broader project. For example, I’m unlikely to be able to persuade my external colleagues to engage during the second phase of this programme if the first has resulted in a broadly perceived “waste of time”. Indeed, I’m unlikely to have lasted the distance myself, having been put off by the possible lack of clarity/transparency/opportunity to nip potential problems/conflicts in the bud during the first phase experience.
So, I would hope that one of the key functions of the support projects under Call I is to find uniquely adequate ways of “consulting” the CoP membership, and “feeding back” the “results” to both the Programme Team and the CoP membership as a whole. Administering standard questionnaires might just not cut it. This is where my additional expertise comes in, and where, as an ordinary member, I may be able to help fine-tune support projects [...] and [...] for mutual benefit. And yet, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my intended involvement with the community – as with any written proposal at any particular submission stage: shape it as you dare [...]
thank you for this: apologies in advance for [...] having gotten caught up in this issue that has actually been on the table for a while now, and due to emerging conflicts of interests between the motives of some members of the [...] project team in contrast to the [...] community as a whole
in the run up to bid submissions, it will be important for those members in our community wishing to collaborate together do not feel that they are in any way competing with the [...] project team itself for the same funds – unfortunately, the way that this programme has currently been set up, the [...] project team is intending to justify applying for further funding alongside what community members would have otherwise have bid for
in one instance, this has led to the suppression of a questionnaire that had been genuinely community generated, but seen by the [...] project team as potentially critical of their platform development choices so far
there have been other instances of covert suppression/coersion/censorship involving other members of our community and members of the [...] project team – the persons involved have been in touch with me in confidence, and the support I have given them to date has been likewise
but this is not healthy, and there are ways of structuring the realtionship of our community to its respective support teams that help bring these sort of conflicts out onto the table for open discussion (without having to disclose any particular circumstance)
aporia set up aporia pidegeon an order to scope the requirements for this sort of a dialogue to begin taking place, and aporia green is becoming a safe haven for teasing out issues such as this, amongst others at the grass roots, in ways in which we can all learn from [...]
[...] in particular, it is my understanding that your request for additional information does not warrant a valid condition of expense claim reimbursement, and rather you should be directing any such requests to the independently accountable programme evaluators [...] in the first instance, who are being copied in on this here correspondence for kind information accordingly.
importantly, for the avoidance of doubt, the evaluators would be duly obliged to contact me directly on your behalf with your information request, subject to their own internal processes in light of the information being ordinarily gathered by them as demonstrably standard of all community members such as myself. if and only if considered appropriate, the evaluators would then need to obtain prior written permission from myself and/or any other relevant community member(s) pertaining to the data being requested before being able to advise yourselves in response. accordingly, please also take this memo by way of notice that members’ permissions relating to proprietary data for the purposes of inter alia HEFCE funded evaluation processes are now pending reviews of evaluation data recovery, evaluation data integrity, and evaluation data licensing arrangements which have become necessary for community members such as myself in light of previously unforseen abuses [...]
[...] The research dataset underpinning Aporia’s WHiSPeRiNG GaLLeRY draws directly on [...] experience of working with project boards and their management procedures. In fact, the entire GaLLeRY serves to uniquely showcase what happens when specific procedures fail and alternative actions have to take their place in order to make best efforts to minimise any related costs and damages in the public interest. Although the fieldwork covers both arms of the current dual-funding mechanism for Higher Eduction and research in the UK, the work principally addresses project evaluation methods framed by the Office of Government Commerce’s “Managing Successful Programmes” principles. For example, the GaLLeRY serves to formatively address the programme evaluation methods commissioned by a publicly funded body to evaluate its £81m Capital Investment Programme. In particular, [...] efforts have served to strengthen the research integrity of the method of “participant-observation” currently in use. This is because the intellectual risk of misinterpreting this method can have adverse systemic implications for publicly funded projects if not adequately peer-reviewed. Although the programme evaluators are due to report later this year, the GaLLeRY has been made openly accessible online in the meantime by way of formative contribution in the public interest [...]
[...] Please be advised that further to message below, the GaLLeRY exhibit at [...] is being updated by way of community placeholder.
In particular, a scanned copy of [...]’s advice letter to [...], dated 17 March 2009, has since been made publicly accessible featuring the following paragraph at point 10:
“The [...] itself will be expected to:
a. streamline its own operations, achieving efficiency savings where possible
b. minimise the burden for institutions in relation to [...] work and accessing [...] funds
c. contribute to the relevant devolved agreements/concordats on data collections and quality assurance
d. ensure the effective gathering and communicating of evidence to support the needs of individual core funders,[sic] and more generally, improve relationships with them”
[...] Now, my entry point into this project is as an ordinary member of the broader [...] community of users seeking to work with [...] in order to help innovate a next generation of technologies and practice.
As such, my stance towards this project, in whatever capacity I might be invited to participate as a researcher/developer, will always already be one of ordinary community membership – i.e. of user and of innovator in its broadest (and continuously emerging) sense.
On the one hand, my motivation for participating is perhaps typical of the “community of practice” [...] has idealised under its Call II. For example, I would intend to participate in the CoP as fully-fledged and authentic member for the 6 months of the first phase with a view to putting forward a proposal for further funding during the second phase. In addition, based on the work of the CoP, I would intend to help mobilise a third strand of funding for a parallel project to commence during the second phase under Call III.
On the other hand, in order to adequately engage with [...]’s user and innovation programme as an ordinary member, irrespective of my possible CoP status, it may be helpful for me to work with the Programme Team by way of contributing to the support projects under Call I. Why? Because through informing the work of the “policy-makers” at this critical stage where policy turns-to-practice, the outcomes of such collaboration may lead to enhanced CoP regulation in due course. Here, we touch on an aspect yet to be explicitly articulated in any of the project documentation: namely, the on-going governance structure of CoP membership. In comparison, ordinary membership of the broader [...] community is self-selecting and self-organising for all practical intents and purposes – i.e. once the software is available, ordinary members tend to, on the whole, just get on and use it.
Within the prospective “closed” CoP of 100, however, it may well be the Programme Team, as supported by the projects under Call I, which will organise – and thus regulate – the degrees of freedom that both the CoP as a whole, and each CoP member as an individuated participant, may purport to have. These degrees of freedom, and the Programme Team’s practical efforts to regulate such degrees, has the precise potential to make or break the efforts of any particular user and/or innovator engaged across the broader project. For example, I’m unlikely to be able to persuade my external colleagues to engage during the second phase of this programme if the first has resulted in a broadly perceived “waste of time”. Indeed, I’m unlikely to have lasted the distance myself, having been put off by the possible lack of clarity/transparency/opportunity to nip potential problems/conflicts in the bud during the first phase experience.
So, I would hope that one of the key functions of the support projects under Call I is to find uniquely adequate ways of “consulting” the CoP membership, and “feeding back” the “results” to both the Programme Team and the CoP membership as a whole. Administering standard questionnaires might just not cut it. This is where my additional expertise comes in, and where, as an ordinary member, I may be able to help fine-tune support projects [...] and [...] for mutual benefit. And yet, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my intended involvement with the community – as with any written proposal at any particular submission stage: shape it as you dare [...]
thank you for this: apologies in advance for [...] having gotten caught up in this issue that has actually been on the table for a while now, and due to emerging conflicts of interests between the motives of some members of the [...] project team in contrast to the [...] community as a whole
in the run up to bid submissions, it will be important for those members in our community wishing to collaborate together do not feel that they are in any way competing with the [...] project team itself for the same funds – unfortunately, the way that this programme has currently been set up, the [...] project team is intending to justify applying for further funding alongside what community members would have otherwise have bid for
in one instance, this has led to the suppression of a questionnaire that had been genuinely community generated, but seen by the [...] project team as potentially critical of their platform development choices so far
there have been other instances of covert suppression/coersion/censorship involving other members of our community and members of the [...] project team – the persons involved have been in touch with me in confidence, and the support I have given them to date has been likewise
but this is not healthy, and there are ways of structuring the realtionship of our community to its respective support teams that help bring these sort of conflicts out onto the table for open discussion (without having to disclose any particular circumstance)
aporia set up aporia pidegeon an order to scope the requirements for this sort of a dialogue to begin taking place, and aporia green is becoming a safe haven for teasing out issues such as this, amongst others at the grass roots, in ways in which we can all learn from [...]
[...] in particular, it is my understanding that your request for additional information does not warrant a valid condition of expense claim reimbursement, and rather you should be directing any such requests to the independently accountable programme evaluators [...] in the first instance, who are being copied in on this here correspondence for kind information accordingly.
importantly, for the avoidance of doubt, the evaluators would be duly obliged to contact me directly on your behalf with your information request, subject to their own internal processes in light of the information being ordinarily gathered by them as demonstrably standard of all community members such as myself. if and only if considered appropriate, the evaluators would then need to obtain prior written permission from myself and/or any other relevant community member(s) pertaining to the data being requested before being able to advise yourselves in response. accordingly, please also take this memo by way of notice that members’ permissions relating to proprietary data for the purposes of inter alia HEFCE funded evaluation processes are now pending reviews of evaluation data recovery, evaluation data integrity, and evaluation data licensing arrangements which have become necessary for community members such as myself in light of previously unforseen abuses [...]
[...] The research dataset underpinning Aporia’s WHiSPeRiNG GaLLeRY draws directly on [...] experience of working with project boards and their management procedures. In fact, the entire GaLLeRY serves to uniquely showcase what happens when specific procedures fail and alternative actions have to take their place in order to make best efforts to minimise any related costs and damages in the public interest. Although the fieldwork covers both arms of the current dual-funding mechanism for Higher Eduction and research in the UK, the work principally addresses project evaluation methods framed by the Office of Government Commerce’s “Managing Successful Programmes” principles. For example, the GaLLeRY serves to formatively address the programme evaluation methods commissioned by a publicly funded body to evaluate its £81m Capital Investment Programme. In particular, [...] efforts have served to strengthen the research integrity of the method of “participant-observation” currently in use. This is because the intellectual risk of misinterpreting this method can have adverse systemic implications for publicly funded projects if not adequately peer-reviewed. Although the programme evaluators are due to report later this year, the GaLLeRY has been made openly accessible online in the meantime by way of formative contribution in the public interest [...]
[...] Please be advised that further to message below, the GaLLeRY exhibit at [...] is being updated by way of community placeholder.
In particular, a scanned copy of [...]’s advice letter to [...], dated 17 March 2009, has since been made publicly accessible featuring the following paragraph at point 10:
“The [...] itself will be expected to:
a. streamline its own operations, achieving efficiency savings where possible
b. minimise the burden for institutions in relation to [...] work and accessing [...] funds
c. contribute to the relevant devolved agreements/concordats on data collections and quality assurance
d. ensure the effective gathering and communicating of evidence to support the needs of individual core funders,[sic] and more generally, improve relationships with them”
As ever, hope this helps [...]
[...] New Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) [...] by merging BERR and DIUS [...] will create a single department committed to building Britain’s future economic strengths [...]