Session Description

The internet’s roots, the ARPA network, were planted to foster the tradition of academic research sharing—the abundant giving of scholarly works.  Over the decades individual professor webpage have grown for providing support, inspiration, and forums for both the academic community.

Limits to academic knowledge creation and sharing might be hampered by for-profit education corporations as some courseroom and educational products are now classified as proprietary materials. An example is Capella University’s proprietary ownership of all course materials for online courses. The course developer or professor cannot share these materials.

An alternative to posting materials in the course room has evolved—posting links to the professor’s website outside the University. One example is www.drjohnlatham.com with various “Labs” (organization assessment and design, leading change, research, etc.) as well as a “Study Hall” and “Library.” As an adjunct, all materials are owned by the professor who can freely share works with students and other colleagues and host discussion forums (open and closed audience participation) with an invitation to the website. Another website is the rich statistics resource provided by Dr. Jim Mirabella at www.drjimmirabella.com. Dr. Lloyd C. Williams, expands organizational change management research into a think-tank and resource website at www.ITTL.org.

Fulltime university employees also have viable websites for sharing resources such as www.searchwrite.info with access to current bibliographic resources and best practices for teaching. Many fulltime professors have unsanctioned web pages on their university’s site which are preceded by the tilde such as Dr. Philip Stark’s SticiGui: Statistics Tools for Internet and Classroom Instruction with a Graphical User Interface, http://stat-www.berkeley.edu/~stark/SticiGui/; and Dr. C. G Boergee’s Qualitative Methods Workbook at http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/qualmeth.html .

It seems that there is a lack of structured analysis of the potential risks and rewards associated with sharing various types of university knowledge. The following slides present a framework to discuss, classify, and analyze the various domains of university knowledge. This session explores the processes to assess sharing opportunities and risks and make overall assessments that drive sharing and collaboration strategies.

The Conceptual Framework is the beginning of a collaborative conversation about the presumptions and hypotheses for building a theory of abundance (Arbnor & Bjerke, 1997). Starting with an examination of the level of dependence on external validation, one's self-concept leads to examining a feeling of security. Some have proposed that the level of personal financial security changes with economic conditions. For example, when business is going good, the propensity to share increases (Ashley http://www.windley.com/2002/10/01.html )The abundance mentality results from a sense of internal security "enabling abundance thinkers to grow, and gives them comfort, insight, inspiration, protection, direction and peace of mind" (Covey, 1996, p. 23).

Concentrating on the application area of Business Management, two attitudes towards levels of security (fear vs. trust) emerge regarding assumptions about sharing information and the eventual creation of knowledge.  The upper portion, or hoarding attitude engenders win/lose and lose/lose behaviors (Mariott, 1995; Covey, 1996) as assumptions about the payoff (the pie) are submerged in the zero sum game philosophy of decision making. The focus is focused on limitations and risk from the economics, accounting, engineering principles of scarcity of resources (Sheth, 2000).

The lower portion of the framework explores the notion that abundance expands the payoffs (pie) by one's assuming a "bone deep belief that there are enough natural and human resources to realize my dream" (Covey, 1996; Keeble, 2001). This stems more naturally from a liberal arts educational perspective while focusing on possibilities and opportunities (Seth, 2000).

The payoff assumptions are reinforced by levels of success and experience and knowledge of systems. Success with abundance thinking and behavior will support strengthening of positive, collaborative outcomes. On the other hand, experience with scarcity thinking will also reinforce the negative assumptions. Educators, hopefully, will attempt to operate in the lower, abundance portion of the framework.

Examination of the likelihoods of abundance opportunities or scarcity risk can be started using the 6-step heuristics. Combining these two heuristics results in the Decision Process and Framework with a overall risk and opportunity rating.

Relating this process the faculty information issue permits exploration of the issue—to share or not to share. Each potential behavior can be mapped using such a framework. Activities become decision outcomes of Green strategy (to share), Red strategy (not to share), and Amber Strategy (go cautiously and investigate further).

Specific examples for discussion include: the nature of competition v. collaboration with the corollary issue of profit and non-profit universities (Baer, 2000); and content issues of faculty course notes, course syllabi, course discussions questions, course unit summaries with its corollary issue of online intellectual property rights (Burk, 1997).

Downloads

Slides (PDF)

Hollis, M. & Latham, J. R. "Theory of Abundance: Non-University Sanctioned Faculty Websites," Trends in Higher Education, held in Phoenix, Arizona, February 2004.