Collaboration
I’ve just finished listening to the live-feed of the plenary session that Laura led @ “The (Un)Common University,” a Faculty Academy being offered this week @ The University of Mary Washington. Lots of good stuff there (some of it very well fed by this class!). I was especially intrigued by Laura’s description of a prof who invites students to edit his class notes (and by the counter-story offered by an attender, who has several students take notes simultaneously, and then solicits feedback from others).
I was also intrigued by the implication of such innovations that a co-written project is always going to be stronger than one crafted by an individual. As a long-time and inveterate collaborator (in teaching, in writing, in thinking…) I am wondering about this. I was speaking yesterday w/ a colleague who works in theater, and participates in (among other things) an experimental program in which three choreographers have worked together on projects for over a decade. Recently advised that their collaboration was actually keeping them from being as creative as they might, they’re experimenting this year w/ “unbraiding”–that is, each of them is pursuing an independent course, an independent project–before coming together again to “re-braid.” So my question is: what exactly might enable collaborative work to be more creative, and what dimensions of collaborative work might have precisely the opposite effect: more limiting, more “damping-down,” more “middle-marching”?
I was also particularly struck by the description, during discussion after Laura’s talk, of “peer review as its own network,” and by the characterization of peer-reviewed journals as entities that “want to stay closed, to stay protected.” How to deal with these effects, that peer review–because gated, guarded–may perhaps not be inviting the most interesting or exploratory or edgy work? In Natural-Born Cyborgs, Andy Clark draws on the work of James O’Donnell to propose separating the idea of validation from that of prepackaging: “In the electronic world, major journals might instead add (after the usual kinds of peer-reviewing process) a kind of seal of approval to certain articles. A single article could carry the seal of multiple major journals, encouraging consumption by a wider audience” (this would help Clark, who himself is often dismayed in having to choose between publishing a certain paper in a philosophy journal, vs. one on artificial intelligence, when it might well appeal to the audiences of both). And it might help all of us, to have a more open network, w/ intersections among the various “silos” in which we all operate.
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Sadly, I don’t seem to be able to log in anymore, but it’s still the same old me. Probably has something to do with the closing-up of accounts related to graduating.
Indeed it does seem like being both independent/”unbraided” and cooperative/”braided” work (and free time) would have their benefits and disadvantages. Depending on the group and situation, there might be some of the _same_ benefits and drawbacks for working independently and cooperatively. For instance, by working on one’s own, someone might be able to focus their project (and focus their mind) better. Yet working together could achieve the same results, with group members keeping each others on track, both mentally while doing the work and in terms of the project goals.
As Anne mentioned, I could definitely see cooperative work being on the one hand more creative, where the diversity of the group brings more and more interesting ideas to build constructively (or perhaps to check each other’s work and make it realistic and sensible), and on the other hand more limited, broad towards the center of everyone’s opinions and so not making much of a statement at all.
To bring this back a little to “gender and technology”, the Computer Science department at Bryn Mawr has brought in the concept of cooperative work to a traditionally individualistic, lone-programmer sort of world. The faculty there have done this, from what I’ve heard, at least in part because often women work more fruitfully in a cooperative rather than competitive setting.
From my own experience working on technological projects (ie computer programming assignments) both individually and communally, I’d certainly say there have been times that both have been more and less useful (and fun). Sometimes just sitting down and planning out and writing a computer program by myself is exhilarating, simpler, more straightforward and clear than working with others. Other times working with others brings about new good ideas I hadn’t thought of (the ingenuity of two minds as compared to one, etc), is more interactive (which is nice when you’re spending an entire night talking to a computer), and helps to guard each of our own individual mistakes. On the other hand, it can become very slow when you each have to explain your thinking to the other person (which can be useful for both of you, but also can confuse an otherwise straightforward idea) or when you each want to approach the task differently. Programming by yourself can get you into its own confusion, where your head can might occasionally get buried into the code without someone to stop you and remind you of the big picture or correct your calculations.
In terms of projects technology, I’d say that teamwork can be both useful and not as useful for women (and probably for men).