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Collaboration 2.0

A HASTAC Scholars Discussion Forum, starting Wednesday, January 14 at www.hastac.org

What makes for successful collaborations, and how can the Web facilitate these?

In Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky argues that any group undertaking (online or offline) can be considered in terms of a three-rung ladder. Each rung requires more and more coordination, and Shirky uses these rungs to help us understand Web collaboration. The first rung is sharing, in which users knowingly or unknowingly share information  with no specific plan for the end result. The second rung is cooperation, which requires more energy and coordination than sharing.  The third rung is collective action, which "requires a group of people to commit themselves to undertaking a particular effort together, and to do so in a way that makes the decision of the group binding on the individual members." As we move up Shirky's ladder, we are presented with situations that require more and more control and coordination. But collaboration does not always require such conscious coordination, and the Web provides a particularly poignant example of this. In a space that allows for collaboration across space and time and that allows Web denizens to share information knowingly or unknowingly, how does collaboration happen? Given that texts circulate to different audiences in ways that we cannot always control, does our definition of collaboration have to account for both the intended and unintended? Who is responsible for such "unknowing" collaborations? What are the challenges and promises of collaboration on the Web? How can Web collaboration help us rethink our collaborative efforts offline?

This forum will address these questions and many more in hopes of opening up a discussion about how the Web presents new opportunities and challenges for collaboration.  This HASTAC Scholars Discussion Forum will be hosted by University of Texas at Austin graduate student Jim Brown and will feature winners of the 2007-2008 HASTAC/Mac Arthur Foundation Digital Media & Learning Competition.  We hope you will join the discussion starting January 14!

Jim Brown is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of English at the University of Texas at Austin. He is finishing a dissertation entitled "Hospitable Texts" that uses Wikipedia as a case study to examine shifting notions of agency, community, and intellectual property. At the University of Texas, Jim teaches courses in New Media, Rhetoric and Writing, and Literature.

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Special thanks to Flickr community member Parcelpacker for this image of "Melding Digital Creativity with Analogue Alchemy" (click on the image for documentation and more of the photostream.)