This is the first in a series of posts arising from an email exchange interview between myself and and Cormac Lawler. I’ve been interested in Cormac’s work on Wikiversity as a learning community since inception and recently he wrote to me asking

to talk about the experience of doing action research online – what you perceive ‘distributed action research’ to be, how it works, and any challenges/benefits you see in the process – as well as of course sharing my own experiences.

So we agreed to start up an open ended email dialogue to see what we can surface through the process of reflective conversation, using the format of a semi-formal interview. Here’s part one, with Cormac’s questions in red, followed by my reply.

* What is the nature of your action research? What is its scope?

I think the kernel of what I’m trying to uncover is something fundamental about social dynamics. When the possibility of computer mediated communications first arose I found it compelling because it seemed like it might be possible to observe and influence groups in a way that is more visible, transparent than ever before. So rather than view a text-only medium as very limited, I saw it as opening up a whole new dimension of human activity. So I jumped in and got involved with that, and have returned to it regularly ever since really. The formal depiction of what I do as a type of research is then something which was applied on top of it much later, as a result of attending an online university for three years between 2003-6.

* Can you describe for me a cycle of action research in your own domain? (Or, if not a cycle, then a picture of how AR works for you.)

“It usually starts off with a very clear plan but then rapidly becomes more complicated. To use a current example, I planned to introduce something called an action log into my own practice. So the cycle looked like this:

Action: Begin using an action log daily, as per plan.
Data collected: The action log itself, discussions on my blog.
Review: Analyse and reflect on the experience. Decide on what changes to make for the next cycle.

I’m now in cycle 2 of that enquiry.”

* What about its “distribution” – how are people involved; does this vary over time; is there anything like a ‘fixed’ or stable group?

“I choose to use the word “distributed’ to describe online communities of people who don’t happen to be geographically proximate because I dislike the word ‘virtual’ which seems demeaning and inaccurate.

Oh yes, stable groups most certainly do exist, and I’m a member of some which have existed for many years with largely the same core and values. The process which really interests me though is when that stability changes. Have you ever seen a group splinter into two or three new ones? Or a new leadership come along and displace the old guard? These events are quite rare, which is possibly a good thing, but they can be very rich in detail from which we can learn something about the nature of how groups operate which then might even be applied back into understanding society as a whole. Maybe.”

* Why did you choose this way of working? (Eg. did it arise out of the literature, your previous experience, contact with others..?)

“My background was in mainframe computer programming which developed from writing with a pencil onto coding pads, through to using a monochrome uppercase video terminal. When the idea of networking computers together came along it meant that all of a sudden there were sometimes real people at the other end of the typing instead of just editors, compilers and test results. Then a bit later the internet came along and this meant that the other people could be anywhere in the world! I could see that this was the beginning of a new age in human development, because now anybody anywhere might have access to the sum of human knowledge. This is more significant than the invention of the printing press, it’s more like the invention of language itself.”

End of interview, part one. In part two, we shall talk more about the online degree and formal learning in general, about groups and individual work, education models used by Ultraversity, the Open University and Wikiversity.