[p2p-research] [p2pf] Launch of P2P Research Group
Wittel, Andreas
andreas.wittel at ntu.ac.uk
Mon Apr 20 14:29:36 CEST 2009
Hi Ryan,
not sure if I understand your question. If you do think that universities should not be businesses (as I do) why think about examples in history that show a successful transformation from non-business to business models? Are you indicating with your question that this change of unis to corporations will ultimately fail?
The primary function of universities in one sentence? Perhaps to contribute to the production and dissemination of knowledge? Obviously there are other players emerging doing the same thing, collective intelligence etc. So there is competition, whcih has to be a good thing.
I really dont think that p2p will wash away capitalism and all institutions associated with it. I'd rather think of this in terms of mergers. Any idea what universities would look like if they would go p2p instead of business?
Andreas
________________________________
From: Ryan Lanham [mailto:rlanham1963 at gmail.com]
Sent: Mon 20/04/2009 03:00
To: Wittel, Andreas
Cc: Athina Karatzogianni; list-en at oekonux.org; p2pf at yahoogroups.com; Peer-To-Peer Research List
Subject: Re: [p2p-research] [p2pf] Launch of P2P Research Group
Hi Andreas,
Here's a question...a sincere one, not a rhetorical one: Is there any institution that has, in history, internally reformed satisfactorily by adopting a business model when no such model existed from the outset? I think of New Public Management in government/public affairs as a minimally successful (and still highly controversial) model. I'm sure there are numerous others.
Universities, like governments, are not businesses. Businesses exist to optimize their own survival and to control percentages of ecological carrying capacities that enrich managers and shareholders. Governments exist to achieve stable advancement and protection of normative social values. Universities exist to....???
One can add many predicates. What is disturbing is that one cannot think of a defining predicate...particularly one that doesn't entail prestige and identity enhancement...thinks seemingly at odds with sharing usable assets optimally.
I contend p2p exists to simplify and optimize distribution of resources...it replaces capitalism, institutions, socialism and several other approaches that aimed to deal with distribution of resources. p2p is a form of economics that makes the money component of value subordinate to efficient distribution with, through, or in spite of money. Its ethos is sharing usable assets without creating persons or entities unwilling to share usable assets. It does this by minimizing overheads associated with the delivery of sharing.
Universities were p2p 1.0. Time to envision 2.0. No need for the institutional components.
Ryan Lanham
On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 5:27 PM, Wittel, Andreas <andreas.wittel at ntu.ac.uk> wrote:
Basically I agree with this critique but would offer a twist. The university as secret society model is rapidly vanishing and making space for the university as business model. Where university knowledge formerly has been hidden away, it is now opening up to all kinds of so called effiencies such as auditing, quality control, usability, just in time delivery, customer service and so on. Not sure what is worse.
Andreas
________________________________
From: Ryan Lanham [mailto:rlanham1963 at gmail.com]
Sent: Sun 19/04/2009 03:17
To: Wittel, Andreas
Cc: Athina Karatzogianni; list-en at oekonux.org; p2pf at yahoogroups.com; Peer-To-Peer Research List
Subject: Re: [p2p-research] [p2pf] Launch of P2P Research Group
It seems to me that there are at least two ways institutions can be judged successful: First, they can be viewed as survivors in an ecology. To succeed, they need only continue. The second way to success is in serving some purpose well.
Monolithic knowledge has few supporters these days. So if one opts for the second and more human purpose, there needs to be a mission beyond "veritas". Teaching does not seem to be the mission of most institutions; it is a byproduct. Few who study teaching find universities to be particularly good at it, and teaching is rarely studied as a pursuit in universities outside of the discipline of education. Boosting people into competencies is a plausible mission, but even there, universities are hardly efficient or effective.
I think universities had two symbiotic purposes--one to imbue students with associative identity and institutional prestige--with a byproduct of some learning, and the second, more elemental mission was to earn that prestige through "scholarship."
So the real question of the worth or failure of universities comes back, it seems to me, to the meaning of scholarship. P2P modes exist (spontaneously?) for efficiencies of minimalizing institutional burdens--bureaucracy, identity, prestige, norms, hierachies, etc.
My condemnation of universities is in finding their definitions of scholarship to be (too often) solipsistic, removed from relevance and, more generally, exclusive. They failed by hiding their product from transparency. Instead, they chose to form guilds and to perfect trade secrets, normative rituals, and to act more like secret societies than service entities.
Regardless, knowledge is useful and universities contribute almost in spite of themselves. Learned individuals do the right things--perhaps as Athina is doing--just because they embody the very desires for meaning, value and efficiency that are at the heart of the p2p ethos. In a sense, p2p success at universities requires fighting the conventional institutional overhead
When the two blend, the academy washes out the authenticity of p2p through institutional machinery that simply can't be abandoned by most. People need the church acoutrements that Marc suggests exist. p2p is thus potentially lost in the very mechanics it innocently undermines. Like water against a shore, it will bounce back and meld in because its dissolving power is very microscopic--at the level of the person...it is not aggregated to the perspective of people who view the world from institutional eyes...as land and sea. But sometimes there are storms and rapid shifts, to extend a metaphor way too far!
Ryan Lanham
On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 5:38 PM, Wittel, Andreas <andreas.wittel at ntu.ac.uk> wrote:
This is a interesting question.
As I have hosted the workshop in Nottingham, I 'd like to share my experience with Nottingham Trend Uni. I asked the IT people to set up a wiki and was told that this is not possible as NTU wanted control over content. Obviously the result was a dead web site, suitable for information around the time of the conference, and dead later.
I would suspect that most unis have this policy. Should Hull be more open, and open to a wiki, and willing to fund the site, then I would welcome this and take advantage of it. However if Hull has (1) similar concerns about wikis as NTU, and (2) does not fund a non-Hull website for the research group, I would follow Ryan's suggestion to set up the p2p research group without uni affiliation.
Basically we dont need uni support to set up a research group. But we do need uni support (in terms of funding) to meet for conferences and workshops.
One more thing. Ryan said ealier.
On the other hand, lists of "researchers" meaning people at academic institutions who write papers for journals seems a failed model
As much as my academic heart agrees with this due to all kinds of frustrations in this world, I find this a dangerous statement as it puts universities in the realm of history. Are you really suggesting we dont need unis any more? How about newspapers? Art? Literature? Sould all this (which is under serious threat atm) be allowed to be swept away for non-insitituational knowledge work to succeed?
For those interested in the relevance of history in the information age I'd recommend Alan Liu (2004), The Laws of Cool.
Andreas
________________________________
From: p2presearch-bounces at listcultures.org on behalf of Ryan Lanham
Sent: Sat 18/04/2009 20:23
To: Athina Karatzogianni
Cc: list-en at oekonux.org; p2pf at yahoogroups.com; Peer-To-Peer Research List
Subject: Re: [p2p-research] [p2pf] Launch of P2P Research Group
Thanks, Athina. I will do what you say.
I should note, in the interest of open disclosure, that I have been an employee of Harvard, Northwestern and Virginia Tech universities. It would be disingenuous for me to ride too a horse about higher ed.
There is a new effort going on now concerning a charter for best practices in community engagement that may serve as a suitable base; I will post a link in the next couple of days since I am not as good as Michel at building stockpiles on de.licio.us <http://de.licio.us/> <http://de.licio.us/> <http://de.licio.us/> .
Anyone else who wishes to offer a collaborative foundation, method, or tools besides a wiki should gather their thoughts and speak out as time goes forward.
I continue to applaud and welcome the general concept and can imagine the risks and frustrations associated with moving forward.
Ryan Lanham
On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 2:02 PM, Athina Karatzogianni <athina.k at gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Ryan
I am all for what you propose, please take the initiative.
I would also like to add here if I may, in response one of your previous emails, the fact that i happen to be an academic and hull is interested in supporting this effort (i have kept chasing them around for the past 2 years!) is somehow causing political concern in terms of excluding non academics and other more serious ideological issues, which I recognize as valid.
Nevertheless, it feels a constant barrier having to defend any sort of effort of volunteering my time. Those that know me personally and my work more generally will know were my political loyalties have been and will continue to be. They are not with institutions and certainly not with hierarchies.
Please take the lead in this, and whoever else wants to take initiatives they are here to be taken. I am not excluding anyone and neither does what happens to be my current affiliation. In a way I am trying to say that this is a research group for p2p researchers, how can it have different logic and how it can exclude anyone? I have taken it for granted that it has a peer logic. Doing charters and discussing governance perhaps someone like you can the the lead in. All I trying to do is set up, host everyone for a first time in hull to discuss all these issues and create some sort of governance structure for the group when we meet face to face and get some funding going.
Cheers
Athina
On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 2:26 PM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Michel,
Thanks. A constitution isn't a bad idea, but rather than one drafter, I'll look for a starting point that is more collaborative and perhaps an open section of the wiki could be used to gather broad inpur. I'd be happy to shepherd and encourage that process.
Perhaps others with interests in open and collaborative governance could take significant roles in editing.
Ryan Lanham
rlanham1963 at gmail.com
Facebook: Ryan_Lanham
On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 1:13 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Ryan,
I don't think any social or political change project can bypass altogether all institutions, it needs to work both within and without. This being said, while aiming for funding obviously demands playing by some rules, I think that for all participants who believe in the P2P ethos, no research project can or should be exclusive to academic researchers. In my view, the new group should also be able to assist non-academic researchers.
Perhaps, we could write a manifesto of sorts, that would serve as the 'constitution' of the group, which would specific this,
Would you be interested in taking the lead in writing this?
Michel
On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 5:37 AM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:
I applaud this initiative and bravo to those offering the funding. On the other hand, lists of "researchers" meaning people at academic institutions who write papers for journals seems a failed model that is less in need of reinforcement than rejection.
Research in an academic sense is not p2p, hasn't been, and never will be. I would not exclude it, I just would feed it by giving it additional free assets of prestige and focus without their earning those resources in open (truly open) communities.
Ryan Lanham
On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 5:09 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
I´m extremely happy to announce this initiative, which will enable people interested in p2p dynamics to more easily appeal for research funding.
B elow is a short announcement from Athina Karatzogianni, please ask for the document that she is referring to in her email listed below. If you are involved with research, academic or not, please let us know and do forward this message to other networks.
If you have no access to the attached document, please request one from Athina via email
Michel Bauwens
Text:
"The P2P Foundation <http://p2pfoundation.net/> in collaboration with the University of Hull <http://www.hull.ac.uk/> are creating a P2PResearch Group (P2PRG) with a physical base in Hull, in order to initiate a material equivalent to the various virtual networks we are all part of. Some of the goals of the group are to attract funding to improve already existent infrastructures, create more material and immaterial networks and hubs and capture funding for research, conferences and workshops. A conference scheduled for November will also produce a direct and transparent steering committee to oversee the various activities of the group. Therefore, it would be particularly helpful, if everyone, who is interested in participating, fills as much information as they can, in the document attached, and email it to Athina <http://www.hull.ac.uk/humanities/media_studies/staff/athina_karatzogianni/> at athina.k at gmail.com"
see and forward doc attached (please edit doc michel as you see fit)
athina
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Lecturer in Media, Culture and Society
The Dean's Representative (Chinese Partnerships)
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The University of Hull
United Kingdom
HU6 7RX
T: ++44 (0) 1482 46 5790
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http://www.hull.ac.uk/humanities/media_studies/staff/athina_karatzogianni/
--
Dr Athina Karatzogianni
Lecturer in Media, Culture and Society
The Dean's Representative (Chinese Partnerships)
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
The University of Hull
United Kingdom
HU6 7RX
T: ++44 (0) 1482 46 5790
F: ++44 (0) 1482 466107
http://www.hull.ac.uk/humanities/media_studies/staff/athina_karatzogianni/
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HU6 7RX
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