Open Science Network in Ethnobiology
The Open Science Network brings together an array of courses and curricula already being used to teach ethnobiology.
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Created: Mar 04, 2009
Updated: Nov 19, 2009
Membership: Open
Semi-Private
Topic: Plug in to planning: We need your thoughts about the first grant meeting in Charleston, May 30
Posts (1 - 6 of 6)
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Flag comment for removal pharrison 7 months ago
As a reminder, an important inaugural meeting for the Open Science Network is scheduled to take place on campus of the College of Charleston on Saturday, May 30. We are currently looking for a qualified facilitator to lead the first meeting for this project. Gail Wagner has a lead from the University of South Carolina, and Jeanine Pfeiffer has offered to help. Thoughts?
Meeting start time: With so many things to talk about, it seems appropriate to begin at 9 am, but I've had some feedback that some may be traveling that morning and won't be able to make it by then. We could start at 9, spend that first hour getting to know each other and beginning a dialogue about needs. What is your preference on start time?
Agenda: What are the strategic components of this short time we have together that will get this project up and running? Please send your thoughts about the best use of this time.
Open meeting: We have space reserved for an open meeting to introduce this project to the greater SEB attendees on Monday at noon. How should this look? How do we invite others?
Task Teams: We need leaders to step up and take on leadership of some tasks that have been defined. In the grant proposal, we suggested a few individuals, but these were not meant to be assignments. Please decide where you can best help move this project forward and let me know. I encougage you to think about who you want to work with and make sure these people are in attendance for this meeting also.
Thanks for taking time to respond!
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1) I would vote for an external facilitator, if someone has actually witnessed this facilitator "do their thang", and can vouch for their professionalism, timeliness, preparedness, humor, and ability to elicit high levels of participation in a meaningful way.
I had sent a proposed flow chart of participatory meeting phases (just one potential model) to Pat - I'll post this to our home page.
2) Anything earlier than 10 am on a Saturday is hard for me (grin). But I won't stand in the way of y'all early risers!
3) Possible agenda items could include:
- VISION: Our collective vision of what the first year should look like - ACTIONS: What are the most important actions, when do they need to take place, and how will they be carried out? - COMMUNICATIONS: Feedback on how we regard the effectiveness of WiserEarth versus the email listserve, and how we can continue to ensure participation and transparency without losing effectiveness and efficient decision-making - NETWORKS: Mapping out our individual networks and how they relate to each other overall, and figuring out a plan for eliciting and conveying key items from/to those networks - LOGISTICS: What are the actual operational steps for building/contributing to open access materials? Who can design a "How To" manual? - MANAGEMENT: Task teams: leadership and first steps - FUN: How can we infuse fun-having and wild creativity into our ongoing work?
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From Gail Wagner (who is trying to get through the last week of classess at Univ of South Carolina): I propose that for us to be able to assess what we do, we at least will need to have explicit learning outcomes for each module. And perhaps we want a philosophy of learning/teaching overall, too. I could compare what I mean to the differences between the Society for Economic Botany’s Code of Ethics (based on the American Anthropological Association’s Code of Ethics) to that of the International Society of Ethnobiology’s. The latter BEGAN with principles, and guidelines developed from there. The former began with guidelines, and as those of us who were around for SEB’s process saw how much argument can ensue over each detail. I propose that we start with broad brushstrokes (a philosophy) that we can all agree on, and that we can come back to when we wonder among ourselves whether we are on the right tack or are covering our bases or creating the best modules. I am assuming that we are interested in inquiry-based instruction, at least in part.
I give you the link here for what I think is a good discussion of Learning Outcomes that is posted on our university’s Center for Teaching Excellence web page:
http://www.sc.edu/cte/guide/coursedevelopment/howtowriteoutcomes.shtml
Also more useful stuff from our Center for Teaching Excellence:
A glossary of technologies for people like me to whom much of this is new and yet untried: http://www.sc.edu/cte/guide/instructionaltechnology/techGlossary.shtml
Instructional Technology bibliography and links: http://www.sc.edu/cte/guide/instructionaltechnology/techBiblio.shtml
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From Jeanine, As we evaluate these applications, I think it is critical that we consider how we accommodate all the applicants within our Open Science Network, before, during, and after the May 30th meeting. Here are some related questions:
1) Would it make sense to open the May 30th meeting to non-funded applicants via live internet connections, i.e., using Elluminate Live! (which I’m trained in) or Adobe Connect (which Gail is promoting)? Or do we think it’s important to keep the meeting attendance at a maximum threshold of attendees? Or could we allot one portion of the meeting time to a wider discussion, so that the non-funded applicants have a change to listen in, participate, and contribute their thoughts? 2) Are we open to dividing up the travel funds in such a way (i..e., prioritizing more local geographically applicants and/or offering 70-80% funding) that we might be able to support a few more people (i.e., more than the number originally designated)? 3) Are we inviting all applicants to join the WiserEarth discussion group as part of their application process? 4) How can we best include all of the applicants in post-meeting follow-up discussions and actions? 5) Should we offer non-funded applicants a “fast track” or “first refusal” to be considered for future meeting scholarships? |
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from: Gail Wagner 3 May 2009 Here are my suggestions about May 30 and a bit beyond.
First, do we have any idea how many people may show up at this meeting? If it is open, there may well be 150 people. What is the size of the room? Does it have a Powerpoint projector? Does it have a large table around which at least the core participants can sit and face each other, and multiple electrical outlets for laptops?
1. I think each of us core participants should be assigned a task to complete between now and May 23, such as coming up with concrete plans and suggestions plus sources for WiserEarth or our web page/project link. Each person’s report should be circulated to at least the core participants, if not also the invited participants, so that we go into this meeting with some substantial ideas to knock down, add to, comment on, etc., and everyone will have had time to read and think about those suggestions before we meet on May 30.
2. I think we should begin with just the core participants for up to 2 hours, just to get organized. Having absolutely everybody from the start would be chaotic, I think. At that initial meeting we could discuss the ideas already circulated a week before the conference, could perhaps get initial feedback and suggestions from the education folk I hope will be in attendance (both Earicks can come), and set up specific goals/tasks to be accomplished during the SEB meetings (and into the after). PH:
3. Then open the meeting. Do we have two or three tiers of participants? Do people we fund have special status, and those we don’t form a third tier, or is everyone the same. That is, do we expect something concrete from people we fund that we don’t expect from those we don’t fund? In 45 minutes or less summarize for everyone what the project is about and what we think so far, what goals/tasks we foresee. Then, rather than ask for input from the giant group as a whole (which I believe will not only take too long, but is liable to get sidetracked into just one or two topics rather than all we need to cover), . . . .
4. Split into working groups, each headed by one or more core participants and made up of those people who came who are interested in that topic. Since people may potentially be interested in more than one topic, come up with a mechanism to let them know that their voice will be heard in the other topic(s). Each group gets one hour to work on their tasks. Some topics each group covers can be the same for each group (how to communicate, when, how to form networks), and of course some will be specific to that group (these are our groups listed in the grant – primary information distribution, etc.).
5. Meet as a whole again, giving each group up to 15 minutes to summarize their findings and recommendations.
6. Groups continue to meet during the SEB conference, pulling in others who attend the conference but weren’t there for May 30.
7. Core participants get back together the night before the Business meeting to summarize progress and prepare a report to be given at the Business meeting.
Is there some point during the day when we (core participants minimally) can be trained a bit in WiserEarth and in some openware or software internet communication system, such as Adobe Connect or Elluminate. I heard recently from another faculty member that one needs very good microphones for Adobe Connect to work: I don’t know!
I believe that the applicants who responded to our call for participant funding have supplied us with a wealth of ideas to begin to incorporate into the “reports” each of us could circulate for May 23. --------------------------
In parentheses I reply to each of Jeanine’s inquiries, but then I have some new suggestions after that.
(1) I do not think we should try to put this initial meeting live on the internet. First, we need time to organize and doing that live would be chaotic. Also, we need training and practice in whatever open ware or software (whether Adobe Connect or Elluminate) we end up using. Given the nature of internet live connections, there is no need for us to all be in the same room or at the same meetings to do meetings: the whole point is that we could each be anywhere and have a conference with sound and visuals.
(2) I would like to see us get the most for our money, so I hope we will fund local people who will cost less (some of whom are unlikely to come for the entire conference, and some of whom might).
So for next year we have much more time to target regional people. Will there perhaps be a class nearby whose students could attend? Can we get more local educators involved?
(3) I think that when we email each of the grant applicants about whether or not they were funded, we should specifically invite them to join WiserEarth and perhaps also suggest a specific group they might be interested in joining.
(4) I agree that applicants should start anew each application cycle, with no holdovers from a previous application. With such short notice, some got a chance to apply this time, but others did not hear about it or had no time to reply.
I suggest that rather than each come up with our single, top applicant for each category, we rank our top three each. Give the top one 3 points, your personal second two points, and your personal third one point. Then add up the points to see who received the most points. One need not list 3 if only two seem worthy (although I don’t think that will be a problem – the problem is the other way with many worthy and interesting applicants).
---------------------------- I’d like to see us put on workshops at future meetings, whether on how to use programs like Adobe Connect/Elluminate/openware, or on using gadgets for teaching (thanks to Hawaii”I folk), or on teaching.
In fact, I believe we could start putting together 5-day teaching workshops at the Duke Marine lab facility in Beaufort, NC, where for many years Russ Bernard from the Univ of Florida has been holding NSF-sponsored cultural anthropology workshops. I attended one several years ago taught by Gary Martin and Rick Stepp on ethnoecology, and I’ll be attending another one this July on social network analysis. The facility (look it up on the internet) has rooms and includes cooked meals (and snacks) for a very reasonable cost per day per student. I’m sure there are also other facilities, such as the Webb Wildlife Center near Beaufort, SC, where the USC archaeological field school will be based in May of this year, or at the USC Baruch Center near Georgetown, SC (we’d have to cook our own meals), or I don’t know what the Longleaf Institute that the Earicks run has. Or such a facility would make a great place for the core participants to meet if needed. |
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There are a few things that we need to keep in mind as we enter into this meeting that relate to why the grant was given to us in the first place.
We proposed to develop an open network that would be self-perpetuating. If we can, lets set up systems that do not require funding to keep them going. There are many ways to do this. We need to be very creative. I know we can succeed in this. We proposed to develop new curriculum and ways to do things, not just recloak all of the old. It would be very easy for us to just dust off old curriculum and shove it into the pipes but that is not what we proposed to do and that is not what NSF usually supports. This is a fantastic challenge that when we rise to it will bring us together and help our discipline to coalesce within a new paradigm of education for tomorrow's students. We proposed to promote an "open" philosophy in myriad ways. This was the key selling point of the proposal. It could be really easy for us to back off from this and form closed systems rather than an open society. However, I am confident that our complex network has the diversity needed to seize this opportunity to do something new, creative and very different. At the end of the day we will have a rallying cry that ethnobiology is the educational core of the future because of what we are going to be producing. There is every reason to believe that this can be a model for much more than ethnobiology, but for open science in general. |