Going Public with the Portfolio
- Concept of portfolios as a single, coherent narrative, rather than
as only artifact/annotation pairs.
- Changed the name of increments from specific artifacts
(e.g. syllabus) to what the artifact should be conveying.
Might require a newly generated artifact rather than an existing one.
- Complete a "public" increment as well as a "protected" increment.
- The "public" increment isn't really public: it is still protected,
but is reviewed via email within 2
weeks of session by two other Commons participant as if it were a
public document.
- One of your "public" reviewers will remain constant throughout,
the other will rotate among the participants.
- At the end, when we really do go public, I anticipate each person
will have one or two external reviewers from the parallel UK Commons
project (but details need to be worked out -- more later on this.)
- Protected
Portfolio repository for Commons participants.
- Review Form
Assumptions underlying the changes
- Starting to go public now might provide you with ideas and
beginnings for some of the "narrative coherence" to your
documents-as-a-whole that I don't think has yet emerged for all of
your portfolios.
- The name change for portfolio increments was prompted by both
semantical differences in the names we give to artifacts
(e.g. syllabus), and by increasing the chance that different
participants' increments will have similar intent.
- Engaging in a revision cycle allows us to interact with our
portfolios as it unfolds:
Andy Clark, in "Natural Born Cyborgs" (2001) suggests that
externalization of thought, through various types of
representation, gives rise to new perceptual and cognitive operations
that allow for reflection, critique, and iteration. That is, the act
of bringing thoughts into material form, such as expressing software
designs in words and symbols, is not merely a formal exercise, akin to
taking mental dictation, but is itself constitutive of and essential
to creation.
- Making increments public makes them explicit, hence available to
critique and change:
There is a world of difference between holding a
belief, or expecting something, and using human
language to say so. The difference is that
only if spoken out, and thus objectivized, does a
belief become criticizable. Before it is formulated
in language, I may be one with my belief: the belief
is part of my acting, part of my behavior. If
formulated, it may be criticized and found to be
erroneous; in which case I may be able to discard
it. (Karl Popper, "Campbell on the Evolutionary
Theory of Knowledge", 1987}
- One reader will be same throughout for continuity and depth. One
reader rotates for breadth. And one external reader for helping to
bring into focus issues of context, audience, and purpose.
- Feedback of work-in-progress is typical in writing, scholarship,
art, and design disciplines (as well as many others). In the software
world it is reflected in practices such as usability testing with
prototypes.
- Deeper engagement in the "other" two levels of access; thinking
about the public document affords additional opportunities for private
reflection. If you don't capture your private reactions and
reflections as you go, you might miss the most important aspects for
learning that this project has to offer.
- Going from protected to public in fixed increments helps to
lighten the load and meet the final deadline with something that you
are proud of.
- E-copies in a protected repository makes access easy and
benchmarks and documents change.
- Website increases mutual accountability, hence commitment:
It is in each person's interest
to make a contract and then break it, thus receiving
the benefits without incurring the costs. No
contract is ever perfectly specified. Enforcement
is nearly always imperfect. Even with considerable
coercive power and effective techniques of
measurement and monitoring, a ruler cannot achieve
total compliance unless there is a policeman in
every corner, a fed under every bed. There is
always room for shirking and cheating.
...
"One way that rulers can reduce the costs of
enforcement is to create or encourage situations
where taxpayers engage in quasi-voluntary
compliance. It is voluntary because
taxpayers choose to pay. It is
quasi-voluntary because the noncompliant are
subject to coercion -- if they are caught."
...
"Quasi-voluntary compliance rests on reciprocity.
It is a contingent strategy in which individual
taxmpayers are more likely to cooperate if they have
reasonable expectations that both the rulers and
other taxpayers will also cooperate. The key lies
in what rulers and other government officials do to
create mutual expectations of tax payment.
(Levi, Of Rule and Revenue, 1988)
- The review form provides "authentic" assessment for peer review of
scholarship (ref: Bob Broad, What we really value)