[Xmca-l] Re: Collaboration

[Andy Blunden]

"Collaboration" is a big word in my universe, Michael, so 
I'll offer some observations.

Collaboration as "together working" means specifically 
working together to a common object (aim). That generally 
entails working together to change an object-of-labour 
(/Arbeitsgegenstand/).

There is a lot of discussion about the difference between 
Collaboration and the etymologically identical Cooperation, 
much of this is in the "educational debate." As I see it, 
Collaboration essentially involves both cooperation and 
conflict. Conflict is also one form or aspect of 
collaboration, because the parties are working towards two 
opposite concepts of the same object. "Object" here 
therefore has a slippery meaning. It can mean the 
/Arbeitsgegenstand/, the object worked upon, or the 
Gegenstand, the object aimed for. Both ideas incorporate the 
possibility of difference.

Collaboration essentially involves the coming together of 
distinct parties (or subjects). True Collaboration involves 
a merging of the subjectivities for the course of a single 
project, but there are "limiting cases" of non-collaborative 
collaboration. These include an exchange of labour governed 
by a negotiation of a contract (such as customer-service 
provider in which the subjects retain their mutual 
independence throughout) and command-and-obey (in which one 
subject is subordinated to another).

Cooperation does not imply conflict within the working 
relationship usually because there is a division of labour; 
Collaboration on the other hand involves each party taking a 
critical attitude towards the contribution of the other 
party. o conflict is an essential ingredient to Collaboration.

Collaboration is a learning process, to the extent that one 
could argue that learning can *only* be a Collaborative 
process. So Collaboration means that the object (aim) of the 
labour changes, because the /concept /of the object changes. 
Collaborators learn about the object (worked upon) in the 
process of working on it, and the object (aim) by realising it.

In education there has been an unfortunate development in 
which (1) students work independently because they are 
physically or organisationally distant, (2) Collaboration 
between the students is then facilitated by the use of 
computer and communication equipment, (3) Students who are 
already face-to-face are obliged to introduce a computer 
between them so that their collaboration, instead of being 
face-to-face, mediated only by the /Arbeitsgegenstand/, they 
now find their Collaboration mediated by a computer. That 
is, "Collaboration" has come to mean the undermining of 
Collaboration by the use of Collaborative tools to avoid 
closer collaboration.

And this is the danger. The education bureaucracy has heard 
a bit about the benefits of Collaboration as a learning 
process, and that Collaboration requires equipment. So they 
get the idea that they have to separate students or 
researchers from one another so that they can collaborate. 
Once separated the bureaucacy can provide equipment to allow 
students to Collaborate notwithstanding their having been 
separated from one another. And the same goes for 
students+teachers, research+industry, management+workers, etc.

Does that help, Michael?
Andy

------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
On 18/04/2016 6:38 AM, Glassman, Michael wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I have a question for anybody who might be willing to respond. How do you define collaboration?  What spurs this question is that PISA is developing a framework for testing collaboration internationally.  At first I thought I was getting punked, but it really is happening, the framework is at the link below.   The idea of collaboration is being used more and more - especially in contexts that involve computer/web based research, but it often times seems to be a placeholder.  The word only came into vogue late nineteenth century I think -  col meaning together and labore meaning to labor.  A lot of people who discuss collaboration invoke Vygotsky (e.g. the PISA framework) or sometimes Dewey (Although I am kind of sure Dewey never actually used the word collaboration, but I  might be wrong).  Anyway the PISA document defines collaboration but in a very simplistic way I think so that it is not wrong but not helpful.  I know there was some research around language (being able to
>   create shared meanings).  But so far to me it seems to miss the point, but I can't think what I would replace it with.  I guess you could call this a request for comments.  I find PISA creating a test for collaboration kind of dangerous.
>
> https://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisaproducts/Draft%20PISA%202015%20Collaborative%20Problem%20Solving%20Framework%20.pdf
>
> Michael
>
>