Distributed Collaboration

Distributed Collaboration
CCR 747:::S13

Sunday, April 14, 13

Yochai
Benkler


Clay Spinuzzi


distributed work
commons-based peer production


[CBPP] depends on very large aggregations of
individuals independently scouring their information
environment in search of opportunities to be creative
in small or large increments. These individuals then self-
identify for tasks and perform them for a variety of
motivational reasons... Practically all successful peer
production systems have a robust mechanism for peer
review or statistical weeding out of contributions from
agents who misjudge themselves. (376)


project requirements


First, they must be modular ... divisible into
components, or modules, each of which can be
produced independently of the production of the
others. This enables production to be incremental and
asynchronous, pooling the efforts of different people,
with different capabilities, who are available at different
times (378-79)


Second, the granularity of the modules is important and
refers to the sizes of the project’s modules. For a peer
production process to pool successfully a relatively
large number of contributors, the modules should be
predominantly ﬁne-grained, or small in size. This allows
the project to capture contributions from large
numbers of contributors whose motivation levels will
not sustain anything more than small efforts ... A project
will likely be more efﬁcient if it can accommodate
variously sized contributions (379).


Third, and ﬁnally, a successful peer production
enterprise must have low-cost integration, which
includes both quality control over the modules and a
mechanism for integrating the contributions into the
ﬁnished product (379).


18,736,245
editors


What’s a commons?


“Individuals produce on a nonproprietary basis and
contribute their product to a knowledge “commons”
that no one is understood as “owning,” and that anyone
can, indeed is required by professional norms to, take
and extend” (381-82).


The tragedy of the commons


nonrivalrous goods


Factors for emergence
of CBPP - p 369.


Creativity and
production models -
p 414


Incentive & Motivation
p 424


Distributed Work


Let us call this distributed work coordinative,
polycontextual, crossdisciplinary work that splices together
divergent work activities (separated by time, space,
organizations, and objectives) and that enables the
transformations of information and texts that characterize
such work. (Spinuzzi, 266)


Distributed work is the coordinative work that enables
sociotechnical networks to hold together and form
dense interconnections among and across work
activities that have traditionally been separated by
temporal, spatial, or disciplinary boundaries. Networks,
not hierarchies, are the dominant organizational form
here (though one does not preclude the other, and
hierarchies persist in distributed work). Distributed
work is deeply interpenetrated, with multiple,
multidirectional information ﬂows.Yes, work may
resemble a process, but this work is performed by
assemblages of workers and technologies, assemblages
that may not be stable from one incident to the next
and in which work may not follow predictable or
circumscribed paths. (268)
paths.


“Networks, not
hierarchies, are the
dominant organizational
form here.” (268)


In this shift toward distributed work, negotiation
becomes an essential skill. Trust becomes an ongoing
project. Organizations become looser aggregations held
together by alliances, and agility entails constantly
having to work to reafﬁrm and redeﬁne alliances
(Alberts & Hayes, 2003; Atkinson & Moffat, 2005). Thus,
rhetoric becomes an essential area of expertise; direct
connections mean that everyone can and should be a
rhetor (Carter, 2005). (271)


What’s it really all about, Alﬁe?


Jess:
Now, I realize Spinuzzi is not talking about e-portfolios, but why
can’t I? I also want to think about digital archives here. I’m
interested in both of these things as mediums for reinvigorating
learning and promoting writing and literacy, especially in
community contexts. And they both represent possibilities within
collaborative writing that deﬁes spatial, temporal, and disciplinary
constraints. ... This work is distributed—I have hard copies of
books that have literally been shipped from England for me to
digitize. This work brings together people from sociology and
comp/rhet backgrounds; working-class writers; French and English
speakers; college students and grown adults writing from their
WWII experiences. Without the digital platform and the idea of
distributed work, this experience would be impossible.


The second point that I brought up had to do with what Spinuzzi
says about surveillance. I love idea that we’ve moved from the
policing of the panopticon to the communal and mutually
participatory notion of the agora, where we collectively and
collaboratively “monitor each other and ourselves” (270).


I’m wondering though: When we think of authorship
and collaboration, how possible (or even beneficial) is it
to “monitor” ourselves? Where (or on what type of
authorship) should we draw the line? For instance, is
this democratic notion okay so long at it’s seemingly
low-stake writing (e-portfolios, archives, etc?) What
about in other genres and environments?
Another thing I’m thinking about but really don’t expect
an answer to come up any time soon is: even though I
advocate the uses of distributed work and authorship,
how can we be attentive to both the local/specific and
the transnational/global? Said another way, how can we
find balance between the stable individual environment
and a continually flowing network of disciplines, people,
texts, and ideas?

What’s it mean for
authorship?


What’s it mean for
ownership?


Distributed Collaboration

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