The website is indeed impenetrable in parts without due oral guidance, partly to allow for the various members across the community giving rise to the commentary to have a chance to reflect on the same without feeling too exposed to “non-member” scrutiny in the first instance. In the second, “non-members” who express a public interest in wanting to understand further are invited to participate in a “guided tour”, either on a one-on-one basis, or in a small group, or even live in the context of their own community fora by way of a GaLLeRY installation. This aporia research approach allows the management of anonymity to be fine tuned with respect to the audience at hand at the time of data generation and, moreover, supports the due administration of the Public Interest Balance Test pertaining to the UK Freedom of Information Act on a case by case basis.

In this sense, our [...] conversations were very much tempered by the fact that the DIUS had chosen a JISC platform to host the HE debate, and although – as discussed – the Times Higher Education website had also offered to host a debate on their own terms, the act of THE’s publicly offering an alternative to the JISC-hosted option had already served to call into question JISC’s status as a possible (un)trusted-third party in the eyes of potential contributors to any such debate.

Therefore it is good to hear that your colleagues were found to be wary of “blurring” the focus of the then HE debate, as this was precisely my concern also i.e. to have provided yet another way to contribute would have called into question JISC’s trusted-third party status even further and, on balance, arguably would not have been in the public interest at the time.

However, having had a chance to sound out such issues with your kind self in person at that early stage, I was then able to feedback to members across the community in general terms, including to Dr [...] in his capacity as JISC Executive Secretary (albeit employed by the HEFCE) and [...] in her capacity as JISC Head of Innovation.

In particular, it was agreed with both that the members of the community have a chance to share lessons learned with each other – and, moreover, show that such lessons can be learned by explicitly drawing upon the potential collegial strengths of the broader JISC community – before submitting the grass roots issues that had arisen to further public scrutiny in due course. This was also based on the fact that the GaLLeRY had already served as an evidence-base for contributions to public consultations run by the: DIUS on Science and Society; Parliamentary Ombudsman on Good Complaints Handling; Intellectual Property Office on the Patent Research Exception; and RCUK on the Governance of Good Research Conduct.

In the 3 months of silence that followed, it became apparent that the [...] may not have agreed to the same. Nevertheless, in good faith, I participated during the [...] last week in the hope of continuing to share lessons learned in the agreed vein. So, having managed to set up a follow up meeting [...] for the purposes of taking the [...] team and other interested parties on a guided GaLLeRY tour (as described above) so that the [...] could be advised accordingly as to next steps, I then received an email apologetically canceling this meeting on the basis of “family” advises received in the intervening period – call it [...] “micro-management” if you will, but it actually belies a more fundamental set of governance issues on the part of [...] in relation to the [...] which has been brewing for some years now, albeit managing to fly under the radar, so to speak, of evidence-based public and policy debate.

The WHiSPeRiNG GaLLeRY provides a way into precisely that evidence-base drawing on a 28-month research study, and hence has given rise to all manner of bureaucratic maneuvering on the part of the [...] in relation the the [...] and [...]-funded derivative bodies. As such, I am more than happy to share this evidence-base in its integral details with you and your colleagues by way of a guided GaLLeRY tour, so that we might – together as peers – come to a shared understanding of how best to proceed, including a decision as to whether or not it should be brought to Rt Hon [...]’s attention at this stage.

My alternative is to try take the same decision in the absence of you and your colleagues kind and informed counsel, and although there may be some reason why this might theoretically have to be the case, my gut feel is that collegiality needs to begin extending into the [...] as much as it values the nature of how we in HE actually get things done for public good also, and herewith lies the heart of this open aporia invitation.

At any event, here’s wishing you a good weekend – if not Easter break (?) – and looking forward to hearing from you in due course [...]

A developer community is subject to its incubating environment, and it is the incubating environment that is currently undergoing root and branch review, albeit cloaked in “politics”

But the nature of the “politics” have shifted since [...], in part due to the fact that aporia has been able to laboriously find a way to gently point out that the (political) emperor isn’t wearing any clothes and, in particular, point this out to the relevant empire builders before their going out and making a complete public spectacle of the fact.

However, if we were to continue the analogy for the time being, we are now at the point where the emperor is being introducing to a “trinny and susannah” perspective – namely, that true freedom to do as needs doing comes simply from being comfortable in your own skin – any cloak will do, irrespective of its magic colo(u)rs, or indeed none. The moral of this story being that transparency carries its own worth, warts and all – capiche?

When participating as fully as needs be next week, my rule of thumb is to be as much an (admittedly incubated) happy “developer” as any other, and if unhappy during passing moments, to get to the root of why this might be and have a go at addressing it for both myself and whoever else may happen to be experiencing the same consternation around me. By the end of the week, if we are not all happy, then we will have a chance to roll our own “cloaks” and observe what colo(u)rs they turn out to be. We will then have the option to take these colo(u)rs back to the drawing [...] board and paint our picture if we should so wish – [...] worth at least 1,000 authentic words – for all to share, incumbent or otherwise.

In this sense,.my community participation remains pro bono – and so does my voice [...]

So, hope this rendition is ok [...] for you to just be able to get on with precisely what you do best without having to worry about anything – or anyone – in particular: dare say that with [...], [...], [...], and in fact any community member doing likewise, we’re all in for a bit of a treat.

Oh, and just incase anyone should ask whether there is any “method in this madness”, personally like to call it “forging crucible at source” [...] http://ap0ria.wordpress.com/2007/08/03/forging-crucible-at-source/ [...] See you next week [...]