Collaboration, Virtual Community, and Social Computing

Flickr is a photo-sharing website where anyone can upload and tag photos, browse others' photos, and add comments and annotations. Users can create photo sets and collections to manage content and participate in topical groups to cultivate a sense of community. Although Flickr is ostensibly for photos, the site might more aptly be described as a venue for sharing experiences and building relationships. The site provides the tools, but the value derives from the contributions of the user community -- photos, comments, ratings, and organization -- and the connections that the site facilitates between individuals. In this way, Flickr embodies what has come to be known as Web 2.0 technology.

The "7 Things You Should Know About..." series from the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) provides concise information on emerging learning technologies. Each brief focuses on a single technology and describes what it is, where it is going, and why it matters to teaching and learning. Use these briefs for a no-jargon, quick overview of a topic and share them with time-pressed colleagues.
In addition to the "7 Things You Should Know About..." briefs, you may find other ELI resources useful in addressing teaching, learning, and technology issues at your institution. To learn more, please visit the ELI Resources page.

Presentation at the Sixth Annual ECAR/HP Summer Symposium for Higher Education IT Executives, June 11-13, 2007, Boulder, Colorado. When Yochai Benkler's book, The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom, came out, Stanford Law Professor Larry Lessig said, "This is -- by far -- the most important and powerful book written in the fields that matter most to me in the last ten years. If there is one book you read this year, it should be this." This work examines the ways in which information technology permits extensive forms of collaboration that may have transformative consequences for economy and society. Benkler's presentation outlines the characteristics of the networked information economy and the roles of collaboration and commons-based production of information, knowledge, and culture, and it suggests avenues to apply these broad trends to education and education-related policy.