During the past year I’ve been continuing the exploration of collaborative environments through course blogs (Independent Study, create), wikis (cultural identities), facebook (social change) and crowdsourcing (transitions).

I’ve been trying to spread the notion that the more you share an idea, the more it’s worth. However, evidence that this is being practiced by those I’m trying to persuade is limited. Levels of individual engagement with the platforms I’ve offered has been disappointing. I’m aware of the rule of collaboration which suggests that 90% are lurkers, 9% contribute from time to time and only 1% participate a lot and account for most contributions. But I’m still struggling with getting the majority of a any particular group I’m working with to even lurk.

Whilst the 90-9-1 rule is an argument over individual engagement, I’m beginning to be more interested in the idea that the institutions in which such initiatives are embedded may have an influence. So, are some institutions more collaborative than others? More interactive than others? What constitutes a collaborative institutional ‘culture’? Can such a culture be created and maintained?

I suspect this post is going to be updated quite a lot in the next few weeks. One area that needs to be followed up is that of evaluation. How can online engagement be evaluated? Good place to start thinking through the issues is with DIUS at their evaluation wiki.