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Building Collaborative Capacities in Learners:
The M/Cyclopedia Project, Revisited
Dr Axel Bruns – Dr Sal Humphreys
Media & Communication
Creative Industries Faculty
Queensland University of Technology
Brisbane, Australia
a.bruns@qut.edu.au – s.humphreys@qut.edu.au
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Key Questions
‒ How does education:
• prepare graduates to become expert users of the
information available from user-led content creation
environments?
• prepare graduates to be expert participants in user-led
content creation environments?
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Produsage
‒ Beyond production:
• ‘anyone can edit’ – users become producers of content
• content is no longer a distinct product – it is a temporary artefact
of an ongoing process, and is continuously evolving
• usage and production are increasingly, inextricably intertwined
• strict distinctions between producers, distributors, and
consumers no longer apply
• a new “Generation C” of content produsers?
this is produsage
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Common Characteristics
‒ Shared across these environments:
• Community-Based – the community as a whole, if sufficiently large and
varied, can contribute more than a closed team of producers, however
qualified
• Fluid Roles – produsers participate as is appropriate to their personal
skills, interests, and knowledges; this changes as the produsage project
proceeds
• Unfinished Artefacts – content artefacts in produsage projects are
continually under development, and therefore always unfinished; their
development follows evolutionary, iterative, palimpsestic paths
• Common Property, Individual Merit – contributors permit (non-
commercial) community use and adaptation of their intellectual property,
and are rewarded by the status capital gained through this process
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The C4C
‒ Four crucial graduate capacities:
• Creative:
engage in collaborative creative produsage work (and
understand reasons for wanting to do so) – economic,
social, individual
• Collaborative:
evaluate when, where, and with whom to collaborate
(and when not to do so), and understand potential
positive and negative consequences – especially for
intellectual property and personal reputation
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The C4C
‒ Four crucial graduate capacities:
• Critical:
evaluate quality of content and skills of collaborators,
assess own capabilities, identify best sites of / venues
for produsage – and be able to express and share
such critique constructively
• Communicative:
understand the communicative models of produsage
environments, and work effectively within them – also
participate successfully in communication about the
shared collaborative effort: metacollaboration
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New Media Technologies
‒ Context:
• Creative Industries Faculty at Queensland University of
Technology
• second/third-year undergraduate unit
• BCI, BMassComm, BCI/BBus, open elective
• 150-170 students
• second semester (July-Nov.)
• provides an introduction to social and societal
implications of new media technologies
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Wikis in NMT
‒ Aims:
• students collaboratively develop M/Cyclopedia of New Media
• published to the Web at end of semester
‒ MediaWiki (2004/5):
• standard system, familiar from Wikipedia
• but clunky, counterintuitive interface
• wider use across university would require multiple installs
‒ Confluence (2006/7):
• good WYSIWYG, access management, tagging functions
• allows multiple wiki spaces on same install
• but difficult to export content for wider publication
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Assessment
‒ 1/2 – Wiki entries:
• create/update entries on set topics in the wiki
• group work (two students)
‒ Key assessment criterion: Collaboration
• Over time: collaboration throughout project period
• Across team: communication and dialogue while collaborating in wiki
• Highest level of achievement:
∘ Edit history shows continuous work in updating content in the weeks before
the assignment due date
∘ Comments on entry page used highly effectively and regularly to enhance
collaboration on content development
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Assessment
‒ 3 – Wiki gardening: (experimental, new in 2007)
• public peer review of existing entries in the wiki
• proposal for topical portal to entries in the wiki
‒ Key assessment criteria: Critical Review and Knowledge of the Field
• requires students to express critique of peer work fairly and
constructively
• requires students to develop strong understanding of overall wiki
contents
• Highest level of achievement:
∘ Very convincing evaluation, expressed very thoughtfully and respectfully
∘ Very clear and convincing argument for proposed portal page
∘ Selection of entries for portal is highly logical and sensible
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Further Needs
‒ Lessons from NMT:
• Confluence and similar wikis well suited to student work
• history/commenting functions make group work more transparent
• important contribution to building students’ C4C capacities
‒ But:
• continuing problems with embedding wikis in university access and
authentication systems
• possibility for cross-institutional / international collaboration, but difficult to
implement
• publishing final outcomes to wider Web from Confluence needs further work
‒ And:
• collaborative new media pedagogies only emerging
• development hampered by institutional resistance to change in some
organisations (e.g. prohibiting use of Wikipedia as source)
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