Research Landing Page

[Niels Sprong]

Hi Everyone,
 
Being pointed to the beautiful stuff that comes out of research projects 'about p2pu' this morning by Heather, and remembering discussions about how cool it would be to have a P2PhD, I would like to start pushing the research landing and collaboration page forward.

Currently, all info about p2pu research can be found on the wiki and discussed on the mailing list. So far, the wiki harbors only 'guidelines', and some links to research about p2pu. Although the wiki and list are valuable resources, neither seem to provide a really solid, inviting, participatory infrastructure to start and collaborate on actual research projects.

I would really love to see a 'Research'  tab next to the the schools tab on p2pu.org, where you can

1. Go to to suggest and organise 'research groups' about p2pu in an open way (openly discussing your research questions, uploading your data etc.) and
2. Create and collaborate on a variety of research projects starting 'research groups' in this space, which can be (but are not necessarily) part of a course or are research projects on their own, which, if you organise enough and publish some articles or produce some other kind of valuable output, can lead to P2PhDs. 

I was hoping to use this email thread to see if there is still buy-in for an awesome research space on the new site and to gather as many ideas as possible for structuring and filling in this space.

The idea I had in mind is to create a structure similar to a 'school' where 'study groups' are called 'research projects' divided in 'about' and 'by'  P2PU, where all ongoing research projects are listed, and where there is a constantly updated list of previous research about and by p2pu. What else do we need? Any additions, adaptations, or any other relevent remarks to this idea are highly appreciated in this thread.  

I was thinking that after this discussion, I liaise with Zuzel to make this space happen on the actual site (I did not create a ticket yet and am currently not sure about the priority). Ideas on how to make it happen are of course also welcome.  

If all goes according to plan, I expect the first P2PhD (truly) publicly defending her or his dissertation 14th of Feb 2014.

Niels 

[Jessy Kate Schingler]

YES!!! 

we could even just start out by creating a regular "school." schools already support landing pages, and study groups (research projects) can be associated with them. 

agreed that it would be nice to have custom language/names for the research groups ("labs"?... hehe) but IIRC the ability to customize what study groups are called is already a feature request (the priority of which i have not been tracking). 

selfishly, as i have been spending more time in the research part of my life, i would love to see us develop this part of p2pu. 

thanks for jump starting neils!! 

jessy

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Jessy

http://jessykate.com

[Sébastien Vigneau]

I like the idea too!

I can foresee 3 uses of research groups:

• research about p2pu and open education
• research project on any topic, involving many collaborators (we could partner with OpenWetWare for natural sciences)
• PhD/Master research project mentoring (e.g. mentors help one person with his/her project, in a way similar to a thesis commitee)

Do you have other ideas and which of these options would you like to see implemented?

Sebastien

[Niels Sprong]

Awesome!

Agreed that technical-platform speaking it would be alright to make it a school. Hoever, a 'research tab' next to learning and schools etc. might better attach the idea of p2pu research more to the core idea of a peertopeeruniversity that I would like to see; a place of open learning AND open research. 

I don't know what the correct option is here in the long term.

 To elaborate on Sebastian's email I think the

• research about p2pu and open education

Would be a page collating all data  we collect and indicating what one is allowed to do with them (we still have no clear idea on what to do with the user data, regarding privacy issues etc., right?), for anyone to take them up for research. Also, you can start groups here to connect here with people to do research about p2pu, which would be great for people (like stefanie panke earlier today) who want to interview people and use that as data or something.

• research project on any topic, involving many collaborators (we could partner with OpenWetWare for natural sciences)

Thinking about it, there is a question of whether study groups and existing schools might take up this role for some part themselves. If a research project is part of a course, there might be no reason to create a new study group in a 'research space' for it. On the other hand, if you want to research something that is not part of a current course that is organised, that should be possible.

Also, if your coursework leads to the creation of a full-fledged group of people who want to do more research in the area, a different space than just a 'task' on the course pages might be nice for collaboration, as you might need different tools or something. The question is, where do you distinguish between 'study group'-research and an actual 'research group'? I don't know, maybe I'm thinking about this in the wrong way.

• PhD/Master research project mentoring (e.g. mentors help one person with his/her project, in a way similar to a thesis commitee)

So one proposes a research project and tries to find p2puers with credentials that he or she thinks are credible for thier audience to be their PhD committee? I think that's pretty awesome.

More ideas on p2phds are welcome, my ability to decouple the concept pf a p2phd from the traditional concept of a phd is switched off for some reason at the moment. Blanking on a Friday afternoon.

[Stian Håklev]

Hi Niels,

great to see you taking up this work again.

As far as I understand, one of the reasons the work got a bit delayed after the initial excitement in Barcelona, was needing some kind of resolution from lawyers about who we could share data with, ethics protocols etc. I see this being discussed all the time, and I guess we have made some choices, although they seem quite ad-hoc, not sure if we have any general principles yet.

That's no reason not to have a bit nicer landing page, being better about collecting existing research about P2PU, etc. 

Stian
--
http://reganmian.net/blog -- Random Stuff that Matters

[Jessy Kate Schingler]

also FWIW i understood neils' suggestion to be as much (if not more) about the "research BY p2pu" community than the "research ABOUT p2pu" community. (p2phd, etc.). 

though i suppose for you they are basically the same :p

jessy

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Jessy

http://jessykate.com

[Stian Håklev]

:) True... But yeah, I saw those points, and I think they are pretty cool. Would love to see some big collaborative research projects coming out of P2PU courses or just in general. 

Stian

[Niels Sprong]

Hey Stian!
Good to hear from you, we should start to see some some research projects soon :) .

Regarding principles and data sharing: I guess it just needs some aggregation of ad-hoc decisions into principles and a read-over and OK from some legal minds. I'll take this forward with the landing page as well, because it's been nearly 2 years since we said 'we have to sort this out' :)
Niels

[Alison Jean Cole]

For the time being perhaps using the "school" framework in lernanta would be the best place to centralize the research community.

Niels you should join the THU community call if you can so we can speak more about this cool idea.

[Niels Sprong]

Yes I should. It's a bit difficult usually as it's during office hours, but I can be there this Thursday for sure.

[Philipp Schmidt]

I would recommend using an external tool rather than trying to make it
fit within the "schools" paradigm. Lernanta's primary use case is not
to support communities and we'll run into similar challenges as we
discussed regarding the heldpesk/handbook last week. P

[Niels Sprong]

Sorry can't make it to the community call this afternoon. Will take this up over the weekend and see if I can connect with some people then!

[Niels Sprong]

What exactly do you mean by this? What were these challenges and what was your 'external tool'  solution to these? N